Page 116 of Skins Game

Heck, Kingston had a fantastic swing. In the interest of science and for the good of the company, Nicole should just walk over there and see what soundhisgolf ball made.

Her feet seemed glued to the plastic-prickly fake grass mat under her soles.

Besides, she could listen from over here. It was pretty obvious that when he swung the club, it made a loud?—

Crack.

Even accounting for Kingston’s much higher swing speed, that didn’t sound quite right either, or was the simulator wall between them absorbing some of the sound waves?

Nicole fidgeted, tapping the golf ball back and forth with her too-heavy club.

Crack,and then Kingston made a descending, dissatisfied hum.

Nicole charged around the barrier between the two simulator bays. “You heard it, too. Didn’t you?”

Kingston glanced up at her, and fear wormed into Nicole’s heart that maybe he hated her.

The flatness in his blue eyes was so different from the warmth and humor that had been there when they were together that Nicole stopped walking.

Maybe his anger at her refusing to hand over the design for the clubs that may very well save Sidewinder from bankruptcy had turned to straight-up distaste.

Kingston looked away and stared at the head of his golf club on the ground next to a ball. “This driver doesn’t sound quite like it did that night you and I were locked in here.”

“I had to make some changes for manufacturing, and I don’t think Dali is producing the same quality as our in-house, hand-crafted prototypes were.”

His voice was that same emotionless monotone. “Why was the original design changed?”

“Because there’s no way we could make a thousand Excalibur golf club heads on site, which is the goal you set, by Thanksgiving with the old process. There’s just no way. Even ifwe had a hundred blacksmiths pounding on them night and day, it still wouldn’t have worked. It had to be mass producible.”

Kingston turned the club upside down and examined its fat head and striking surface. “So it’s not the same.”

“It couldn’t be and meet manufacturing deadlines. I’m trying to figure out how to bring the specs closer to the original design before six o’clock tomorrow night, which is when they start work in the morning in Dali. If we can email the new specs and they can cast another one right away and airmail it, I’ll have time to look at that one before we finalize the design for the PGA submission.”

Kingston nodded. “That’s excellent business sense.”

“Can I hear you hit it just a few more times? Arvind is analyzing the coefficient of restitution and other specs in the lab, but sometimes hearing its sound gives me more clues as to what is wrong.”

Kingston’s flash of a glance at her held a shred of humor. “Kind of like the sound of a really good sword in battle?”

“That luxurious swish as you murder your enemy,” she quipped back.

His low chuckle made her homesick for joking around as they lounged between cool sheets. “Again, remind me not to be alone with you in your office when you’re sharpening your katana.”

“The last time didn’t go so badly for you.”

His glance at her was wary, but as he inhaled and his shoulders rose, his whole body seemed to swell as he stepped toward her.

What the heckers was she doing?

But she didn’t step backward.

Instead, she steppedtowardKingston, her freezing body gravitating toward a fire.

In two more long-legged strides, he was reaching for her waist and the back of her head, and his mouth crashed down on hers.

Nicole grabbed his shoulder and cricked her arm around the back of his neck, and she didn’t so much melt against Kingston as whip her arms and one leg around him like a vine trying to climb a tree.

As his lips plundered her mouth, he ran his hand from the back of her knee up her thigh to her hip, and his thumb hooked around the string bikini band of her panties.