She allowed her left foot to drift through the warm water and brush up against his calf. His eyes widened at the unexpected touch but stayed focused on his cards.
“How did you learn to play?” Jack asked, glancing over at her.
“One of my Thursday afternoon regulars.” She rocked her hips back and forth. The movement was slow and subtle, but it worked. Her opponent appeared to have forgotten about the cards in his hand.
His brow furrowed. “Which regular?”
Or maybe he was following the conversation, not the way the water lapped at her waist while she moved.
“Jonathan,” she said. “He’s a former SEAL who was injured in Iraq. He comes in most weeks and we play cards if it is quiet.”
“Johnny Smith?” Jack frowned and she abandoned the rocking. “The guy who received a silver star for saving half his team after he’d been shot?”
Natalie nodded and focused on her cards as her foot ran up and down his calf. She signaled the dealer for another.
“Didn’t you date him a while back?” Jack asked.
“He asked me to dinner once or twice, but I said no.” She glanced up at him, drawing her foot away. “I don’t date my customers.”
The blonde who’d mistaken the blackjack tables for a wet T-shirt contest leaned over from her stool at Natalie’s right. She glanced at the other woman. Now that was a distraction. But why would anyone bother wearing a white tank top into the pool? The see-through fabric clung to the woman’s mostly bare breasts. The blonde’s bikini top resembled pasties, barely covering her nipples.
“You should try making him jealous if you want his attention,” the blonde said in a stage whisper. Natalie would bet all of her chips that the people at the neighboring table could hear her too. “Mack does it to me all the time, and I always fall for it. Afterward the sex is amazing.”
“Who’s Mack?” Natalie had tended bar long enough to know that the best strategy was to steer the conversation away from her personal life and back to Ms. Wet T-shirt.
“My boyfriend.” The blonde nodded toward a large, bald man by the bar. “He’s getting our drinks and then he’ll be right over. You can flirt with him if you want. To make your boyfriend jealous. I promise it will work better than footsy.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Natalie said—loud enough for Jack to hear her—and turned her attention to the game. “And I don’t flirt.”
Jack leaned forward and looked at the blonde. Out of the corner of her eye, Natalie saw his gaze drop to the blonde’s most distracting asset—but only for a second. “She means that,” he said. “‘Go away’ is her default response when a guy approaches her.”
“And you like that?” The other woman appeared shocked as she signaled the dealer for yet another card. Someone—maybe Mack-by-the-bar—should drag her away from the table before she lost too much.
“Yeah, I do,” Jack said. “I know she has her reasons. And one day I’m hoping that she’ll let me in and share them with me.”
“Don’t count on it,” Natalie said as she counted her chips. She’d gone over twenty dollars. She’d won. Thank you God. “I don’t like to share.”
“Darlin’, when it comes to you, I don’t count on anything,” he drawled. “But I don’t give up easily.”
“Maybe you should have.” She pointed to her chips. “Probably would have kept more dignity than outright losing to me.” She smiled. “Time to go, Jack.” She slid off her stool, taking her pile of chips. “We have a long afternoon of shopping ahead of us.”
“Have fun,” the blonde called. “And don’t forget. Make. Him. Jealous.”
“Ma’am.” Jack flashed his charming smile at Mack’s girlfriend. “Right now, I’m so jealous of an injured hero who had the privilege of teaching her to play cards that I can barely think straight. The footsy was just a bonus.”
Natalie frowned as she reached the steps leading to the pool deck. Barely think straight? What had that meant? If one conversation could throw Jack’s concentration, it was a miracle he’d survived his first deployment with the SEALs.
“That was almost too easy,” she murmured as the water splashed at her waist. “Almost like you didn’t want to win.”
He stood on the other side of the metal handrail, one foot on the bottom step. “Are you suggesting I threw the game?” he asked.
“I think you were pretending to be distracted by our conversation. The blonde in the bikini top…that’s another story.” She climbed out of the pool, selected a dry towel from the poolside stack, and headed for the lounge chair where she’d left her cover-up. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Jack run a towel over his dripping wet pecs, his sculpted six-pack…
Jack moved to her side and dropped his towel on the chair. She shifted her gaze away from his muscles and noted the stiff, halted way he grabbed his dry shirt from the chair and pulled it over his head.
He turned to her, and she realized she was clutching to her chest the oversize T-shirt she’d used in place of a fancy beach cover-up. He reached out and placed one finger under her chin, then tilted her head up until she was staring into his blue eyes.
“You’re right, I don’t get distracted,” he said, his tone low and serious. “And I don’t give a damn how small that woman’s bikini top was. The only tits, shit—the only breasts I want—”