Page 31 of A Cowboy's Twinkling Lights Lasso
With a smooth stroke, he sends the cue ball, crashing into a ball that hits another and ricochets off the side before slamming his desired ball in the pocket. The sharp cracks echo.
“Devour,” Dani whispers.
“You picked up your game, brother,” Theo says.
“Flora, you’re up,” Dani tells me.
I need a drink for this. I lift my hand and wave down the waitress.
Chapter Nine
THORN
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“I CAN TOP you up, too, cowboy.” The waitress carries a pitcher of beer toward me. She isn’t wearing sexy attire—this is a family lodge—but she sure holds a lot of flirt in that offer.
I slide my empty glass across the table. “Sure can, darlin’.”
I hear Flora make a feminine grunt and wait for her to leave before she says, “It seems you have settled into old habits.”
Why is it that when Flora struts around the pool table, in no way attempting to look sexy, my insides ignite on fire?
She leans over the pool table, her ass perched up in my full view, and pulls back her cue stick. “What were the terms you used yesterday? Ladies’ man, skirt-chaser, hound dog?”
The tip of the stick strikes the cue ball, and it rolls swiftly, but it misses its mark by mere inches.
Something inside me shifts, and I’m done keeping quiet. Maybe it has something to do with my slight buzz now because I stroll behind her and press my front against her back.
“That’s rich coming from you,” I whisper into her ear, but not before the intoxicating smell of her floral hair fogs my mind.
I hear her slight intake of air and feel her body tense against mine, where she fits perfectly in my grooves.
“Why is that?” Her voice is a husky whisper.
I move away and bend down to make my shot.
“Thorn, it’s not your shot.”
I ignore my brother, keeping my eyes focused on the ball. “You screwed me all summer and then took off without a word. Who used who?”
Flora gasps and hits the pool cue out of my hand. “Fuck you, Thorn.”
I straighten. “That’s what we did. All summer long.”
“Time for the dirty. Spill the tea.” Dani claps her hands.
“Can we stop the teenage drama?” My brother taps my shoulder with his cue stick. “Dammit, you’re two adults who don’t like each other. That’s fine. Move on. Stop dragging up the past.”
“They need to clear the air,” Dani shouts at my brother.
“Don’t try to turn this on me.” Finally, the person I want to hear talk. Flora steps closer to me. “You were the one sneaking off to spend your nights fooling around with other girls.”
“You’re getting looks.” Theo tries to wedge between us, dipping his head to block the room around us.
I shove him back. “There it is, that judgment you claim not to possess. I gave you my whole damn heart that summer. I spent my life afraid to open up to people the way I did with you, and the entire time you just assumed I was screwing around behind your back.”
“I didn’t assume,” Flora says.
