“I’m sorry, Ms. Sweet, Mr. Martin isn’t available.” Sharlene was doing her best to persuade Miranda to leave, but she was slowly folding under the pressure. Her shoulders had curved so far forward that Sharlene looked like a letter C.
Whether to protect the under-fire secretary or just to get a better vantage point to retell the story later, the bank’s sole security guard, Cyril, had positioned himself in front of Logan’s closed office door. The speculative grin on his face eliminated any intimidation factor offered by his uniform.
“I’m not going anywhere until I see that blackballing piece of—”
“Looking for me?” Logan’s voice carried across the lobby.
The customers and bank staff fell silent. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted George Hampton fiddling with his hearing aid, no doubt turning it up to full volume to catch what would happen next.
Miranda turned and hit him with a glare hot enough to spark a forest fire. “Bribing Neland with private hunting privileges on your land in North Carolina? That’s low, even for a Martin.”
“Honestly, I figured he’d hold out for a hunting trip to Canada. That man does love bow season.”
She stalked across the lobby, her hips swaying and her full pink lips flattened into a grim line. Damn if he didn’t want to kiss her until she forgot why she was pissed off in the first place.
God knew he could barely remember at the moment.
The locked, waist-high gate dividing the lobby from the teller area stopped her attack. “Dirty tricks.”
“Business negotiations.” He smirked just to see her blue eyes spark. She didn’t disappoint.
“You’re a pompous ass and a double-dealing scoundrel.”
“Such flattery.” He pressed his palms to his cheeks. “I do believe I’m blushing.”
She reached over the gate and flipped the lock before pushing the gate open with such force it banged against the wall. That got the tellers buzzing, but she ignored their surprised chirps as she continued on the warpath.
“I didn’t realize you were too petrified to fight fair.”
“A Martin scared of a Sweet? In your dreams, Sweetling.” The use of her hated high school nickname had her left eye twitching, just like he knew it would.
She jabbed her finger into his chest, right above his speeding heart. “I only see you in my nightmares.”
“Really, that’s the best you can do?” Damn, she looked amazing when her eyes snapped with fire.
Her spine went ramrod straight, forcing her breasts to jut out and her hard nipples to poke against the thin, red V-neck sweater. Were they a light pink or a dusky peach? The need to know hit him like a gorilla on the warpath. His hunger for her became an almost living force, pushing him, goading him into pushing her buttons. All of them. Until she lost control. God, he wanted nothing more at this moment than to see her right on the precipice of need and satisfaction, then watch her crash over into oblivion.
“I’m not here just to trade barbs.” A breathiness replaced her strident tone. “We need to agree to fair rules of engagement.”
He gripped his hands together in front of the hard-on pushing against his zipper so much so that he worried his dick would have an impression. “Why?”
“Because I’m a Sweet. Do you really want to see what it’s like when I don’t fight fair?”
He thought back to the generations of her family who’d practically built the county jail with all the bail money they’d paid. Miranda didn’t seem the type, but he’d been wrong about her before. Logan swept one arm back toward the vault. “After you.”
She brushed past him into the vault, leaving a trail of jasmine in her wake.
Pushing aside the worries of what the googly-eyed witnesses were about to spread all over town, he grasped the cool metal handle and swung the door shut behind him, the automatic lock clicking into place. Now it was just him and Miranda in a locked vault with one waist-high table and no windows or cameras. Just him and the woman who made his dick beg for mercy every time he even thought of her. And he’d thought of her a lot since the other night at the river. Too often. And usually it involved her naked and panting in ecstasy. He hadn’t jerked off so much in two days since high school.
Miranda got to the far wall of the ten-foot narrow room and turned around. “I don’t expect you to go down without a fight, but let’s at least make it a clean fight.”
“It seems I’m holding all the cards.” Good to have, but that wasn’t what he wanted to be holding at the moment.
Triumph flickered across her face. “I know you’d like to think so.”
He loved seeing her like this. Confident. Powerful. Assertive. Even all those years ago, she’d carried herself like she owned the town. And now? Shit. She was a queen who wasn’t about to give even an inch of hard-fought ground. He loved that about her. The woman was just as fascinating fully dressed as she was naked.
“And what am I going to get from agreeing to rules of engagement for our little bet?” Logan asked.