“Aren’t you?” she challenged before waving her hands in the air. “Don’t answer that! It doesn’t matter what type of guy you are. I can’t go there.” She looked around to make sure that no one could overhear their conversation. “We need to get rid of the purple elephant in the room. We hooked up, as adults do. It can’t happen again. For me, that was a one-time thing.”
She pulled in a deep breath. “I’m trying not to make more mistakes with men, and if we did that again, I suspect that you would be a huge one. I live here, my business is here, and my family. I’m no good at no-string affairs, and I do not want a relationship right now. But we seem to spark off each other, so I think it’s better if we just keep our distance.”
Hadn’t Kai just been telling himself the same thing? His sixth sense, the one that had kept him safe for so long in so many bad situations, was screaming that he should run, that she had the ability to turn his life upside down and inside out.
She was also Sawyer’s old friend, and there were connections, and loyalties that made this complicated. If they slept together again and she got hurt because he couldn’t,wouldn’t, give her anything more than sex, he’d have a lot of people pissed at him. Pippa, Jack, Sawyer. He had enough on his plate with Sawyer and the business without adding the complication of sleeping with his friend's quasi-sister.Just run, dude.Seriously. Safer, cleaner, wiser.
Flick tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, man-wise, for a while.”
She wanted him, he could tell. Her eyes were on his mouth and had turned deeper and darker with what he recognized as flat-out lust. Her body was craving the same thing he was, and they both knew that if they found themselves alone they’d get naked faster than C-4 detonated. But he could tell she was serious about what she was saying. Kai rubbed his jaw, watching the emotions—confusion, lust, passion, fear—flash in and out of her eyes.
Her next question came from out of the blue. “You’re ex-military, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you studied military strategy, then?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t military strategists say that not every battle needs to be fought? That we don’t need to take part in every skirmish? It would be wiser to walk away from this crazy heat. For me, at least. I don’t want to complicate my life.”
Complicated was a word Kai avoided linking with a woman. Any woman. He twisted his lips and ran a hand through his hair. He just had to say yes, and agree with her, because she was making sense. That would be the smart thing to do. So why was he having such a hard time getting his tongue to form the words? Kai was irritated with himself—he was not a wimpy schoolboy with the confidence of a wet hen. He was bigger and better than that.
“You and I, not a good idea,” Flick reiterated, just in case he didn’t get it the first couple of times.
He chose the smallest word he could find to get his point across. “Okay.”
“So we un-complicate this by walking away,” Flick bit her bottom lip before holding out her hand. “Shake on it?”
Kai looked at her hand and kept his hand around his beer bottle, purely so that he wouldn’t reach for her. “Consider it done.”
Flick’s breasts rose and fell on her sigh as she dropped her hand. “Okay. Good, glad that’s sorted.”
Golden eyes clashed with sea green and Kai saw the relief and the regret. Yeah, this was a good decision. Best decision ever.
A little more enthusiasm would be a good idea, Manning.
Kai looked up, relieved to see Sawyer stomping his way over to them, an annoyed frown on his face. That could only mean one thing, and Kai had to grin. “She whipped you?”
“She beat me by a shot,” Sawyer said between gritted teeth. Kai couldn’t help his rough laughter at seeing his calm, easygoing friend looking so thoroughly pissed off.
Sawyer lifted an eyebrow. “Think you can do better, dipshit?”
With his hands tied behind his back. “I can, actually, play pool.” Kai placed his bottle on the counter and stood up. “What’s the bet?”
Because it wasn’t any fun unless there was a wager, something to lose, a hill to climb, or a position to be won. “If you win, I’ll stop pressurizing you to make a decision about buying the property. If you lose to her then you get into the rig with McDougal; no rules, no protective equipment, just balls to the wall.”
Kai held Sawyer’s eye but didn’t blink or give any other indication of his surprise. That was a hell of a bet. If he lost he’d end up bloody and blue—McDougal was a master at various forms of martial arts, and a genius at hand-to-hand fighting. He and Sawyer, no slouches themselves, regularly got their asses whipped in training by the intense Scot. But there was no chance of him losing to Pippa. Kai had been playing pool all his life, and he’d taken on opponents a lot better, and scarier, than Pippa. He looked towards the room where the pint-sized fairy stood next to the pool table, watching them.
Really, how good could she be? And how could he lose?
“She’s pretty good, Kai,” Flick said, her face serious. “Don’t take the bet.”
Kai shrugged, bent over, and brushed his mouth against her ear. “She doesn’t worry me.” He pulled back and didn’t speak the words on the tip of his tongue.
You, on the other hand, scare the shit out of me.
Chapter Seven