For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
I can feel him assessing me—cataloguing my appearance, my posture, the fact that I'm standing in his doorway barefoot and weaponless and completely at his mercy.
Then he huffs.
A short, sharp sound that might be annoyance or might be amusement.
"Why don't you come and prove that, then?"
The challenge hangs in the air.
Prove it.
Show me you're not all talk.
Show me you're worthy of the attention you've demanded.
I can't help but smirk.
Because this—the banter, the challenge, the subtle game of dominance—is something I understand. Something I can navigate even when everything else is falling apart.
I push off the doorframe and cross the room.
My feet are silent on the hardwood. My hips sway slightly—not deliberately, just the natural motion of someone who's spent years training her body to move with deliberate grace. I feel his eyes track me, feel the weight of his attention like a physical pressure.
Good.
Look at me.
See what you almost missed.
I reach the pool table.
Pick up a cue from the rack on the wall.
Chalk the tip with precise, practiced movements—four rotations, even strokes, the kind of meticulous preparation that probably looks obsessive to anyone watching.
"Rack them," I say.
He raises an eyebrow.
But he does it.
Gathers the balls, arranges them in the triangle with an efficiency that suggests he's done this a thousand times. Places the cue ball at the opposite end of the table and steps back.
His glass of whiskey is right there.
Within reach.
I shouldn't.
Idefinitelyshouldn't.
But something about his expression—the careful neutrality, the controlled distance—makes me want to poke. To prod. To see what happens when I push past the boundaries he's clearly set.
I pick up the glass.
Take a sip.
