2

      HER ASS WAS the sweetest thing he’d seen in ages. After having lived for several years in Miami, Sebastian Stanhope considered himself an expert on the subject.

      The blonde bent over the pool table and attempted to line up a difficult shot. Curvy, he thought, eyeing that luscious behind. And firm. He’d bet a month’s salary that her sweet and curvy and firm ass would fit his hands to perfection.

      Sebastian tipped back the beer he’d been nursing for the better part of the night in an attempt to cool his climbing temperature. It proved to be an exercise in futility the minute the sassy blonde bent forward again to take aim and make the winning shot. Damn if she didn’t sink the eight ball into the corner pocket like a pro, and look mighty fine doing it, too.

      “That’s another fifty you owe me, Bose,” she said to a rough-looking biker.

      All night Sebastian had been watching her hustle anyone foolish enough to accept the challenge. The woman didn’t know how to lose. He liked that.

      “Damn, Joey,” the big man complained good-naturedly. He slipped two twenties and a ten from the wallet chained to his dirty jeans. “How’d a babe like you get so good at pool?”

      “I played a lot in college,” she said, pocketing her winnings. “But hey, don’t worry—” she chalked the tip of her cue stick “—I’ll give you a chance to win your money back.”

      Bose shook his head and laid his cue over the table. “Nah,” he said, “you’re too rich for my blood.”

      A concept Sebastian understood all too well. He might have the Stanhope name, but the family fortune never had been, and never would be, his. What money he’d accumulated, he’d done so the old-fashioned way. He’d worked his tail off, putting in twice the billable hours as most of the other associates in the Miami law firm he’d joined right out of law school, and had hired a damn good broker to build up his portfolio. He wasn’t rich by old money, Bostonian standards, but he no longer had to hustle pool games to survive, either.

      He finished off his beer and stood. Sauntering over to the pool table, he laid a buck’s worth of quarters down on the polished edge of the table.

      Bose inclined his head in Sebastian’s direction. “Looks like you’ve got a new pigeon waiting to be plucked.”

      The blonde looked over her shoulder at him, no doubt to size up the competition. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement as a slow, easy smile spread across her pretty face.

      “You play?” she asked.

      He was no pigeon, which she’d find out soon enough. “A little.” Not exactly a lie, but hardly the truth. He just hadn’t played much lately, in part because it hadn’t been necessary to his survival. There’d been a time, not all that long ago, when a wager at the tables had been the difference between sleeping in his car or making the rent.

      A definite gleam entered her gaze. “Care to make it interesting?”

      He’d expected no less. The woman was a shark at the tables and had to be a good two to three hundred bucks richer in the time he’d watched her play. Not that he suspected she needed the cash. The woman smelled like money, from the expensive cut of her hair down to a pair of high-quality, albeit scruffy, boots. And he’d spent enough time with his nose pressed to the glass to know the difference.

      “What did you have in mind?” he asked her.

      She reached into her hip pocket and peeled off five twenties. “Interesting enough for you?” She tossed the bills onto the black circled mark on the green felt of the pool table.

      He picked up the cue her previous challenger had left behind and tested the weight in his hand. “Not exactly what I had in mind.” He circled the table to her side.

      She slipped a hank of honey-blond hair behind her ear. “I don’t know you well enough for that kind of wager.”

      He set the base of the cue on the floor between his feet. With his hands wrapped around the stick, he leaned slightly forward, breathing in her scent. Amid the acrid odors of spilled beer and stale smoke that permeated the air, he caught her subtle fragrance, a light floral mixture. Expensive, too. Funny, but he’d pegged her for something more spicy and exotic. “No, but I’d bet you’d like to,” he said.

      The blue of her eyes darkened, giving him all the answer he needed.

      “Arrogant, aren’t you?” She angled her cue against the table while she dropped the quarters into the slot and waited for the balls to tumble into the tray.

      He plucked the rack from the other side of the table and set it on the felt near the stack of twenties. “See? You’re getting to know me already.”

      She chuckled softly, then started loading the balls into the rack. “Time to put up or shut up.”

      He slipped his wallet from his hip pocket and pulled out a crisp hundred-dollar bill to match her bet. “Satisfied?”

      Her smile was positively wicked, red-lining his libido. She scooped up the cash and set it on the side of the pool table, then removed the wooden triangular rack before retrieving her pool stick. “Your break,” she said, as was customary.

      He lined up the shot and sent the cue ball soaring across the table. “So you come here often?” he asked above the loud crack. He kept his attention on the scattering balls and watched the four ball roll into the corner pocket.

      “Boy, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that line.” She stepped out of his way when he circled the table looking for his next shot.

      He took aim on the two ball and missed, distracted by the subtle scent of her perfume. “Better than ‘what’s your sign?’” But if he were guessing, he’d say a Taurus, or maybe a Scorpio. The tilt of her chin and the glint in her eye indicated a stubborn streak. Not that he was seriously in to astrology, but when he was growing up, his mother had never left the house without first consulting the obituaries and the astrology section of the Boston Globe.

      “I’ll give you that.” She took aim and easily sank the eleven ball. “And, no. I don’t come here all that much. You?”

      She didn’t strike him as the barfly type, but he couldn’t help wondering what someone like her was doing in a place like Rosalie’s. The place was a roadhouse in the truest sense of the word.

      “New in town,” he said as she set up her next shot. Another half truth. He was full of them tonight.

      “From where?” She sank the nine ball with a difficult bank shot.

      “Miami.” He inclined his head toward the table. “Nice one.”

      “Thanks.”

      She slowly walked toward him, holding his gaze with every step. Damn if he didn’t have trouble remembering how to breathe. She bent forward to line up her next shot. Her slender fingers wrapped around the cue and she slowly slid the stick back and forth. His imagination headed south.

      He cleared his throat.

      She took aim, then missed. “So you get a sudden hankering for a long cold winter?”

      He shrugged. “All that sunshine can wear on a guy after a while.”