The Risk-Taker by Kira Sinclair Page A

frustratingly empty. Did the blasted man want her to bowl or not?
    “First—” he set the ball back into the return “—that ball is too heavy for you.”
    “It’s the same one you used.”
    “Precisely.”
    “Are you calling me weak?”
    “No, I’m calling you a woman.” His eyes raked her from head to toe, backing up the statement and sending a prickle of awareness seesawing through her. “Your body is built differently and you can’t throw as much weight as I can. Fact, not judgment.”
    Her first urge was to say watch me. Logic kept her from spouting off and saying something she’d regret. He was right, even if she didn’t want him to be.
    “All right. Which one should I use?” she asked, waving her hand across the group of waiting balls.
    He spun all of them, quickly rejecting four before he finally settled on the fifth. Grabbing the green ball with marbled blue veins, he dropped it into her waiting arms. She had to admit it was a heck of a lot lighter.
    Grasping her shoulders, he spun her around and marched her back to the dotted line on the floor. He wrapped his arms around her, the solid length of him pressed tight against her back. Her skin tingled where they touched. He kept talking to her, as if she could actually pay attention to anything he was saying with her brain short-circuiting.
    His large hands cradled her own, positioning her grip on the ball.
    “We’re going to take three steps forward. Thrust the ball out, let it swing back and on the third step, when it moves even with the lane, let it go.”
    “You make it sound easy.” And possibly dirty.
    “It is.”
    His knees bent, nudging the back of her thighs and sending her forward in the first step of the dance. Suddenly, the ball was whooshing past her hip. “Bend your knee,” he ordered straight into her ear. Her body did exactly as he said, dropping down into a crouch as she released the ball.
    It fell onto the surface of the lane with a heavy clunk, but instead of swerving immediately to the side, it stayed in the center, heading straight for the pins at the end.
    It was her turn to let out a surprised whoop when it actually connected and several pins rattled onto their sides.
    She spun around to grin at Gage. He stared at her, a strange expression on his face. Slowly, her smile faded and her chest tightened.

8
    H E WANTED HER .
    So what was new? He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted Hope Rawlings. She was strong, determined, beautiful, caring. What man wouldn’t want her? When everyone else in his life had thought of him as a screwup, Hope had always been there telling him he was worth more.
    But this was different.
    He was different.
    No longer a green boy with nothing to offer her but the chip lodged firmly on his shoulder. The problem was he didn’t think that would matter. If she hadn’t wanted him back then, when they’d been closer than he’d ever let any woman get, then why would she want him now?
    Especially since he was exactly what everyone had always accused him of being. What she’d accused him of being last night—blinded by a reckless need for danger.
    Willow walked past them, breaking the spell. “Quit hogging the lane, you two. It’s my turn.”
    Galvanized by her friend’s statement, Hope dropped her gaze and slipped past, being careful not to actually touch him.
    Yeah, that wasn’t going to work for him.
    For the next hour they bowled. And every chance he got he brushed against her. He purposely let his knees fall open so they’d touch hers. Whenever she stood to pick up her ball he let his fingers slide across her hip.
    His plan was to set her off-kilter. However, he made a serious tactical error in not factoring his own physical response into the battle plan. By the middle of their second game his entire body buzzed with tension and need.
    It was damn difficult to bowl with a perpetual hard-on.
    Somewhere along the way Hope stopped looking him directly in the eye. Part of him had to