Enemies on Tap (8 page)

Chapter
Eight

“Where. Is. He?”

Logan jerked his gaze up from the safety deposit box at the sound of Miranda’s voice as it bounced around
the metal walls of the bank vault. Adrenaline ricocheted through his system. Judging by the vehemence with which she’d spit out the words, he’d give her a ten on the Richter scale. He’d known she’d show up eventually, but the wait and uncertainty of exactly when had driven him nuts. Logan’s life had been all about certainty and well-developed plans until Miranda had returned to Salvation. Now he couldn’t silence the nagging doubt that he might not win the most important bet he’d ever made.

Everyone in town had heard about the brewery’s dock collapsing. It had been the perfect time to dissuade local contractors from working with Miranda, throwing up one more stumbling block in her path. He’d wondered how long it would take for her to show up mad as a wet cat with her claws out. His heartbeat kicked into high gear. From a war-of-wills perspective only, not because he couldn’t stop thinking about the way her blue eyes darkened when she was challenged or because he looked for her honey brown waves every time he left his house. This was strictly business.

Dude, you are delusional.

By the time he’d made it to the thick door leading into the safety deposit vault, Miranda stood with her hands on her full hips, staring daggers at his secretary.

He’d always thought of himself as primarily an ass man. However, Miranda Sweet had proven him wrong because her long legs encased in tight jeans and dark brown riding boots were enough to make a Catholic sprint to confession. Add in the way her chest was heaving and how her honey brown hair had gone wild in a way that begged a man to run his fingers through the mass of waves, and she was a wet dream—albeit an angry one. And somehow, that made it even better.

“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.

“I won’t tell DeBoer Financial about this great little local bank ripe for takeover.” She sauntered over to the table, tracing a line down its center with her red-tipped nail, before she stopped just outside of his reach and hopped up on the table. Her long legs dangled in the air. “You have non-family member stockholders who only care about the bottom line. Imagine how they’d react to the opportunity to make more money by becoming part of a larger organization.”

“Good luck with that.” He closed the distance between them, anticipation vibrating up his spine. Being this close to her was like walking a tight rope—exhilarating, nerve-wracking, and above all, amazing. “The Martins own 60 percent of the stock.”

“True.” She tilted her head and gazed up at him through her thick lashes. “But do you want to spend your precious time on that industrial park you’re so determined to build or fighting off a takeover challenge?”

Her plan wouldn’t have any long-term effect on the bank’s ownership, but it would cause a headache he really didn’t need right now. The industrial park’s investors were already jittery.

“Tell me something, Miranda.” Giving into the need ready to eat him alive, he positioned himself between her open legs and placed his palms flat on either side of her luscious hips. The pulse in her neck kept pace with his own rapid heart rate, and his body throbbed with want. He couldn’t help but inhale a deep breath of her teasing scent. If he didn’t watch it, he’d be falling for the enemy. Again. “What counts as fair?”

Her teeth raked across her bottom lip before she sucked it in. “Stop bribing contractors not to work with me.”

He shouldn’t just say no, but
hell
no. That squirrelly guy from the brewery had been right. Logan hated to lose. Hated. It. But he didn’t give a rat’s ass about all of that right now, not with Miranda so close he could count each one of the freckles decorating her cleavage until they disappeared beneath the V of her sweater. Even with the bet and their personal history hanging over them, he
needed
to count the freckles hidden by the soft cashmere. Could there be a way if they fought fair? Was he ready to take that bet?

Miranda’s tongue swiped across the center of her very pink bottom lip, but her hooded gaze never wavered from his eyes.

Logan slid his hands over her jeans until his palms lay across her firm thighs, thumbs against the raised inseam of her jeans. The feel of her against him heightened everything except his sense of self-preservation. Fuck it. He was all in. “I’ll stop bribing contractors not to work with you.”

The single sentence hung in the inch of air between them. Tension pulled his balls tight, and need swirled at the base of his spine. Primal. Bone deep. All-encompassing. Worlds were created or destroyed in moments like this.

She flexed her muscles beneath his touch, leaning forward as her lips parted. “I don’t want to want you, and this doesn’t change anything.” Her words brushed against his parted lips, taunting him with their nearness. “I still hate your guts.”

“Liar.” His mouth crashed down to hers, and he surrendered to the combustible cocktail of frustration, lust, and something too new to define drowning them both.

She moaned into his mouth, opening fully beneath him and inviting him to plunder her sweet depths. But this wasn’t a surrender. It was challenge for control, and the last threads tying him to where he was began to unravel. When her legs circled his waist and locked him into place, the last vestiges of Martin-bred propriety fell in a tattered heap to the vault floor.

Here. Now. Miranda. Nothing else mattered.

Leaning into her, he moved his hands across the worn denim of her jeans to grasp her hips and pull her even closer, eliciting a soft mewl of pleasure. Abandoning her mouth, his lips traced across her arched neck, licking his way down her throbbing pulse until he stopped at the spot where her neck met her shoulder. Drunk on the taste of her skin, he paused to inhale the rich, sensual scent of her perfume as her pulse fluttered against her throat.

He slipped his fingers beneath the hem of her red sweater, raising the soft material until he had to relinquish the taste of her creamy skin so he could pull her sweater off. With the tip of his finger, he followed the trail of pale peach freckles across her collarbone and over the upper swells of her breasts, a wave of goose bumps following in his finger’s wake.

When his finger disappeared into the deep valley of her cleavage encased in a lacy black bra, Miranda closed her eyes and dropped her head back, her hair cascading down to the polished wood table. It had been so long since he’d seen her like this—warm, inviting, devastating in her willingness to go after what she wanted wholeheartedly. The unfinished business between them snapped from the past to the present, and he meant to finish it here and now.

Her tempting nipples pushed against the flimsy, see-through material, begging to be touched. He dropped his head, licked the lace covering her hard nub, then blew against the damp spot, eliciting another throaty moan that grabbed him by the balls and squeezed. “What do you want, Miranda?”

“You know what I want.”

Loving the breathy quality to her voice because it meant she was just as far gone as he was, Logan traced a circle around her nipple. He could see she wanted him, but he needed to hear it. “
Tell me.”

“This.” Miranda raised her blue-eyed gaze to him, reached behind her, and undid her bra. The black lace fell from her skin, revealing two of the most perfect tits he’d ever seen. The sound of her amused chuckle told him she hadn’t missed the effect. “Please.”

It was all the answer he needed. Dropping his mouth to her heated flesh, he traced the outline of her light pink nipple before flicking it with his tongue and switching his attention to her other breast.

“God, yes,” she whispered as she writhed against him.

His hand dipped between them to the button of her jeans. It flicked open with only the slightest pressure, and as he lowered the zipper, she moaned his name, anticipation and agony heavy in each syllable. Desperate to touch her, but hampered by the angle, he slid his thumb into her lace panties and caressed her slick folds.

“Damn, you feel good.” He pressed lightly on the nub, and her thighs tensed as she arched into him. “So hot and wet for me.”

“It’s been so long, I’m sure just about anyone would get me like this.” She rocked against him, twisting her hips to increase the friction.

“You’re a lousy liar.” Withdrawing his thumb, despite her regretful moan, he used it to trace a wet line across her nipple, then licked the sweet juice away. Greedy for more, he sucked her other nipple into his mouth, tugging on the nub as she squirmed beneath him and moaned.

“Enough.” She shoved at his shoulders, pushing him back, and hopped off the table.

Dazed by her sudden rejection, his mind went blank. But then she reached for his shirt, yanking it out of his pants. She made fast work of his zipper and had her hand wrapped around his aching hard length before his slacks dropped to his ankles.

He nearly came just from the contact of her cool fingers on his overheated flesh. “Miranda.”

“Oh no, you’ve been torturing me.” Sinking down to her knees, she raised her blue-eyed gaze to him. “Now it’s my turn.”

The exquisite torment of her tongue hurt so good he couldn’t stop the low groan from escaping. She followed the move by wrapping her lips around the crown and engulfing him, then pulling back and starting the process again. When he thought it couldn’t get better, she took him again deep into her hot mouth. Looking down and seeing her glistening lips wrapped around him amped up the tingling sensation in his balls. She gazed up at him with wide blue eyes. If he didn’t stop her now, he’d lose control. There was no way he’d do that before he sent her over the edge.