Read Online The Greatest Risk by Cara Colter - Free Book Online

of the solid ones.
    â€œNo, no, no,” he said sternly. “You have to get down farther. You have to be looking right down the shaft of the cue.”
    He came up behind her and fitted his body around hers, adjusting her over the cue. He took her arm.
    â€œRelax. Your elbow has to be loose. Loose! You feel like you have your arm in a splint from elbow to wrist. Geez, you smell good.”
    That was the contradiction. Relax? With the most gorgeous, sexy man in the universe draped around her? All the places where his body touched hers were tingling. She wanted to drop the pool cue and flip over, so that he had her bent over the pool table and she could feel the hard length of him, just the way she had on the foyer floor this morning.
    She reminded herself she had condemned that man and woman on the hospital’s front steps for their public display of affection….
    â€œI’m losing my mind,” she muttered.
    â€œConcentrate!”
    Sure. The question was on what? He had said she smelled good. That was the NoWait with its pleasant citrus fragrance, underlaid ever so subtly with a hint of musk.
    But his smell was intoxicating, and she was pretty sure he wasn’t wearing any scent except the one that came off his skin, clean, faintly tangy and perturbingly masculine.
    â€œOkay,” he said, his breath stirring the hair on the nape of her neck. “Bring your arm back.” Lightly he guided her arm back, his fingers on her elbow.
    â€œYou’re tickling me!”
    â€œFor God’s sake, woman, concentrate. Loose elbow. Tap the cue ball. Ticklish, hmm? I’m filing that away for future reference.”
    There he was mentioning the future again!
    Maggie hit the cue ball with all the pent-up frustration that had built within her breast, and it responded by promptly jumping over the ball she was aiming at. It flew off the table and rolled across the floor underneath the neighboring table.
    Luke undraped his body from around hers, folded his arms over his chest and gave her a stern look. “What does the word tap mean to you?”
    She straightened from where she had been bent over the table, and turned to face him.
    Gazing up into the unblinking green of his sparkling eyes, she noticed how thick his lashes were, as if they had been dipped in India ink. Her mind went completely blank. “Tap? Water faucet?”
    He groaned.
    â€œI’ve never been athletic, Luke. It’s hopeless.” That was exactly how she felt. Hopeless. Hopelessly, helplessly, impossibly attracted to him.
    â€œAthletic? You have to be an athlete to play baseball. To ski. To run foot races. Playing pool does not require athleticism.”
    â€œIf it requires hand-to-eye coordination, it’s hopeless,” she told him. Gosh, he looked cute, bristling with that kind of mock irritation, his eyes narrowed on her. His beard had darkened with the late hour. It looked as if it would scratch in the most delightful way.
    It occurred to her she wanted to kiss him. Madly. Wildly. And that she didn’t care who was watching.
    The thought was so uncharacteristic that she glanced at her drink. It was just cola, wasn’t it?
    â€œIt’s math, pure and simple,” he informed her. “You figure the angle. You apply the correct amount of pressure. You have to know the difference between a tap and a slam. It’s that easy.”
    The surge of passion that was affecting her was apparently having no effect on him at all. If it was, he wouldn’t be talking so casually about taps and slams.
    Not that either of those words had ever had an erotic meaning to her before. She looked at his lips, the gorgeous green of his eyes, the pulse that beat steady and strong in the hollow of his throat and felt almost dizzy.
    My God, she thought, I’m swooning .
    Maggie knew it was impossible. She was not the type of girl who swooned, of all things. She was reliable. She was pragmatic. She was responsible.