She could handle that. She hated his flirting. It ignited a deep, desperate need inside her to flirt back. But, no. He had to do the one thing that was hardest for her to resist. He was the most frustratingly sexy, irritatingly tempting man she’d ever known.
He worried her even more than the creepy stalker pictures.
“Cops wrote up a report?” He said it as if it were a question, but they all knew it was a statement. Reece was Mr. Security. He’d spent ten years in the army, and while Sierra would rather actually do that goat than admit it, the idea of him in his sexy Green Beret uniform had fueled more than one bunny-bout, a term she’d coined in honor of her rabbit-eared vibrator. Now he ran his own security firm.
So he obviously knew his stuff. Which was fine, except Sierra didn’t want him mixing his stuff with hers. But—she shot a quick glance at Belle’s concerned expression as she scooped black beans into a bowl—she might not get a choice. At least not if she didn’t want to worry her best friend.
Caught by the bonds of friendship, Sierra just shrugged and gave Reece a breezy look. “Sure, the police wrote a report. But that was just for form, you know? Poor taste and tacky sex fetishes aren’t a crime, as I’m sure you know.”
His blue eyes sparkled in wicked delight at her dig. Sierra’s lips twitched, but she kept her expression smooth. No point letting him know she was tickled that he’d understood her humor.
“They asked you for a list of suspects?”
“Of course.” At his pointed look she rolled her eyes and shrugged. “I have no suspects. If I had a clue who was doing this, I’d go beat them over the head with their own computer.”
“Ex-boyfriends, old lovers, new lovers. Guys you’ve jilted, guys you’ve scorned, guys you’ve shot down?”
“Oh yeah, the list was pages long,” Sierra said with a wideeyed expression as she pursed her lips in a way she knew would get his attention. “I was with four different guys last week, but since the Galaxy soccer team is on the road, they figured it wasn’t them.”
Mitch, who’d just returned, gave a snort of laughter. Reece just shot her a long, considering look. There was something latently violent and predatory in his eyes that made her breath catch. She refused to squirm, though.
Sierra shrugged at Belle’s hiss. So what if it was all bullshit. She wasn’t going to discuss her sex life with Reece. Duh. She obviously wasn’t doing a soccer team. And she wasn’t about to admit she hadn’t had sex or anything approaching a relationship since she’d slipped up and given in to lust two months ago. Belle had been handling the grand opening of Mitch’s resort—their biggest job to date. It had quickly gone from a standard event to a sexfest of planning fun, with a little twist of sabotage. Nobody could say Eventfully Yours didn’t go all-out for their clients. In her attempt to distract Reece from discovering Belle sneaking around Mitch’s office, Sierra had lost control of her argument with him and they’d ended up doing the nasty.
Just another reason to stay away from him. She never triumphed in their little verbal skirmishes. Even when she won.
The memory of their against-the-wall encounter made her squirm, her silk panties growing uncomfortably warm. Needing to cool off, she grabbed her margarita and drained the deliciously icy concoction in one gulp.
Letting the sugar-laden tequila calm her, she met Reece’s eyes with a raised-brow look of her own.
No. He didn’t need any encouragement. After all, she knew firsthand how little stroking his…ego required to expand to mammoth proportions.
REECE’S FINGERS gripped the neck of his beer bottle so hard it should have shattered. Even though he knew she was giving him a bad time, the idea of any guy’s hands on Sierra’s body made him crazy. Any guy but himself, of course.
Although from the way the sexy little brunette was glaring daggers at him, he didn’t figure he’d be putting his hands on her anytime soon.
He’d never met a woman who challenged him like Sierra did. What baffled him was that she was totally not his type. Reece liked his ladies sweet and biddable. Before ending his disastrous eighteen-month marriage three years ago, he’d pictured himself settling down someday with a sexy little gal who wanted nothing more than to make his life easy, his bed hot and his future kids well-behaved. If that made him an old-fashioned jerk, he was fine with it. He wasn’t out to please the world.
He’d spent most of his service years in combat and saw no reason to bring it into his personal life. Or more specifically, his sex life. And yet, Sierra Donovan was the most combative, argumentative, independent woman he’d ever met. And he couldn’t get enough of her.
One too many hits to the head, he figured. And he’d get over it, just as soon as he got her out of his system. But he’d come to realize that to do that, he’d have to get her into his bed to work through all the wild fantasies he had.
She was proving a mite uncooperative on that front.
Of course, uncooperative seemed to be Sierra’s M.O.
“You gave the cops all these men’s names?” he asked, his words featherlight. No point in letting on that she’d got to him. She’d just poke harder if she knew.
“The cops have a full roster of my sexual encounters,” she returned with a roll of those pretty blue eyes. “They also have a list of all the people I’ve pissed off in the last few months.”
Her look made it crystal clear he was on both lists.
Reece grinned. Good, he liked being front and center in her mind.
“I’m guessing they didn’t plan to follow up,” he commented when she was silent.
“Well, they did praise me on my dexterity. And one of them complimented my ability to type with my mouth that full. But like me, they weren’t overly impressed with the list itself.”
She shoots. She scores.
Reece ground his teeth to hold back his growl of fury. Her offhand comment about the explicit nature of the pictures sparked an angry flame in his gut. He didn’t like anger; things always got ugly when he lost his temper. But the implications, the message those pictures were sending, infuriated him.
“The cops have the pictures?” he asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
“They made copies,” Sierra admitted with a shrug as she took her empty margarita glass to the sink. Belle handed her a glass of iced tea, the move so easy and natural, he could tell this was their norm.
“But you still have the originals?”
“Why?” she asked, lifting one of the overflowing platters of vegetables from the counter. “Were you looking for something to replace your Hustler collection?”
“Well, you have to admit, Hustler doesn’t feature farm animals.”
“And you’re such a country boy, you miss that?”
“There ya go,” he agreed easily, not bothering to hide his amusement. Taking his cue from her and Belle, who was carrying the bowl of black beans in to dinner, he grabbed the last dish and gestured to the ladies to precede him.
Belle’s gaze was shooting back and forth between him and Sierra as if she were following a tennis match. Mitch, though, had his serious CEO look on, which told Reece his cousin was worried. About the stalker pictures or the potential disaster if Sierra cut loose with that temper lurking in her eyes, Reece wasn’t sure.
But Sierra didn’t say anything. Instead she shot him an unreadable look as she headed toward the dining room.
Was she keeping their hot little encounter a secret from her best friend? Maybe. It’d been two months since they’d had wild closet sex at Mitch’s resort and she’d been trying to pretend he didn’t exist ever since.
“Let’s eat,” Belle suggested, obviously trying to break the tension as