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  Breathless from his potent stare, Yvette lifted a hand to wiggle her fingers in a small wave.

  Suddenly he went into motion. Saying something to the guy next to him, Cannon handed him the pool stick. The other men—some of them fighters, by the looks of them—jokingly protested. One of the women, smiling too widely, grabbed his arm with playful arguments.

  After a whisper in her ear and a kiss to her cheek, Cannon disengaged from her. He pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket, tossed them on the table to appease everyone and walked away.

  Knowing she’d caused a scene, heat rushed into Yvette’s face. She could feel everyone staring at her now. In order to cope, she kept her gaze only on Cannon. Breathing harder, she tracked his stride around the tables, around human bottlenecks and displaced chairs on a path to reach her.

  God, she thought she’d remembered, but the powerful way he affected her felt entirely new. She bit her bottom lip hard, fighting the urge to flee—or launch herself at him.

  And suddenly it was too late to do, either. Cannon reached her, still said nothing as his attention moved over her again, this time with more familiarity. The reality of him was so much better than the memory, his height, how his wide shoulders blocked out the view of the rest of the room—sometimes the rest of the world.

  She saw how deepened breathing swelled his chest, the loose-limbed way he held his long muscular arms, the intent way he watched her.

  Being this near to him wrecked her poise. The silence made her more jittery still, so she licked her lips and whispered, “Cannon...”

  One corner of his mouth curled as he touched her cheek, smoothed his fingertips along her jaw. Then, as if it happened all the time, he drew her into his chest and hugged her right off her feet...

  Copyright © 2014 by Lori Foster

  ISBN-13: 9781459256224

  HARD KNOCKS

  Copyright © 2014 by Lori Foster

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