‘Not unless you want me to get beaten up. It’s a pub not a jousting ring.’
‘Will I be able to play…since you told Steve Marlow that I couldn’t? Or will I have to stand around holding your beer?’
‘Can you play?’ he asked, looking so surprised she was tempted to lie simply for the pleasure of seeing his face.
‘No, but I can learn.’
He looked vaguely hunted. Obviously his impulsive invitation was becoming more complicated than he had planned.
‘Or if you think you might need help, I could just wear something short and low-cut and lean on the table whenever the others line up their shots,’ she offered sweetly.
His eyes creased as he imagined the graceful Kate Crawford vamping it up as the local pub tart. ‘Or you could just wear nothing at all and we’ll forget about going to play pool,’ he murmured with a wicked grin.
He grinned again when he saw the prim white shirt and blue trousers she put on to go to the pub, her white sandals showing off small feet with innocently unpainted toenails. ‘That’s my girl,’ he chuckled.
Am I? Kate wanted to say. Am I really?
It was a rowdy night unlike any she had ever spent and she really enjoyed it once she had stopped being polite and simply shouted like everyone else, to be heard over the local band rocking the rafters and the bawling exchanges, catcalls and shouts of laughter. There were lots of jeans and flip-flops and more men than women, but the atmosphere was buzzing and Kate quickly discovered that a locally made, no-alcohol spiced beer was the choice of brew for designated drivers and wowsers alike, for very good reason.
She was on her second delicious glass when Ken and Steve arrived—minus partners but hugely amused to see Kate tucked up to Drake’s side—and they all listened to a few songs from the band while waiting for the pool table they had booked to become free. Although there were a few grins and knowing hails from the crowd, mostly aimed at Steve, it was all very laid-back, and there were no intrusive approaches or fuss about the fame in their midst. Everyone was just there to enjoy themselves at full volume. It was a little quieter in the back room of the pub where the pool tables were, but that changed when Steve kept feeding coins into the jukebox in the corner, ordering Kate to pick the songs most guaranteed to annoy Drake. So she chose dreamy, romantic ballads punctuated with the occasional head-banger to appease the good-natured groans from around the room.
In spite of Drake’s earlier boasts, his two friends made him work for his wins—mainly because they kept ganging up to ruin his concentration when he was playing one or other of them. Remembering her comments about leaning on the table, Kate enjoyed looking at the provocative pull of Drake’s faded jeans as they stretched across his tautly muscled backside when he bent to use his cue, and when he had a difficult shot facing her she made sure he knew she was staring down the open neck of his shirt, her own fingers playing suggestively in the V of her collar. However, he got his own back when chalking the tip of his cue, and she hurriedly primmed her mouth and pretended not to understand his sensual stroking and the deliberation with which he held her eyes while he gently blew off the excess chalk.
In the interests of fair play, Kate declared herself strictly neutral in the cheerfully insulting male byplay over the game and ferried cardboard tubs of hot chips and battered fish, jugs of beer and bottles of soft drinks to the protagonists, fascinated by the easy camaraderie between the three men, despite the fact that, as Steve pointed out, they were rarely all in the area at the same time. She enjoyed watching the differences in their play and chatting with each as they sat out games, but finally the series came down to a single match between Steve and Drake, while Ken kept up a hushed commentary that had Kate in fits of laughter.
Her sides were still aching when they drove back through the black, shadowy hills to the beach. Drake turned on the CD player and Kate was content to lie back and dream impossible dreams to the caress of some moody blues and the humming vibration of the Land Rover’s engine.
Wrapped in a sensuous cloud of happy imaginings she was almost dozing when Drake murmured that they were home, and insisted on walking with her to her door.
‘Enjoy yourself?’
‘You know I did. I like your friends.’
‘I noticed,’ he said, but without any heat. ‘They liked you, too.’
She sighed with a strange contentment. ‘Steve said the three of you don’t get together very often any more,’ she said, unlocking the front door. A lot of Oyster Beach people didn’t bother to lock their doors, at least in the off-season, she had been told, but Kate’s cautionary habits were too deeply ingrained.
‘No, but when we do it’s always as if we only saw each other yesterday. The group dynamics are such we can just pick up where we left off. Some friendships are like that.’
‘That’s what we do, too, isn’t it? Pick up where we left off,’ she said, turning in the doorway. But not any more, she thought wistfully.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’ he suggested softly as she switched on the light and blinked at him like an owl, her silver eyes still hazed with dreams. ‘Offer me a nightcap?’
‘I don’t have any alcohol in the house,’ she said, hypnotised by his slow smile.
‘A coffee, then.’ He reached out and stroked her hair behind her ear, his thumb briefly brushing the lobe. ‘Isn’t that the way the two of us usually end a night out?’
No. They usually ended it in bed, making love. Her eyes dilated with betraying speed, her pink lips parting, her breasts rising and falling against the white cotton shirt.
‘Coffee keeps me awake,’ she croaked.
‘That’s good. Awake is good,’ he murmured, slowly lowering his head, his thighs bumping against hers as he shuffled her back against the wooden panels of the open door. ‘I wouldn’t like you to be asleep when I did this…’
His kiss was warm, soft, sweet and sensuous…a delicate tasting of her resistance, with no aggression to trigger her alarm, just a gentle teasing of her lips, a whisper-soft stroke of his firm, velvety mouth.
It was so sweet and so soft it left her wanting, and as he began to draw back her arms slid around his waist and folded across his strong back, holding him secure while she went on tiptoe to try and increase the pressure against her yearning mouth.
He didn’t make the mistake of swooping inside with his tongue, instead he withheld himself, luring her to seek her own pleasure and move ever deeper into danger.