Richard let the cue stick slide between his fingers hard and crash into the rack of balls propelling them to scatter all over the table. His eyes furiously watched as several of them began to sink into the side pockets and one in the corner. It was a good break and he was proud of it. Too bad he was playing a game by himself.

He sank more stripes than solids, so he played the stripes first. He had first picked up the game of pool when he was a teenager. His grandfather had a nice table in his basement and any time he could get a chance he was down there with the stereo blasting out great rock music and working on his billiards game. There was something very solitary about the game, even when you played it with people. You could play as teams, but even then it was really a man against man type of sport. When you had the stick in your hands it felt like it was you against the balls.

He had even played in a few tournaments when he was younger, but he had been completely shut out. That was a sobering fact as to how good he really thought he was. He had beaten all of his friends and family routinely, and as far as he could tell he was pretty good at the game. He had even become a force to be reckoned with in the pool halls in the local neighborhoods, but when he tried to go national it just fell apart. He barely made it past the qualifying rounds of the tournament before he was shut out. The way these guys played, as if they had all of the geometry of the game worked out in their heads and they knew exactly how to do it all scientifically, was a huge disadvantage to him.

If he had wanted to, he was sure he could have improved and in a few years he might have been a strong qualifier for a tournament like that, but when he really studied himself he didn’t see pool being his main occupation. By that time the legal field had called to him and he had pursued that instead—he never looked back.

But he still loved the game.

He sank three of the easier shots and then sat the stick down to pour another glass of whiskey. It was the way he liked to unwind at the end of the day. A solitary game of pool and a few drinks. Then he would shower and go to bed, if he was alone.

That was the thing, though. Did he want to be alone tonight? Angela had declined his offer to come back to his apartment, which had thrown him a bit. There was something very special about that girl, even more so than he had initially felt when he realized the strong attraction he had for her. He had been noticing her for a while. It was a strange realization and she had even touched on it during their earlier conversation at the picnic in the park.

He had not been totally straight with her since he felt a bit caught off guard by the question. The girl was so smart and bold. That was the thing that stuck out most about her to him and the thing he found most attractive. She had a lot of guts and she didn’t hide a bit of who she was and what she was thinking.

He remembered about a year and a half before at one of the parties he had attended as being the point at which he noticed his daughter’s best friend whom he had seen grow up in a whole different light. Angela’s parents had thrown the party to announce the launch of their first fragrance they were marketing and it had been a huge event.

Angela had shown up with Naomi, fashionably late as always. and the girls were obviously ready to have fun beyond fun. His eyes had landed on this vision of beauty standing beside his daughter and at first, he thought it was one of the new models that the Walters had just started working with to market the fragrance, but after doing a double-take he realized that it was Angela. She was stunning and graceful. He had not really been able to stop thinking about her the rest of the evening. The situation seemed strange to him and somehow he didn’t feel it was right to make his attraction known to her that night. This was something that had to be done slowly and delicately given the situation; he was fine to wait, he was patient. But every time he had seen Angela since then she just became more and more alluring.

It had been a long time since a woman had captivated his imagination this way. Of course, he had to consider the fallout of pursuing a romance with this particular woman. The Walters were his closest friends. Naomi was Angela’s best friend. None of them would have been particularly happy to hear about this romance popping up.

But he wasn’t sure he really cared anymore. Angela was her own woman; she was going to be a brilliant attorney unless she focused her attention on modeling. There was something so special about her as a model. His friend Nick Barnes had texted him to say what a brilliant find Angela was: the camera loved her and everyone who would see these pictures would say the same thing. If those pictures landed in front of the right eyes then her life was going to change.

He kept thinking about that first kiss with Angela today. The fiery passion that had welled up within him was almost impossible to control. He wanted to just take her and rip her clothes off right then and there and take her in the back of the cab. It had taken every ounce of restraint that he possessed to keep himself together.

Those feelings of lust had not abated in the several hours since then. He had tried several things to take his mind off it, but he could not stop thinking about her. He wanted to hold her, touch her, and just be with her. But he knew that he had to take it slow; it was up to her to dictate the pace. From what he could tell, Angela didn’t strike him as the type of woman who was very experienced in the ways of love. There was just a vibe that she put off that said she was focused and determined on other things in the world and that her love was going to be tough to earn, but it was going to be so valuable and special to the man who did obtain it.

He hoped to be that man. He really did.

As Richard finished running the table and sank the last two balls his gaze landed on his phone. His thoughts were dwelling on a few of the recent women he had been mildly involved with. He wondered if any of them would be interested in some romantic fun tonight.

He grabbed the phone and began to scroll through his contacts. When he arrived at Melanie’s number his thumb paused over it. He was ready to push the button but Angela’s face popped into his head just then. He wasn’t going to be able to get her out of his mind. What kind of fun would he have with Melanie if his mind (and his heart?) were stuck on Angela?

He sat the phone down and sipped his drink. It had been a long time since he had felt so strongly about a woman. There was something about her that he just could not get out of his mind and he knew that if he made love to another woman tonight he would feel empty and guilty inside. He wasn’t sure he would be able to see Angela again without telling her about it, even though they’d had one date and had made no real commitments to each other.

What was going on? Why did he feel this way? He couldn’t make heads or tails out of it, but he was enjoying the feeling. He could not wait to see Angela again and wrap his arms around her. The way she felt against his own body was the way he had always imagined it should feel. It was beyond sexual; there was something real and concrete there. They had established a connection and he wanted to honor it. Richard knew that if he spent the night with another woman then he would feel like he was cheating on Angela and he was not sure he wanted to subject himself to that pain.

He knew what he had to do.

Richard finished his drink and stepped into a hot shower, allowing his body to adjust to the warm water. It felt so good rolling down his stomach and onto his raging hardness. He wanted Angela so badly.

Her sweet face was all that he was able to think about as he pleasured himself.

After the shower, he lay down and slept like a baby. He hoped he was able to see Angela tomorrow.