“Brilliant, amazing, incredible?”
“Feasible. Tomorrow we’ll sit down and draw up a business plan, work out some costs, and discuss this properly.” Pippa sent Flick a stern look. “And if you ambush me again...”
Flick bumped her with her shoulder. “What?”
“I’ll cut your bangs when you’re sleeping,” Pippa threatened.
“Deal.”
That went better than she’d thought it would, Flick thought. It was her turn to buy a round so she ordered two glasses of white wine from Wendy, Jack’s bartender, since Jack was leaning over the bar, whispering into the ear of a bottle blonde. She had a cleavage you could stash a baby in and her frame looked too skinny to support such a huge rack. Flick desperately wanted to suggest that she eat a cheeseburger or five. Jack’s taste in women was abysmal, as per usual. He was constantly distracted by big hair and bigger chests, the idiot.
“Sawyer’s just arrived,” Pippa told her after Wendy placed their drinks in front of them. Flick looked toward the door and there he was, dressed in a pair of battered jeans, boots, and a blue T-shirt that clung to his broad chest in all the right places. His hair was messy and he looked rough and tough and hot. He hadn’t taken three steps into the place before he got offers from three different women to buy him a drink. And probably to take him to bed.
Possibly an offer of marriage if his stalker from the forum was here, as she’d promised to be.
Flick shook her head. “Bees to honey. They just can’t resist him, can they?”
“And he loves being irresistible,” Pippa said. “Thank God neither of us fell for him. Can you imagine being his girlfriend and having to fight off the masses?” Her distaste was painted on her face.
“And you said that with a straight face. Well done, honey,” Flick said, her tone even, but with mischief dancing in her eyes.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have never considered Sawyer to be anything more than my friend.” Pippa swatted her thigh when she lifted a disbelieving eyebrow. “He’s not my type.” Pippa hadn’t been able to make that statement while looking her in the eye since they were thirteen.
Just friends. Pffft!
“But Kai seems to be yours.”
“It’s just sex, Pips.” It took a huge amount of effort to sound and look as casual as she did.
“Which, judging by the goofy look on your face, he’s obviously very good at,” Pippa stated, her tone bone dry.
“He was.” Oh, what was the point of trying to play it cool? Pippa knew her inside out and she wasn’t fooling anyone. “I just look at him and I want to jump him. “
Pippa elbowed her in the ribs. “You did that already, in the middle of the afternoon. I do understand your attraction to Kai—he’s a good-looking guy. But he’s so not my type. He seems too—” Pippa looked for the word, “—intense for me. All mysterious and serious and dark and broody. Too much of a he-man.”
Flick caught the look Pippa shot at Sawyer and decided to stir the pot.
“Sawyer’s also like that,” she said.“I think it’s part of the ex-military, don’t-talk-to-me-about-what-I-did-there attitude radiating off them.”
“And that’s part of the reason I keep my distance from Sawyer. I don’t know him anymore. I used to talk to him about everything. But we stopped doing that when he stopped talking back. He’s changed. He’s harder, tougher, wilder,” Pippa pointed her finger at Flick’s nose and then at her wine glass. “And what is said in the bar stays in the bar. Never to be discussed again.”
Interesting, Flick thought. That one sentence explained a lot. Pippa always dated quiet, intellectual, soft men. Men she could handle? Men she felt safe with? Very interesting indeed.
“Anyway, I’ve had my moment of insanity and with Kai gone, I’m back to normal,” flick said.
“Really? You think so?”
Pippa gestured to the door and Flick didn’t need to turn to know that Kai had stepped inside. There was a beat of silence, a shift in the energy, a movement within the tectonic plates of the earth. Suddenly the bar that was her social haven, the place she felt safest in the world, was transformed into a place of intrigue, danger, and heightened anticipation.
Kai was still in Mercy.Shitcrapdamn.
Flick did a mental head thunk on the bar. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go! He was supposed to be on a plane, doing something somewhere else. That was the reason, the only reason—okay, apart from the fact that he was hot as hell and she was horny— why she'd had sex with him yesterday. If she’d known he was staying in town, that he’d be here longer, then she would’ve been sensible and kept her distance.
She didn’t want to deal with him, with how he made her feel. She had things to do, and problems to work through; she did not need him around to complicate her life.
So why was he still here?
Flick sucked in her breath as she turned around to watch the subject of their conversation winding his way through the tables to Sawyer’s side at the far end of the bar. God, look at him, all strength and control and don’t-mess-with-me attitude. He wore jeans and a plain white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing tanned forearms corded with muscles and raised veins. A high-tech watch circled his left wrist.