Rebecca Hagan Lee (24 page)

Jack nodded. “Especially if we screen the piano and the billiard room from the grand parlor and the bar.” He took a few minutes to think everything through. “We should be able to make it work. I’ll get started as soon as Luis comes in.” He drained the last of his coffee and placed the mug in the sink. “Now that we’ve got that settled, you’d better get upstairs and surprise her with her packages.”

“Is Zhing still here?” Will hefted the tin of chocolates.

Jack shook his head. “She left about an hour ago. She delivered your shirts, looked in on Julie, and left. Zhing said Julie was napping. You should think about doing the same,” he reminded Will. “You’re going to have another long night ahead of you.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

—PLATO, C. 428–348 B.C.

S
he was a ferocious competitor. She played billiards the same way she did everything else: with all her heart.

Will stared at her as she bent over the table attempting to line up a shot. The gold cheongsam Julie had chosen to wear from the dresses he’d left in her room pulled, cupping her bottom as she leaned forward.

“Am I doing this correctly?” she asked, measuring the angle from billiard ball to corner pocket, before stepping back again to reassess.

Fascinated by the play of silk over her rear end, Will didn’t realize she was speaking to him until she poked him with the end of her cue. “Huh?” He glanced at the dot of chalk on the sleeve of his jacket. Jack was right about the pool cue: Giving one to a girl who wielded a parasol like a cricket bat was probably asking for trouble. But at the moment, it was worth it.

“Oh, sorry.” Julie apologized for the chalk, not for poking him. “You aren’t paying attention. . . .”

He was paying attention.
He knew every shot she’d made, but he was a man, and at the moment he found the play of silk over her derriere a hell of a lot more intriguing than the angle of a ball to the pocket. “Problem?”

“The problem is whether or not I am lining this shot up properly,” she repeated.

“Your form is excellent.”

“Oh?” She paused to look at him, then beamed. “Jolly good.”

“Your angle might be off slightly, but your form is excellent,” he drawled.

He thought for a moment that she might swing her cue at his head as she turned around. “My angle is off?”

“Slightly,” he admitted. “But as I said before, your form is excellent.”

“Show me,” she demanded.

Will stayed where he was, leaning against the adjacent billiard table, arms crossed over his chest, watching her, wondering how she expected him to show her that her form was excellent. It had almost killed him to show her how to hold the cue and approach the balls on the table the first time.

Will had demonstrated the proper way to rack and break the balls for a quick game of nine-ball first. Then he had handed her a cue and showed her how to hold it, with the object of the game being to knock the numbered balls into the pockets of the billiard table in numerical order. She’d scratched on her first attempt, nearly scarring the felt of the table, before he moved behind her, put his arms around her, cupped her elbows in his hands, and positioned the cue to make the shot, then helped her make it. But he hadn’t counted on having her backside against his groin. . . . He’d made the billiard shot of his life by landing the first numbered ball in the pocket despite the feel of her soft bottom nestled against him, almost more than he could stand.

He remained where he was because he couldn’t sit or walk without causing himself considerable discomfort or drawing attention to his burgeoning erection.

“Will!” Julie stomped her foot to get his attention.

“Yes?” He stalled for as long as he could, trying to recall every bit of information he knew about the game.

“You were going to show me how to properly align this shot so I can send it into the pocket.”

The time for stalling had run out while he was busy battling the urge to take her upstairs and show her an entirely different sort of way to pass the time. “Was I?”

She frowned, puzzled. “I thought you were.” She looked up at him, saw the color darken in his eyes as his pupils expanded to hide the golden brown irises. “We are playing a game of billiards, are we not?”

He gave her a warm, rather mysterious smile. “We are playing a game,” he confirmed. “But I’m not sure what it is.”

“Pocket billiards.” She was nervous all the sudden and very much aware that she was out of her depth with Will Keegan. She knew he was attracted to her. She was deeply drawn to him, but she didn’t know where to begin. “I’m a novice. You’re the expert. And you’re teaching me how to play the game.”

He moved forward then, took her by the shoulders, gently turned her and her cue toward the table, and helped her carefully align her shot. “Now tap the ball into the pocket,” he instructed.

She did. The ball rolled across the table and fell into the corner pocket. Julie was so excited she wanted to squeal her delight, but her bruised vocal cords wouldn’t permit it. She whirled around and threw her arms around him. The cue hit him in the back of the leg. “I did it! I did it!”

“You did indeed.” He smiled.

“I made my shot,” she boasted. “I’m playing billiards with you. After hours. In a saloon.”

“Yes, you are,” he said.

“If we had champagne it would be perfect!” Julie exclaimed.

“We have champagne,” Will told her. “It’s a saloon.”

She smiled up at him and Will smiled back, taking note of the stitches above her eyebrow and the bruising on her face that was beginning to turn from blue to greenish yellow. “I can make it perfect. Would you like me to open a bottle?”

“Could we?”

“Would that make you happy?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” she told him. “It’s positively scandalous!” And she was almost giddy at the thought.

Will knew she was excited because she’d barely escaped being killed, had been badly injured, cooped up for days, and finally allowed a measure of freedom tonight. She was twenty-two. He was thirty-one and more experienced and should be the more circumspect of the two of them. He was a gentleman and had always behaved in a gentlemanly fashion, but tonight he was feeling a little scandalous himself. “I’ll just be a minute.”

He left the billiard room and went straight to the icebox beneath the bar where Jack always kept a bottle of champagne on ice. Will pulled the bottle out, grabbed two champagne glasses and a bar towel, and carried them back to the billiard room.

Julie gave a little start as the champagne cork exploded out of the bottle into the bar towel Will had wrapped around it. Streams of foaming effervescent wine poured out of the bottle and onto the towel. Tipping the bottle over Julie’s glass, Will filled it to the rim before filling his.

Will lifted his glass in a toast.

Julie raised hers as well.

“Here’s to you, Julia Jane.”

She took a sip of her wine, smiling at the bubbles that tickled her nose and tongue. Her eyes sparkled. “This is the most wicked thing I’ve ever done!”

“
This
is the most wicked thing you’ve ever done?” Will wasn’t overly fond of champagne, preferring a good Irish whiskey or a mellow Scots whisky to bubbly wine. The best thing he could say about champagne was that half the wine poured out of the bottle whenever you popped the cork. But he took a drink of it so she wouldn’t be disappointed.

She took a sip of champagne, touched her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, and nodded.

Will swallowed his gulp of wine, set his glass on the closest table, and stared down at Julie. “Does it hurt?” Reaching out, he touched her bottom lip with the tip of his index finger.

“Not so much anymore.” She drained her glass.

“Good.” Will’s voice was low and husky and full of emotion as he took her glass out of her hand and set it beside his before dipping his head, touching his lips to hers. “Because I think we can be a bit more scandalous than that. . . .”

Julie would never have thought a kiss so gentle and tender could leave her breathless and wanting more, but his kiss did. His lips were cool and tasted of champagne, the touch of them a mere sweep against hers, like the brush of silk against her mouth. It was an exchange of breath—hers for his and his for hers—and the most erotic thing Julie had ever felt. Or dreamed of feeling.

Will knew he should pull away and put distance between them, but he didn’t. He couldn’t think of moving away when everything in him urged him to bring her closer. Will forgot about releasing her and allowed himself to luxuriate in kissing her. He touched the thread of the two stitches in her bottom lip with his tongue before he traced the seam of her mouth, entreating her to open it and grant him access.

She did.

Will broke the first kiss in order to change the angle of their mouths and kiss her more deeply.

Julie’s heart pounded against her ribs so fiercely she was afraid her ribs wouldn’t be able to take the abuse. She gasped at the heat and the pleasure his kiss gave her.

She was a complete novice. She tasted of an enticing mix of innocence and eagerness. Will knew that she had never been kissed before. What she lacked in experience, she more than made up for in warmth and enthusiasm. Will had kissed a number of women over the years, but he couldn’t recall any kiss that affected him more than Julie’s innocent one. Not even his first—a thrilling, heart-pounding, rather hesitant, wet affair with a girl named Eleanor from his father’s church, who was a year older than he and more experienced.

Though it hurt to lift her arms for any length of time, Julie ignored the pain and placed them around his neck. He swept his tongue inside her mouth and began to taste its warm recesses. She gasped and he repeated the sweep—once, twice, three times—before nibbling on her bottom lip, careful to give nothing but pleasure and not to nip at her stitches.

Heat surged through Will’s body as Julie moved closer. He wrapped his arms around her, cupped her bottom with his hands, kneading her beneath the silk.

Julie molded herself against him, enjoying the taste of his mouth, and the slight friction of his chin against the sensitive skin of her face, and the warm, clean, spicy scent of aroused male.

He groaned aloud. Julie pulled away from him, gasping for breath. Her shoulder was aching. She was light-headed, giddy, and completely immersed in the sensations his kisses created. She opened her eyes and found herself staring up into Will’s brown ones.

She smiled at him, and Will leaned close to place a string of kisses from the two stitches in her bottom lip to the five stitches above her eyebrow. “Julie,” he murmured. “Lovely, scandalous Julia Jane.”

The look in his eyes was so warm, so tender, so caring, it almost hurt to see it. Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Gorgeous, sinful Will Keegan.”

He tightened his arms around her, breathing in the peach scent of her soap. He wanted to bury his fingers in her hair, her real hair, but he remembered she was wearing her wig and caught himself in time. The importance of her safety far exceeded that of his needs.

She squeaked in pain and Will released her, reaching up to gently unwrap her arms from around his neck, stepping back to put some much-needed distance between them.

She looked at him and Will read the confusion in her expression.

“I hurt you.” He was instantly contrite. “I caused you pain.”

“No—” She started to deny it, but Will cut her off.

“Enough scandalous behavior for now,” he said firmly. “We have a billiards game and a bottle of champagne to finish.” He amazed himself by summoning the strength he needed to let go of her, when everything inside him implored him to hold on.

Julie pulled herself to her full height, straightened her back, and stiffened her shoulders. Draping herself in all the dignity she could muster, she lifted her champagne glass and held it out for a refill, sounding as regal as the queen of England and all her forebears. “Let’s get to it then, shall we?”

Lifting the champagne bottle, Will refilled her glass and topped off his own. Gesturing toward the billiard table, he said, “I believe it’s your second shot.”

She took her cue, lined up her second shot, and missed. “Your turn.”

He picked up his stick, drew a deep breath, and began to clear the table.

She stared at him, disappointed. “You won.”

“I’m good at this game and I’ve had more practice. I’m the expert and you’re the novice, remember?”

“But I thought . . .”

“That I would go easy on you? Allow you to win?”

Julie nodded.

“Why?”

“Because you’re a gentleman, and gentlemen always allow ladies to win.” She made the statement as if she were reading the rules of billiards and the rules of society to him.

“That would be demeaning to both of us,” he said. “You couldn’t expect to best me the first time. You had only made your first shot. I’ve made hundreds, even thousands of shots.”

She was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. “Why would allowing me to win—to experience beginner’s luck, as it were—be demeaning to me?” She took a deep breath. “I understand why losing to a beginning player and a female would be demeaning to you. And I understand that men object to losing in general, but I don’t understand the other.”

“I don’t mind losing to a better player or a luckier player, male or female,” Will explained, “because I always learn something from those losses. What would I learn from losing on purpose to a player playing her first game? Other than the fact that she expected me to let her win? Neither one of us would learn from the game or become better players. And I don’t believe in insulting women by pretending I don’t know they are as capable of mastering the game as any man. I despise that sort of hypocrisy. We are both Homo sapiens. We both have brains of approximately equal size; why shouldn’t the female of the species be every bit as intelligent as the male? The only difference I can see in our proficiency of the game is experience.”