Page 134 of The Sweetest Devotion

Jadyn of course was a very hands-on woman, barely needing instructions because she picked up on things easily. Like pool. She racked the balls in the middle of the green felt before proceeding to circle the table to find where she wanted to make her first move.

Maybe I’d ask one of the men around us the best way to maneuver with the cue.

A gust of cologne washed over me. In seconds, two tattooed arms came down on either side of me where I stood on my end of the table. A step back had me brushing against a solid chest. Soon, lips were coming and grazing the crook of my neck and I shuddered and closed my eyes.

Keith.

The sound of clacking and balls scattering across the felt drove my eyes open.

Jadyn wasn’t paying attention to where the balls went. Her eyes were fixed on Keith. “So…” She stood straight, clutching her cue like a warrior. “This must be Keith.”

He came from behind me and stood beside me. He nodded his head in Jay’s direction. “I am. You must be Jadyn.”

Her eyes swept over him. “I am.”

Keith came back to me and he didn’t look the least bit happy to see me. He glanced at my outfit, his eyes measuring the way my lace spaghetti-stringed top hugged my curves and offered cleavage. “Know how to play?”

I didn’t, but I wasn’t interested in the game just then. Not when he was so close. His proximity had my palms sweating and my knees going weak.

“No,” I confessed.

Keith was behind me again, his cologne filling my nose and wrapping me in a warm embrace. When his hands took me and positioned me over the table with my cue, I clumsily closed my eyes again and basked in the closeness.

It had been too long.

“Like this,” his deep voice said into my ear as he showed me how to work the cue between my thumb and index finger. “You can’t be too far or too close to the ball. You need just enough distance to be able to drive the cue like…this.”

With Keith’s help, I managed to hit the cue ball and send it flying toward a solid orange one.

Was I solids or stripes?

Didn’t matter, I wasn’t interested in playing anymore suddenly.

“Guess that game is a bust,” Jadyn drawled as she came closer. “Iwas solids, K.”

Of course she was. I needed to brush up on my skills outside of shopping.

Keith shook Jadyn’s hand and she made no attempt to hide that she was appraising him.

“I feel like I seen you from around the way before,” Jadyn noted.

Keith kept his cool. “I be around. My uncle run an auto body shop, so you could’ve seen me up in there.”

Jadyn looked my way as she responded. “Could’ve.” She set her cue stick back on the table, abandoning the game as well. “Well, I’ll be back in the booth if you need me.” Jadyn met Keith with a fierce look that sent a rattle to my bones. “Be good to her, or else.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Keith said as he let Jadyn pass us.

Jadyn hadn’t been gone a second before Keith was crowding my space, causing me to back up into the pool table and panic when there was nowhere else to go.

Keith kept coming, not stopping until his hand was in my hair and he was steering my body into his. He held me close, burying his face in my neck, groaning. “Fuck, I missed you, Kenny.”

My emotions seized me and I had to blink to conceal my blurry vision. Hemissedme. Just like I’d missed him.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and beckoned him closer, smelling his scent and reveling in his touch.

All too soon he let me go.

“Have fun?” he asked as he looked around the room.

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