I couldn’t stop watching the look on Nate and Drew’s faces as they watched me sink shot after shot.

“What did you do, bring a pool shark with you?” Nate looked up at Mason who was watching me with a smirk on his face.

He shrugged his shoulders casually. “I told you she was awesome.”

And just like that, I got those stupid damn butterflies in my stomach again.

I wasn’t the kind of girl who got butterflies. I wasn’t.

“It’s not my fault you two kind of suck.” I shrugged my shoulders at Nate and Drew, and Mason’s smile widened.

“They do. Don’t they?” Mason jabbed at them and both guys rolled their eyes.

I leaned down to take my next shot, a shot that would leave Nate and Drew with basically no chance at coming back. I squared up my pool stick, and I looked down the line to make sure it was my best shot. I took a deep breath to steady my hands and suddenly all of my breath was ripped out of my lungs as I felt a hint of a touch of callused fingers against the back of my thighs.

I closed my eyes momentarily and opened them to see Mason staring at me from where he now stood beside me. Friends my ass. Mason was still playing a game. A game I wasn’t sure I didn’t want to play.

I took the shot and missed.

Fucking missed for the first time that night.

My gaze jerked up to his and I bit down on the inside of my lip when I looked at that lethal smirk on his face.

“You got too cocky, Staci. It happens to the best of us.” Nate moved around the pool table to line up his own shot, and I just smiled at him.

But Mason said nothing.

Not when I leaned against the wall next to him.

Not when I cocked an eyebrow at him waiting for whatever words I assumed he would spit out at me.

Instead, he just stared at my mouth. Stared at it like he was going to devour it at any minute, and I knew that I wouldn’t stop him. I had no chance in stopping him.

His breath rushed out and I could taste the hint of beer and lust on my lips.

“Mason, you’re up, man.”

I blinked. Letting reality set in as Mason turned away from me and headed toward the table.

This was not supposed to be happening.

We were supposed to be friends. That was the only way this relationship, I cringed at the word in my own head, could work. Otherwise, one of us was going to get hurt. Because that’s what Mason and I did. We hurt people. Not intentionally. At least that’s what I told myself, but I refused to allow a man to get close enough to me to hurt me, and over the years, pushing guys away had somehow resulted in me hurting too many good ones.

But here I was watching Mason bend down and take the shot. I watched the way his back bunched under his t-shirt as he guided the pool stick between his fingers. I stared at his ass that looked ungodly perfect in his jeans, and I ran my fingers through my hair.

Mason Connor was not the guy I should be losing my head around. He was the opposite actually because for the first time in a very long time, I think I was truly at risk for a guy hurting me.

Just the thought had me setting down my own pool stick and heading to the bar. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away, but I didn’t care. Fuck, that was a lie. I was already caring too much, and that was why I needed another shot of tequila.

The bartender came up to me the moment I stepped up to the crowded bar and I ordered my shot. I turned my back to the bar as I waited for him to pour my choice of poison, and I looked around the bar. There were so many hot guys in that bar, but even glancing at them felt wrong somehow.

And it was exactly what I didn’t want.

We were friends for fuck’s sake.

I turned to face the bar again, and my gaze halted when it hit him. He was sitting on a bar stool, a beer in his hand, and he was watching me with a soft smile on his face.

Not the same predatory smile that he had been looking at me with earlier, but a smile that looked like he was happy. Happy that I was here. Happy that we were friends, and that smile was far more dangerous.

And even though it killed me to even think it, I knew that I needed to do something to distance myself from him because I wasn’t going to get played by Mason Connor. I refused to get hurt, but something deep inside of me told me that I refused to hurt him as well. It was how I knew that this wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t going to go any further than this night.