Her Best Laid Plans. Cara McKenna

      “Right you are.” He flipped up the hinged panel of the bar and followed her to the snooker table, bathed in the bright glow of a hanging billiard lamp.

      Confirmed—blue eyes. Clear and blue as a Bombay Sapphire bottle. Accordingly, they made Jamie tipsy.

      “I’ll walk you through a frame,” he offered. “Just don’t cheat when I run back to pour a pint.”

      “Deal. So, is this just like pool, except instead of stripes versus solids it’s red versus...” She trailed off, studying the balls as he set them on the green baize. All those reds, plus a pink, a green, blue, brown...

      “I’ve never played pool, so I couldn’t say.” Connor locked the ten reds into a triangle—so far, so similar—then positioned the pink ball at its apex, a black a few inches below its base, a blue one midway along the table, then green, brown and yellow in a short row in front of the blessedly familiar white cue ball.

      “Right,” he said, leaning against the table, holding Jamie’s gaze. “Each ball you pot is worth points—different amounts, depending on the color. At the start of a turn you always shoot from the D.” He pointed to the half circle marked on one end of the table, framing the cue ball. The rules he enumerated were dizzying, but the mechanics were basically the same as billiards.

      “Got all that?” Connor asked.

      “No, but I can fake it.”

      Another familiar sight—Connor grabbed a blue cube from the ledge that ran along the wall, chalking his cue. Jamie did the same, and she felt her eyes narrow as an ages-old infusion of competitive adrenaline snaked through her bloodstream.

      “Who breaks?” she asked.

      He waved to say, Ladies first. Jamie hadn’t played in months, but she nailed the cue ball and broke the pyramid of reds apart with a smart crack, sinking one into a side pocket. It earned her a raised eyebrow from her coach.

      As Jamie got the green ball in her sights, Connor asked, “Would you fancy making this a bit more interesting?”

      “How so?”

      “Friendly wager?” Flirtatious wager, to judge by his tone.

      “How much?”

      “Name your prize.”

      She thought a moment. “If I win, a glass of your finest whiskey. On the rocks.”

      “Fair play.”

      “And if you win?” She leaned in, cocking the cue along her thumb and knuckle.

      “If I win...if I win...”

      His fingers drummed the table’s ledge until Jamie raised her eyes.

      “Your finest kiss,” he said with a devil’s smile. “On the mouth.”

      She lowered her elbow and stood up straight, countering his smug smirk with a skeptical show of blinking.

      “Don’t look too scandalized,” he said. “A kiss is free, whereas your whiskey comes out of my wages.”

      From another man, one she didn’t feel any chemistry for, this would’ve been pushy. But she did feel something for Connor, and she wouldn’t mind kissing him at all. Though she’d prefer to do it on her own terms—giving her the perfect motivation to win.

      “You’re on.”

      They shook, and he held her small hand in his strong one for a good beat longer than was innocent. She took a deep breath to clear her head enough to line up her next shot. When she sank the green, she beamed him a triumphant smile. “Four points now, right? I can taste my winnings already.”

      “Wish I could say the same,” he sighed, and ticked her score on a chalkboard mounted by the cues.

      She potted another red but scratched—or whatever scratching was called in snooker—and Connor enjoyed a brief run. He wasn’t bad, but once Jamie found her rhythm, there was no stopping her. She trounced him inside ten minutes.

      They shook on her victory.

      “I hope you didn’t let me win.”

      He held her hand. “If you knew how much I wanted my prize, you wouldn’t believe that for a second.”

      Pleasure flushed from her hair down to her feet. Connor let her hand go and she set her cue on the table.

      “I’ll claim my winnings here,” she said haughtily, hoping to cover how giddy and warm she suddenly felt. Earlier she’d thought herself doomed to a pathetic consolation of a first evening at the local pub, but this was just perfect. Guinness, whiskey, snooker and a flirtation with a hot local. What could be more Irish?

      She fed the table another coin, and Connor delivered her glass after tending to a couple customers. From the first stinging taste, the whiskey lit a glow in her chest—like a hearth, warm and comforting.

      “Good?” he asked.

      “Perfect, thank you. Another game?”

      He eyed the bar. “I better not. I’ve been rather neglectful already.”

      “Thank goodness you don’t work for tips.”

      “Indeed.”

      He lingered for a bit, attention divided between the patrons and Jamie’s one-woman snooker match.

      “You really are quite good. You sure you’re not a shark?”

      She sank the blue ball. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

      She caught him smiling again, his eyes squinched in the most adorably sinister way. “I wouldn’t mind knowing rather a lot of things about you,” he said casually.

      “Like what?”

      “Oh, nosy things.”

      She liked how he said that—tings.

      “Like what exactly your ex did to get himself dumped...?”

      She bit her lip. “He dumped me, actually.”

      His eyes widened, the drama overdone but not unwelcome. “No.”

      “Oh, yes. I was as surprised as you are.”

      He cocked his head. “He must’ve been a right spanner, then.”

      “Does that mean idiot?”

      “It does.”

      Jamie grinned. “Cheers to that.” A right spanner. She could hug him. In fact...

      “You deserve a taste of this yourself, for saying so.”

      He eyed the bar, finding his customers placated. “You’re a bad influence.”

      She shrugged and took another sip. The whiskey was making her feel bold in the most natural, essential way.

      Connor nodded his surrender. “Fine. That’s top-shelf—I won’t say no.”

      With a smile, she took one more generous taste, then rose on her tiptoes. He caught on just in time, leaning in to bridge the gap. Their noses brushed first, then their lips. She held the glass between them, one of his shirt buttons teasing her knuckles—a strange and perfect little intimacy. A different sort of buzz arrived as their lips met, the contact rocking through her with a sharp, hot bolt.

      All at once woozy, she kept it brief—just enough of a kiss to let him taste her winnings, then she dropped back on her heels. Her cheeks were flushed, lips tingling. From the whiskey, or from Connor? Both. And from her own desire, a well that had gone untapped for far too long.

      His blue eyes were half-closed, lids looking heavy. Languid. Lips parted. If sex were a season, it had settled over him in full bloom.

      He smiled. “It would seem perhaps we’ve both won.”