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I’d never thrown an axe before, but it clicked right away with me, much to Preston’s irritation. I understood the balance and how to throw so the blade hit the wall and not the handle.
He came close to beating me in the first game, but as my accuracy improved, his seemed to get worse, and he teetered between annoyance and embarrassment when we finished our second one. I’d won easily.
“How are you so good at this?” he huffed as he dislodged one of his axes from the wall. It had landed far below the outermost circle of the target. Like he’d been when we played beer pong, he sounded both annoyed and impressed. “We’re playing again.”
“Why?” I couldn’t help myself. “Does losing turn you on?”
Oh, shit. The fire that burned in his eyes was seriously hot.
He put his axes down on their rest and marched over to me, trapping my waist in his hands. “I guess we’ll find out after we’re done here, because we’re going back to my place.” His gaze traced over my face, and his expression turned carnal and indecent. “And then I’m going to fuck you so hard, Sydney, you’re going to be numb for days.”
I inhaled sharply.
The lust his words injected me with left me dizzy and reeling. I imagined us in his bed, and felt him moving inside me, and my legs threatened to go boneless.
I’d wanted it to sound like I was rising to meet his challenge, but my voice was throaty with desire. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
He laughed, shook his head, and turned his focus back to the game of throwing axes.
I was glad he let me buy the second round of drinks and I only had minor pushback from him, since he’d paid for everything else, plus he’d arranged the whole evening. He clearly didn’t like losing, and I suspected we weren’t going to leave until he beat me once, but still—he seemed to be having a good time.
Me? This was like the perfect date, except for the tiny, little detail that it wasn’t a date. It was a lesson. He’d brought me here to use a fake ID and see how good I was at being bad.
After I defeated him in the third game, I considered throwing the next one. I sensed his frustration, and I was such a people-pleaser, it was hard to take. But when I missed the target at the start of the next round, he glowered.
Preston knew exactly what I was doing, and he didn’t like it one bit. “No pity win,” he growled at me. I pressed my lips together, smashing away the smile I wanted to make. It was important to him to earn a win, and I understood. If I were in his shoes, I’d probably feel the same way.
But it meant we could be here a while, so I glanced around the noisy space and spotted the sign I was looking for above the hallway at the other end of the bar.
“I’m going to the restroom,” I said. “Be right back.”
I was surprised to find there was a line for the ladies’ room, and while I waited at the entrance to the hall, my gaze drifted back to Preston. I caught glimpses of him through the crowd, and he seemed to be practicing while I’d stepped away. He squared his shoulders to the board, dipped the small hand axe back over his shoulder, and then flung it forward.
It landed in the wall with a satisfying thwack, just left of the bullseye. I smiled to myself. I’d seen him throw dozens of times now, and yet I was never prepared for just how sexy it looked. How the sleeve of his shirt wrapped around the thickness of his bicep, or the tendons in his forearm flexed.
Fuck. The crush I’d had on him in high school was nothing compared to the way I felt about him now.
Hair at my nape prickled, and a strange sensation washed down my back. There was an alert going off in my brain, trying to tell me something, and when I widened my gaze to include things outside of just Preston, I realized what it was.
There were some guys sitting at the bar who were perfectly in my line of sight, and one of them was looking at me while wearing a friendly smile.
Did . . . I know him?
He didn’t look familiar, but his smile was warm, so I shot him a brief, polite smile back. Maybe he’d mistakenly thought I was looking at him when my focus had been on Preston, who was behind him. The line cleared up, so I ducked inside the tiny bathroom and didn’t think anything of it until I finished.
When I came out, it looked as if the guy had been watching and waiting for me. He raised a hand and flagged me over, and it was so sure and confident, I began to second-guess myself.
Had we met before? It’d be rude to ignore him, so I strode toward the bar.
“Rachel?” he asked me.
Oh. There’d been a tension in my shoulders, and it relaxed. He thought I was someone else. “No, sorry.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, well. You look like a Rachel to me.” He gestured to himself. “What do you think my name is?”
Um, what?
When I didn’t answer right away, he laughed. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s Tony.”
