He knew all about me.

He knew more than just what he could read in the articles about all that Rogan did.

He’d looked into me. He knew I was coming. He knew Esposito was going to send me, slap him in the face by not coming himself or sending one of his lieutenants. He knew Esposito was the kind of man who had no respect, not for anyone, not even for the charismatic, magnetic leader of a biker gang.

He knew.

He knew and he’d prepared.

Oh God.

“He wasn’t my man,” I said softly.

“You were married to him, Toots,” he replied.

I shook my head. “No, the divorce was final before then.”

Something about him changed and it was almost like the very air around him gentled before he spoke again quietly.

“I know, darlin’, but you aren’t answering my question.”

“No,” I answered just as quietly.

He nodded, moved closer to me, and I was too out of it to step away.

“Your turn,” he whispered.

I stared up at him.

“Have you investigated me?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“I’ll let that one slide, babe, not smart,” he said softly.

My heart skipped.

“Pardon?”

“Don’t ask a question you already know the answer to,” he advised.

“But you are,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I have my reasons, you don’t,” he replied.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Go again,” he prompted.

I didn’t know what to ask.

Something was happening here. Something that had nothing to do with Esposito.

Or maybe it did. Maybe it was a power play and I was stuck in the middle.

Or maybe it was all about me.

Either way, I was on dangerous ground.

Far more dangerous than the ground I’d walked on when I entered this building and that ground was already pretty darned shaky.

My attention shifted, and for some reason, focused on one of the plethora of tattoos on his arm. Before I could stop myself, I lifted my gaze and asked my question.

“What’s the snake mean?”

He tilted his head to the side as his brows knit. “Come again?”

I pointed at the snake slithering up his arm, starting low, curling around, the design opening larger at his biceps.

The snake was not thin, it was beefy.

It was also curled around a skull at the bulge of his biceps, head flared, eyes focused, mouth open, fangs exposed, ready to strike.

“The snake tattoo, what’s it mean?”

I dropped my hand as he dropped his head and looked at the tattoo. Then he looked at me.

His expression was blank, but his eyes were alert, assessing, intense, drilling deep into mine, and if it could be believed I was even more uncomfortable than I was before.

“Kristy,” he stated.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“Kristy, my ex-wife. She had occasion in our marriage to piss me off and do it a lot. She said, when I got pissed, I was not all bark and no bite. I wasn’t even just bite. I was a strike. Like a snake.”

“Oh,” I whispered, my gaze slid away, and I took another sip of my beer thinking he didn’t seem the kind of man to get angry enough to strike. He seemed totally in control.

Therefore, I found this fascinating.

“Line it up,” he ordered.

I looked back to him.

“Sorry?”

“We’re gonna break,” he told me, tipping his head toward the table. “Line up your cue.”

I looked at the table then to him. I did as he asked, set my beer aside, bent over the table, acutely aware that he was close, we were being watched, and my skirt was very tight, and I lined my cue up to the ball.

My body froze as his warmth curved around me, his hand on mine on the cue, his other arm stretching out so his hand could cover mine resting on the table with the cue over it. His back was pressed to mine, his hips pressed to my bottom.

Oh God.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Only way to learn,” his deep, rough voice said in my ear, but somehow I felt it on every inch of my skin, “is by feel.”

Then he drew both our hands back on the cue and struck it forward. The cue hit the white ball and it accelerated, cracking soundly against the triangle at the other end, sending the balls scattering as his hand went flat to my midriff and he pulled us both up.

I watched the balls.

Two went into pockets, both solid colors, and Buck moved from me to the tequila.

He poured our shots and handed me a glass.

This time, I didn’t hesitate.

I was not one for liquid courage, but at that moment, I was going to take anything I could get. Therefore, I threw it back and then watched as Buck threw his back.

He took the glass from me, set both on the side of the table, grabbed my bottle of beer, handed it to me, caught my free hand and moved me down the table.

He stopped, upended the cue he was carrying so its nub was to the floor and got in my space.

Again, I didn’t retreat. The tequila was hitting me, I could feel it. I didn’t remember the last time I’d had a drink and now I’d had three shots of tequila and sipped at a beer.

Drunk was going to come fast.

He knew this too.

I was definitely on dangerous ground.

“He leave you with anything?” Buck asked.

I blinked up at him.

“Who?”

“Your ex,” he answered, my heart skipped again then he went on, “They didn’t find all the money. They seized your house, the contents, your cars, your accounts. Did he leave you with anything? Cover your ass at all?”

“No,” I told him and took another sip of beer. And it was at that moment I decided to fight fire with fire. “Why did you and Kristy get divorced?”

He looked down at me and answered without hesitation, “She didn’t share my vision of what our lives would be. That being copasetic most off the time, not up in each other’s shit nearly all the time. She married me with expectations of where our lives would lead, but she didn’t share those expectations with me. If she did, I’d never have married the bitch in the first place.”

“What were her expectations?” I asked.

“My turn, Toots,” he didn’t answer.

“Sorry,” I whispered and took another sip of my beer because I had nothing better to do.

“You didn’t know?” he asked

I studied at him, off balance again.

He asked questions I kind of understood, but they were questions that forced me to clarify in a way that I suspected he was trying to make me off balance.

“I didn’t know what?” I asked back to clarify.

“About the whores,” he clarified.

My middle moved back like he punched me, and I twisted my neck, looking away to hide the pain his words caused.

In doing this, I had no idea I missed the gentling of the air around him again, but even if I was looking at him, I wouldn’t have caught it.

I wasn’t numb to this.

Even after eighteen months.

Even after having my husband arrested in a middle-of-the-night raid of our house.

Even after having my photo, his photo, all those women’s photos (okay, there were only three, but three was a lot) on the covers of newspapers, and even some magazines, for months on end.