Free Pieces Of You & Me by Pamela Ann

time. “Okay.”
    I almost jumped on my seat when Gavin gave my knee a tight squeeze, making me glance towards him quickly. “Come back out here when you’re done. And don’t forget to wear a bikini.” He leaned close to my face. He was very touchy feely ever since he got here, but I wasn’t interested in him. In fact, my radar was pointed towards the man who sat across me.
    But, since he was technically avoiding me for some odd purpose, I was actually thinking of going back to my room and calling Liam… maybe it was time to talk. “We’ll see,” I murmured, getting up before giving him a small smile and then striding towards inside the house. Most people were outside, so indoors, it was a lot quieter.
    The game room was somewhere close to the movie room. I heard Brett mentioned that it was in the basement that he jokingly referred to it as a dungeon. My thoughts ran along with Jet and his intention of needing to get me alone while I hunted down for the game room. Thankfully, it wasn’t at all hard to find. Everything was lit with mood lighting. Some areas, like the stairs, were brightly lit, but the game room area dialed down on that. It was dark with only the fireplace to light up the place.
    Standing amidst everything, I took three shallow breaths before I walked towards the billiard table. Two cues were on the green felt and the billiard balls were all in set-up with the white cue ball resting on the far side. I wasn’t so great at this, but a few times when I was younger my father taught me how to play. That was long, long time ago, though.
    Even though it was dark, the fire in the fireplace had enough glow to illuminate the pool gaming area enough to see clearly.
    Gripping the cool polished cue stick in my hand, I spotted the nearby chalk cube and polished the tip with it before grabbing the cue ball and placed it right at the far right, aiming to hit a solid ball. Conscious about my stance, I situated myself again as I spread my hand on the felt and curled my thumb right above my forefinger and let the cue stick run along it, feeling my aim and target.
    I was about to thrust the stick forward when I heard light footsteps behind me. “Thought I should practice. It’s been ages,” I said before returning my concentration to the game. Immediately, I tensed up when I felt a hand over mine before I heard him whisper into my ear.
    “You’re too tense. Relax.” His hard body wrapped around mine as I watched a large male hand above mine on table. “Concentrate on your target.” His hand that was wrapped around mine on the cue stick started to caress it gently.
    I was tense all right. Furious, too. “Why are you here?” I wanted to scream, but my voice could only manage to squeak out the words.
    His breathing became ragged as he spoke to my sensitive ear, “I forgot that I promised that this will remain between the two of us, that’s why I couldn’t get you, knowing there were a lot of people that were going to notice. I didn’t want to compromise that.”
    I wasn’t sure what was frustrating; that I had forgotten that we made this stupid pact of keeping it a secret or that I had completely forgotten about it? “Don’t worry about it, Grey. I didn’t notice you that much at all.” Total bull, but heck, had to save some of my pride and self-respect.
    I just couldn’t let him think that he could get with me any time of the day. I never planned to get intimate with him. It was more of getting to know the real man underneath it all. One of the real reasons that got my curiosity was that I wanted to see if he was all talk and no fire. It was confusing since my brain was all against it, but something propelled me to go forward, so I was going to follow that gut feeling, cautiously.
    “But I noticed you, Liv.” His hand disengaged from mine. The pole was now resting against my hip. “You’re barefoot.”
    Hiding back my stupid grin, I responded, “Got a problem with that?”
    His hand started to