“I do.” He grasped her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Pick the sharpest darts,” he said, then he grabbed her hand and slapped them in her palm. Next to her ear he added, just above a whisper, “Don’t make me carry you to the tape line.”
His brows were lowered and his gaze fierce, as if he had something to be mad about. Fine. It would feel good to kick his butt. Since she couldn’t do it physically, she’d wipe the floor with him in darts.
“Remember the rules,” he said as she tested the points. “There’s no crying like a girl when you lose.”
“You can’t beat me on your best day.” She flipped her hair like a girl and handed over the sharpest three darts. “This isn’t a sport for sissies like you’re used to, Martineau. Your teammates can’t save you, and there’s no hiding behind pads and a helmet in darts.”
“That’s low, Sharky,” Sutter told her.
Her mouth dropped open. “That’s trash talk.”
“That was a real cheap shot,” Fish added.
“Last time, you guys said I was a lesbian,” she reminded them. They all shrugged. “Hockey players,” she said and marched across the bar to the dartboard, with Luc walking beside her. Her shoulder brushed his arm, and she felt the contact all over. She widened the space between them.
“What are you doing here with him?” Luc asked as they stopped at the tape line.
“Who?”
“Darby.”
“We had dinner.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
If she weren’t so mad, she would have laughed. “That’s none of your business.”
“What about the Detroit reporter?”
There was no reporter, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “What about him?”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“I thought you didn’t care whom or how or what position I preferred.”
He stared at her, then said through clenched teeth, “Shoot the damn darts.”
She looked up at him. His clenched jaw, his eyes shooting blue flames like when someone dared to shoot a puck in his net. He was clearly angry. At her. He was insane. “Stand back,” she said as she lined up her first shot. “I’m gonna kick your butt.” She doubled on with her first throw and scored eighty by the time she was through.
Luc scored forty and slapped the darts in her palm. “The light sucks in here.”
“No.” She smiled and took great pleasure in announcing, “You suck.”
His gaze narrowed.
Weeks of anger and hurt poured out of her and she said, louder than she’d intended, “And worse- you’re
a whiner.”
A collective intake of breath caught their attention and she and Luc turned and looked at the guys watching a few feet away.
“Lucky’s gonna kill Sharky,” Sutter predicted from the sidelines.
By tacit agreement they both went to their respective corners. Jane shot and scored sixty-five. Luc scored thirty-four.
“Now, remind me. Why do they call you Lucky?” she asked as she reached for the darts.
He pulled them back out of her reach as a slow, purely licentious smile curved his mouth. A smile that told her he was remembering her on her knees kissing his tattoo. “I’m sure if you think long and hard, you’ll remember the answer to that.”