Smooth-Talking Cowboy

Their eyes caught for a moment and her breath hitched. It wasn’t the same kind of tension that she felt standing there with Luke, but it was a strange adrenaline rush. That she was accomplishing this. That she, Olivia Logan, who was quite possibly the polar opposite of a femme fatale, was somehow managing to draw attention. To cause friction. Make a man jealous.

She noticed then that Kaylee was looking at Bennett, and then that she looked up at Olivia. The look was filled with so much anger that it made Olivia’s breath catch in an entirely different way.

She flicked her attention back to Luke. “I’d say that we’re drawing the focus of the crowd,” she said softly.

“Good,” he said, not looking over at Bennett’s table at all. “That’s what you wanted.” He leaned back against their table, resting his forearms there, his hands dangling loosely over the sides. His green eyes were fixed on her. “You going to go again?”

“Of course,” she said. She whirled around and faced the dartboard and brought her arm back one more time, zeroing in on that bull’s-eye. Letting go of everything except for the target. She threw the dart and it landed satisfyingly right where she wanted it.

If only life were like darts.

“Good,” he said, “one more, and then it’s my turn.”

“Yes, I do know how it works, Luke. Thank you.”

“Bull’s-eye,” he said, “or you have to tell me how you learned to play.”

She snorted. “I’m not even worried.”

She turned away from him, facing the dartboard. And suddenly, she felt heat at her back. And then a large hand resting on her hip. He leaned over her shoulder, his lips near her ear. “I just want to see how it’s done. How exactly you’re standing. You know, I’m not anywhere near as good at this as you are. So, it would help if I could observe. If you could teach me.”

She froze completely, her whole body going rigid like a board. The place he was touching her, on her hip, felt like it was on fire. So hot, the press of his palm against her so heavy that she could hardly breathe. That was reasonable, right? That it was the weight of it on her hip... Affecting her ability to breathe?

Her heart was thundering erratically, and when she lifted her hand again, it was unsteady. Her pulse was fluttering hard at the base of her throat, and more disturbingly there was an answering pulse between her thighs.

“I’m not distracting you, am I?” His breath was warm on her neck, and that was a very strange sort of intimacy. His breath against her skin. She could honestly say there was only one man whose breath she had ever felt. And it was not Luke Hollister.

“I’m fine,” she said, not willing to admit that he was affecting her at all. She didn’t want to give him that satisfaction. But then, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to throw a dart when her entire person was trembling like she was an overly excited rat terrier.

Olivia had never been accused of being overly excited in her life. She was hardly going to start behaving in such a way now.

She took a deep breath, her stomach twisting sharply. Then she lifted her arm, raising the dart back. She tried to zero her focus in on that little red dot at the center. To block out everything around her. But there was his heat. His lips so very close to her ear, his hand resting all proprietary and possessive on her hip.

Possessive.

What an odd word, except it was the one that fit. That’s what it felt as though he had done. As though he had walked up and claimed possession of her in some way. And she should be okay with that. It should be what she wanted. The kind of display she was after.

But it felt terrifying and somehow outside the bounds of the game she knew they were playing. Somehow different than what they were trying to accomplish. She didn’t like it at all.

And if she showed him that he was affecting her, if she missed the shot, there was going to be a lot more of it and she knew it. He might be claiming to help her out, but somewhere underneath all of that, she had a feeling that it was more of Luke messing with her. Why, she didn’t know. She only knew that he seemed to take joy in it. And if nothing else she wanted to deprive him of a little bit of joy.

She let out a long, slow breath and ignored the fact that it was a bit shuddery. A bit shaky.

Then she drew the dart back and let it fly. She gave out a whoop of triumph when it hit the bull’s-eye, even though it was resting just on the edge of that red, it was definitely there.

She whirled around without thinking, and brought herself nearly nose to nose with Luke.

“I hit it,” she said, all the breath leaving her body as she stared into those green eyes. As the nerves in her face lit up like a power grid, every part of herself feeling electric and bright with him right there. She was conscious again of those whiskers that covered his face, just evidence of a long day spent working, a shave that had happened some twelve hours before.

And the shape of his lips.

The way the top lip dipped sharply in the middle, and the lower was fuller.

“I played darts in my father’s basement,” she said in a rush, taking a step backward from him.

If she didn’t tell him he was just going to keep pestering her. She didn’t know how much more of it she could take.

“Really?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting upward. “By yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Not with friends?”

She frowned. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, if you must know.”

“Why?”

“Because nobody likes a tattletale, Luke,” she said, not meaning to echo her sister’s words. Not meaning to reveal so much about herself. But echo them she did.

Her stomach sank, her hands getting a little bit clammy.

“Were you a tattletale, Olivia?” he asked, humor in his voice. Clearly, he didn’t understand that they were treading on very bad memories for her.

When everything she had wanted had been at odds with everything she had been. When she had tried so hard to be both good and accepted, and found that she could only be one.

“Yes,” she said, her teeth locked together. “I was. And so I played alone a lot, so I spent time at my parents’ house in the basement playing darts. And I threw them and threw them and threw them until I could hit a bull’s-eye every time. So you’re never going to beat me. You’re never going to throw me off my game, Luke Hollister. It’s going to take more than invading my personal space to throw me.”

“You were pretty thrown, darlin’. I just think you’re that good at darts.”

“I wasn’t,” she insisted, “not at all.”

“You sure about that?”

Ugh. That cocky smile of his. It made her want to... It made her want to something, and she didn’t know what. That was Luke in a nutshell for her. He made her feel restless and strange. Made her feel like her skin was too tight. And she had no idea what she was supposed to do with any of it.

Worse, she had no idea how to ignore it.

“Yes. I’m completely sure.”

“Want to place a wager?” he asked, his grin getting that wicked bent to it that never failed to make her stomach a bit tighter, never failed to send a little shot of adrenaline through her.

She couldn’t predict him, that was the problem. Because as they’d discussed earlier, he didn’t answer to anyone.

This was dangerous, and she knew it. He was playing games with her, and she felt as though they were the kinds of games she might not actually know the rules to. But she was also angry that he had affected her, and angry that he had stepped on vulnerable places inside of her.

That anger propelled her forward.

“Sure.” She tried to sound casual. Unconcerned, even.