“It was hard to manage because you carried so much. The weight of so many secrets. The pressure of so many things you should never have been asked to keep to yourself. Forget guilt or innocence or who was framed and not framed. You were fourteen. You deserved to be fourteen, not a secret keeper,” she said fiercely.

Then, when the conversation seemed to unwind, and it was time to move to something lighter, she sat up, straightened her hair, patted him on the leg, and said, “How about you teach me how to play pool finally? I believe that was one of the promises you made when I stayed here last weekend, and pretty much the only one you failed to deliver on.”

A sliver of a smile crept across his face. “I failed to deliver on something, did I?”

She nodded. “I’m wretched at pool. Show me how to play.”

He stood up and offered her his hand. “Why do I have the feeling that after one game you’re going to be a pool shark?”

“If that’s the case, then maybe for this first round, we should simply play strip pool?” she said, running a hand between her breasts as if to demonstrate the possibilities.

A groan escaped his throat, and he looped his arms around her waist. He brushed his lips against her neck. She closed her eyes and smiled. All was not perfect. All was not completely right in the universe. There were so many questions left unanswered. But they had moved through something difficult together. Here they were, ready to slide into another moment in their night.

This love between them had ignited one evening at Aria in a flirty, dirty, and naughty way. Over the days, and the nights, that followed, their connection sparked and sizzled, then deepened. Tonight, he had been forced to stretch and twist in unexpected ways. But after all of that, the two of them had somehow managed to return to their core.

Flirty, dirty, and naughty.

They grabbed beers and headed inside his den with the pool table. He took a cue down from the wall and handed it to her, then grasped one for himself.

“Have you played before?”

She nodded. “A few times. All badly. I barely understand how it works. There are stripes, solids and an eight ball, and we hit them in pockets, right?”

He laughed. “Something like that,” he said, taking a sip of his pale ale and setting it down on the table. He removed his tux jacket and his tie, and tossed them on a chair in the corner of the room.

“Wait. You’re already taking off your clothes?”

“Consider it my handicap,” he said, then racked the balls.

He explained the basics to her, and she quickly processed them, since rules and games made fast sense to her. Her challenge lay in the execution. Sophie Winston wasn’t known for her coordination.

Still, she was determined, so she pulled back the stick, stared at the ball, aimed squarely, and missed it by a mile. She laughed and brought her free hand to her mouth. “Oops.”

Then she removed an earring, tossing it on his pile on the chair.

“Want me to show you how it’s done?”

“I do,” she said, and he moved to her side of the table, behind her, then pressed his hand on top of hers, his chest along her back. As he positioned the cue just so, she felt him grow harder. She wriggled her rear as he shot the ball.

And missed, too.

“Hey. Take off your shirt,” she said playfully.

“That wasn’t my shot! I was helping you set up.”

“Fine. Help me again,” she said in a flirty tone, and he lined himself behind her once more. She couldn’t resist. Screw pool. She dropped the stick, shoved all the balls randomly around the table, then turned around in his arms, and laced her hands around his neck. She moved her lips to his ears. “You win. Strip me.”

He wasted no time, unzipping her dress in a flurry and leaving it a silky puddle on the floor. She backed up to the table and perched on it, handing him the stick. “Show me where you’d touch me to land the shot.”

He gripped the back of her head, and whispered roughly in her ear. “Everywhere. Every-fucking-where on your perfect body,” he said, then stepped back to survey her, roaming his eyes up and down.

She wore only stockings, purple sheer panties, and a demi-cup bra that did lip-smacking things to her breasts, judging from how he stared. Cocking his head, he flipped the stick in his hand then lowered the wider end of the cue to her shoulder, touching her bare skin ever so slightly. “I’ll start here,” he said, then ran it along her arm, tracing a gentle path to her wrist. “Then kiss your wrist.”

“Like you did the night you met me,” she said, her skin heating up as he bent his head to her hand and placed a soft, sweet kiss that both sent her back in time and rooted her right here, right now.

“Then, I’d pay a visit to those lovely legs of yours,” he said, and brushed the end of the cue from her knees to her ankles and back up the other leg. When he reached the top of her thigh, he gently nudged her legs apart, inch by inch.

Scooting back on the table, she rested on her elbows, giving him a view of her bra, panties, stockings and shoes.

“Your belly,” he murmured as the cue strayed along her stomach, then up to one of his favorite parts of her. “Those delicious breasts,” he said, licking his lips as he stroked a line through her cleavage then darted back down to her waist, tracing along the waistband of her panties. She murmured, and even though being touched by a pool cue was not the same as this man’s touch, she still grew hotter.

Then she burned when he brought the cue to the side of her ass, and whacked her lightly with it. She gasped and moaned, loving the way he knew precisely when to spank her and make her want him even more. “There, too,” he said, then bent his head to kiss her rear.

Loving, too, that he knew when to kiss the spot he’d marked.

When he raised his face, he brought his mouth to her ear. “Spread your legs wide for me.”

Heat raced through her. She let her knees fall open, savoring the reaction in his eyes when he stared at the scrap of La Perla fabric that barely covered her. “And what about here?” she asked curiously, running her hand between her legs.

“I’d play you there so good,” he said, his eyes shining with desire. He followed her with the pool cue, lightly touching her heat, her swollen clit. She arched up, angling for more contact, and he began stroking her with the pool cue. “You like that, beautiful?” he asked, his eyes blazing at her as she rocked into him.

“I’ve told you, Ryan. I love everything you do to me.”

“I’m not even the one doing it.”

“You are,” she said as she unclipped her hair. “You are doing it to me. Only you can touch me like this. Only you can do this to me.”

He stroked faster, rubbing her expertly through her purple panties with the pool cue. Her blond curls spilled behind her on the table, and she let her head fall back as he masturbated her with a pool stick. Like a wooden sex toy that he controlled, it set her on fire. Closing her eyes, she caught a perfect rhythm, like a surfer does a wave, and she rode it, rocking her hot center into the wide end of the pool cue, seeking friction with the wood, until her vision turned black and hazy, and she dug her nails into the green felt, coming in her lingerie on his pool table.

She moaned happily, and opened her eyes to find him stripping. He’d set the pool cue down on the table.

“I think I’m in love with the game of pool now,” she said softly, running a hand along the wood he’d used to get her off.

His eyes blazed darkly. “I’m not done with that,” he said, and her gaze followed him, as he grabbed her hands, lifted them over her head, then pressed the cue into her palms. “Hold it in place. Restrain yourself.”

Sparks sizzled across her skin at his command. She gripped the cue hard over her head, as he tugged off her panties in seconds, leaving her stockings, shoes and bra untouched. Pulling her hips to the edge of the table, he lined her up with his hard cock.