Page 3 of Agency
Me.
And, oh, the feeling was more than mutual, especially as his eyes began their languid, luxurious crawl up my body, starting at the red soles of my heels and traveling up to my bare knees. A little shiver coursed its way through me, and goose-pimples prickled my forearms as I practically felt his gaze caressing where my dress’s hemline had ridden a little higher on my thighs.
I know, I know. I’d only come in for the drink, and not anyone to warm my hotel room bed. But that was before I saw him.
I was biting my lower lip, I realized. Biting, and waiting with galloping heart stampeding in my chest, for his eyes to make their way up to mine. Because this man right here? He looked to be the type who would be interesting for one night, at least. And, maybe, even more than that.
Not that it mattered if he was interesting for two, three, or even a thousand-and-one nights.
All I wanted was the one.
His gaze continued to linger there on my legs. Not much longer than a fraction of a heartbeat, but that short time felt like an absolute eternity as I watched the way his eyes sparkled like diamonds in the bar’s dim light. He liked what he saw. And what he saw was far more attention-grabbing than any billiards game.
Especially as, reaching for my drink, I slowly, and with oh so much intent, uncrossed, then re-crossed, my legs.
I was already sipping my martini again as his gaze snapped through the rest of its trek like a rubber band stretched to the brink before being finally released. His eyes found mine above the rim of my glass. And, oh, how those green eyes of his sparkled. If, before, they’d been like glittering gems, now they were a field of undiscovered stars. And there wasn’t anything I wanted more in that moment than to see what kind of expedition for new worlds I could launch into them.
I arched a thin, dark eyebrow as I took the glass from my lips, my teeth already returning to their tender worrying at my lower lip. Still holding each other’s gazes for another long moment, I ran a hand back through my hair and brushed red strands away from my bare shoulder.
My invitations might have been silent, but there was no doubt in his eyes of what they were. No doubt at all.
“Hey man,” the big local called from the other side of Blondie. “Youse gonna fucking shoot this shit, or what?”
The corner of Blondie’s mouth turned up in the barest semblance of a smirk. Or, maybe, a grimace of pain? One thing that was clear was how torn he was by my sudden appearance. Finish the game, and put this local in his place? Or go over and talk to this mysterious redhead in the LBD and six hundred dollar heels?
Decisions… decisions… decisions…
After what felt like ages, Blondie turned back to his game, that maybe-smirk-maybe-grimace still curling the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, then nodded ahead of him. “Keep it together, man. Eight ball, side pocket.”
He took the shot.
The cue ball rolled forward, ever so gently, and tapped the eight ball. The eight ball went right into the side pocket, right where Blondie had called.
But, rather than rolling back from the solid black ball, like the cue would have with reverse English–or stopping almost entirely, like with a standard strike in the middle–the cue went rolling right after its target, heading right for the side pocket. A split second later, the white finished chasing the black, and both were in the same leather pocket.
A scratch. And an intentional one, from the looks of things.
I guess Blondie had made his decision.
And as far as I was concerned, his call was the right one.
Chapter Two
Morgan
I’d been all over the world. Starting in Boston, going out to the west coast, then back to the east coast, then overseas to Germany, Italy, Greece, Afghanistan, Iraq, before going up into the former eastern bloc countries for a few years, and then back here to the states and seeing as much of the sights as I could before signing up with Trinity Security. Had seen everything the world held, I’d thought. Women, war, opulence, finery, pain, suffering, sorrow, joy, the kind of excruciating happiness that can only be sweetly felt while eating freshly baked cherry pie after months or years of deprivation and loss.
But, I gotta say, in that moment standing right there beside that old pool table, and in that even older dive of a bar, I couldn’t remember the last time I saw someone beautiful as her.
Those legs, those long fingers curled around her martini glass. That hair, cascading down around her bare shoulders like a crimson waterfall. Those crystal-clear blue eyes, and the way they seemed to stare into the pit of me from across the room. Those lips that curled sweeter than Cupid’s bow.
So there was no surprise I’d thrown the game. At least not from me.
The other guy? Not so much. Of course, she hadn’t been looking at him the way she looked at me.
Now had she?
“Here,” I said, drawing two fifties from my open billfold and offering them over to the guy I’d been playing with, “take it in good health.”
