Night Heat by Brenda Jackson Page B

pinball?”
    He chuckled. “Pinball?”
    â€œYes. Don’t you know how to play?”
    â€œSure, I do.”
    â€œOkay then, but I understand if you think you’re not up to holding your own against me and—”
    â€œNot up to holding my own?”
    â€œYes.”
    Still smiling, Bas crossed the room to where she stood. He’d planned to spend most of the evening at Mason Construction, going through some more files and working way past midnight again. But he refused to let Jocelyn think she could best him at a pinball machine. And this particular baby just happened tobe a Stern Nascar. “Ms. Mason, you’re about to meet the king of pinball.”
    She looked at him and grinned. “You think so?”
    â€œI know so.”
    Jocelyn figured now was not the time to let him know that last year she had won the local pinball competition. She began rolling up her sleeve and grinned at him. “Okay, Steele, you’re on.”

Chapter 6
    â€œA re you always into keeping secrets, Jocelyn?” Bas asked frowning, after they had finished their last game and were walking back up the steps from the basement. “You should have told me upfront that you were a pinball champion.”
    Jocelyn chuckled. “Why? And take all the fun out of winning?”
    When they reached the landing he said, “Hey, champion or no champion, you only won because I wasn’t playing my best since I didn’t think I had to. I assumed this was an easy win.”
    She crossed her arms beneath her breasts andstared at him. “What were you saying earlier about assuming anything?”
    Bas hooked a thumb into his jeans. “That was different.”
    She smiled. “Of course you would say that.” She then checked her watch. “Give me a second to grab some clothes and I’ll be ready to go back to town,” she said turning toward her bedroom.
    â€œTake your time. I need privacy to lick my wounds anyway.”
    She paused in the archway between the hall and her bedroom. “Too bad you’re a sore loser.”
    â€œI’m not.”
    â€œYou are, too. Admit it.”
    â€œOkay, I like to win.”
    â€œSo do I.”
    â€œYou know I’m going to want a rematch.”
    â€œWe’ll see.” And with that said, she disappeared inside her bedroom.
    Bas couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped his lips. Damn, he had spent the last two hours racking up over a billion points and still had lost to a female hotshot. The number of bonus points she’d gotten was downright sickening.
    He shook his head, not believing he had actually taken time away from work to play a damn game of pinball. It had been the weirdest thing how his adrenaline had gotten pumped up, practically the same wayit did whenever he played basketball against his brothers. He hadn’t even thought about the files he had planned to go over at the office. The only thing he had thought about was whipping Jocelyn’s butt big-time.
    And what a butt it was. It didn’t take much to remember her in front of the pinball machine, her stance sexy and stimulating as hell, and her display of excitement each and every time she deployed a ball. Just being able to ogle her undetected had been worth the loss. Once again he couldn’t help but think about the too-serious curves on her body and what they did to a pair of jeans and a top. Each time her butt had moved, he’d found it almost impossible to sit still, stand still or to stop a certain part of him from getting hard.
    He had played enough pinball to know it was a mental game and if you weren’t focused there was no chance in hell you could win. Of course he hadn’t been focused. He hadn’t even used a lot of the skilled flipper work he often used when he played against his brothers.
    It was difficult to concentrate when you were playing against a woman whose perfume smelled of seduction and whose body made you