I win, you stay in Chicago. Christ. Sixteen days and he’d clear his head. Be able to think straight again.
“I win and you tell me a secret,” she said, and broke, sending the nine into the side pocket.
That was better than the alternative, that he carved open his chest and put his still-beating heart in her hands. “I win, you let me cook for Wren and Josh Saturday.”
“No. That’s not the deal. The deal is I cook so you can spend time with them.”
“I win and the deal is I cook and you help me in the kitchen.” He didn’t want to see her stressed about cooking for guests.
“Death wish,” she muttered, and then sank every stripe on the table.
He sank every solid.
And then he sank the eight ball.
In drug parlance, an eight ball was an eighth of an ounce, three-point-five grams of coke. An eight ball of blow would punch a hole in his head and let sunshine and all the ancient wisdom of the world in. An ounce of coke would smack down every one of his inhibitions and anxieties and it’d be so fucking good, it would ruin his life.
He took Flick home and she held his hand on the street, and that felt like sunshine though it was the dead of night. He stripped her out of the dress that he’d zipped her into while his new playlist made her hips shake and her arms twine and she kissed him like it was the only thing worth winning and that felt like wisdom.
Flick was his eight ball and he’d never felt so high as when he was with her, and when she left he’d be ruined.
Chapter Twenty
He picked up the phone with a brisk “Tom O’Connell.” He didn’t recognize the number, which was the whole point of Flick locking herself into a conference room at Cassidy Strauss. The other reason was she couldn’t do this at her desk and she wanted to make it count.
“You know, the sound of your voice, Tom—”
“Flick?”
“The sound of your voice is enough to make my heart kick.”
“Flick.”
“Yes, Tom, keep saying my name because I adore it when you say my name. Your voice close to my ear makes me hot. It’s like an instant reaction. Your voice in my ear and you can have anything you want from me.”
“Are you about to tell me we need milk?”
She clamped her hand over her mouth so he wouldn’t hear her laugh. He’d catch on in a minute.
“When I feel your voice rumble in your chest—oh, that, that makes me horny. So impossibly horny, Tom.”
“I’m in the office.” Now he sounded more fittingly suspicious.
“I know. You go off to work looking so badass i
n those suits. I know you have them tailored because you’re so broad across the shoulders. I can get wet looking at you in a suit. Did you know that?”
“Flick—are you—is this—? Jesus.”
“You didn’t know. I can look at you ready to go to the office in the morning and I want to go work myself over with my vibrator because I am so turned on and you’re fully clothed and you don’t even know the effect you have on me.”
“You can’t do this now.”
“Oh, but I’m doing it. You can always hang up, but you won’t because you want me to talk dirty to you. You chose the coupon—this is for your birthday, baby. I’m going to tell you what it is about you that makes me ready to come without your hands being on me, without you being inside me, and while I tell you, I’m going to touch myself.”
“Flick. Stop.”
She laughed. He sounded a little panicked. “Hang up, Tom, or hang on for the ride.”