The Billionaire's Challenging Beauty (Bold, Alaskan Men Book 2) (2 page)

No, she shouldn’t do it, she told herself.  It was childish and pointless.  Saeger was just being a boss, he didn’t mean to snap at her.  Although…it suddenly occurred to her that he never snapped at the other staff members.  He reserved all of his crankiness for her.  When that realization struck her, she found it to be a perfectly valid reason to play another prank on him.

She took another bottle down off of the shelf and replaced it with a full one, almost gritting her teeth in her efforts to ignore the temptation to do something evil as retribution. 

Her eyes glanced over at his phone, thinking about how perfect the idea was.  Shaking her head, she pulled yet another bottle down, trying to focus on work.  No, she wasn’t going to that level tonight.  She would be good.  She would play by the rules.  Absolutely, under no circumstances, would she pull another prank on the guy. 

She was going to be good tonight!

She stocked up the beer fridge, pulled up new bottles and made sure that there were peanuts and pretzels on all the tables.  She cleaned all the tables, even wiping down the chairs, swept the floor and did everything she could to stay away from behind the bar where Saeger was working. 

Around five o’clock, the regulars started to meander into the bar.  And by seven o’clock, the place was roaring with laughter and music.  Saeger was pouring the drinks as fast as she could bring them out to the tables, while still making sure the guys sitting at the bar were okay as well. 

And during that whole time, Saeger would snap at her if her order of drinks rested on the pickup area for more than a few seconds, urging her to increase her speed, to smile more, to… whatever it was that popped into his head that might annoy her. 

But by nine o’clock, she’d had enough of Saeger barking orders.  She was irritated with him and that was never good for her willpower. 

Not that she had a great deal of willpower anyway. 

So when he ordered her to take her break, she went back to the employee locker room and pulled the ball of rubber bands out of her purse.  Walking behind the bar, she poured herself a glass of ginger ale and, as swiftly and surreptitiously as possible, snagged Saeger’s cell phone. 

Back in the employee locker room, she worked quickly.  Black rubber bands had been hard to find, but with the help of her new friend Violet who was engaged to marry Creek, one of Saeger’s best friends, she’d found them at an office supply store a few towns over.  Her fingers were fast and her mind worked faster.  When her fifteen minutes were up, she tossed the seriously diminished ball of rubber bands into the dumpster behind the bar, hid Saeger’s cell phone under her blue sweater, the one she’d worn specifically because she’d thought blue soothed the angry beast and she’d been trying to be nice to Saeger…until he’d gotten all snappish and mean…and walked back to the bar area.  It was easy to slip the phone back where Saeger had placed it earlier that night. 

When the phone didn’t ring, her frustration increased.  She’d never been especially patient and the possibility of taunting Saeger just added to her eagerness to take him down a notch tonight. 

Fifteen minutes later, his phone still hadn’t rung.  It was time to take matters into her own hands.  Stepping to the back of the room where the lights were dimmer, she pressed in a number, then stuffed her phone back into her pocket.  As she walked up to the bar, she had to keep herself from laughing at the way Saeger was looking for his phone.  When he finally realized that the ringing was coming from the odd, rectangular form where his phone should be, his bellow could be heard above the din of the conversation and music.  “Tyla!” he roared even as he pulled rubber band after rubber band off of his phone. 

The ringing stopped and he looked over at her.  Tyla had perfected her innocent look, but no one was fooled.  Every person in the bar was roaring with laughter and Tyla only looked down at his phone again.  “What’s wrong, Saeger?  Having trouble?” she asked with the sweetest voice possible. 

Everyone knew that she’d done it.  But thankfully, Saeger couldn’t prove it. 

Unfortunately, she hadn’t anticipated that his genius mind would kick into gear and she had to duck fast when he started shooting the dark rubber bands at her. 

Why oh why had she given the man weapons?!  Obviously, she hadn’t thought this prank through as thoroughly as she should have! 

The other patrons laughed even harder and she was having trouble finding new places to hide because she was laughing too hard as well.  When he got her bottom, square on, she yelped as the sting got her and she stood up, laughing and holding one hand out while the other rubbed her denim clad target.  “Okay!  You got me!”

Saeger continued to unravel his phone, but thankfully, no more rubber bands turned into missiles in her direction after that. 

The evening continued and things were starting to slow down.  Only about half the tables were full when she walked over to the bar and squirted hand sanitizer on her fingers, trying to get rid of the sticky feeling on her fingers.  Why did her fingers feel like they were covered in honey?  She looked at her hands, thinking she was losing her mind.  The bar didn’t use honey in any of the foods served, so why…?  She had no idea where the honey had come from.  Maybe it wasn’t honey, she thought as she continued to rub the sanitizer over her palms and fingers. 

Looking over at Saeger, she caught a strange look in his eyes.  Could he…? 

No!  Saeger wouldn’t have….still, she looked around for the source of whatever was so sticky.  Not finding anything, she just accepted that her mind was playing tricks on her. 

“Order up, Tyla,” Saeger called out, filling her tray with three beers. 

Tyla absently walked over to her tray, still trying to rub the sanitizer into her skin.  But it wasn’t rubbing in, she realized.

“Order up!  Hurry, Tyla!” Saeger yelled, from the other end of the bar as he poured a whiskey for Tom, a fisherman who was at the corner of the bar. 

“I’m coming!” she called right back.  She ignored the goop on her hands and grabbed her tray.  She made it two steps before the whole tray, beer, mugs and all, fell to the floor.  Her fingers were slimy!  She couldn’t hold anything! 

“What…?”

Then she felt it!  That heat!  That incredible heat that always slammed into her whenever Saeger was close by.  And he was really close.  “Slippery fingers, Tyla?” 

She spun around, looking up into his amused eyes, then down at her still-slick fingers.  “Uhh!  What is this stuff?!” she demanded. 

Again, the crowd roared with laughter, completely unaware of the surge in her stomach and the way her cheeks were burning.  Neither reaction had anything to do with the fact that everyone was laughing at her and everything to do with how close he’d gotten. 

He was now back behind the bar, but Tyla could still feel the heat on her back and the tingling on her ear where his lips had touched oh-so-briefly. 

Hiding her attraction to him behind a casual attitude, she walked behind the bar and rinsed her hands off, pretending like this was nothing out of the ordinary.  But when she had the towel in her hands, she carefully dipped one corner into the water before shutting it off.  Turning her back on the man who was refilling a woman’s beer, she spun the cotton towel around and around.  When the “whip” was ready, she spun around and…whap! 

Good!  Her aim was still accurate!  Right on that very amazing butt of his. 

And off she ran when his eyes sliced over to her with a furious glare!  The applause was resounding, and she didn’t care that she now had to mop up the spilled beer.  Thankfully, the beer mugs were thick enough and hadn’t broken.  She also kept the towel safely tucked into her belt loop so he wouldn’t have the weapon for retribution. 

By the end of the night, she was physically tired, but mentally, she was stimulated like she’d never felt around any other man.  It was always like this and, ridiculously, she looked forward to the nights when she and Saeger worked together. 

As the other waitresses called out goodbyes and walked out of the employee locker room, Tyla pulled her backpack out of her locker and grabbed her jacket.  She’d washed the goop off of her hands, but they still smelled like honey. 

“Ready to go?” Saeger asked from behind her.

Tyla spun around, almost falling backwards when she realized that he was only inches from her.  “Careful,” he said, with a low, husky voice.  “One catastrophe a night is all we need, right?”

Tyla knew that he was teasing her but she couldn’t react.  He was too close, her breasts pressed against his hard chest as she stared up into those dark, blue eyes.  Her breathing increased and she pressed her palms against his arms, but she couldn’t push him away.  There was just something about him that her body craved, needed.  She realized suddenly that it wasn’t her stepping closer, but was actually Saeger tugging her towards him.  And she was going to enjoy the guilty pleasure. 

“You okay?” he asked softly. His voice had a strange, husky quality to it. 

Tyla wasn’t sure if he was asking if she was safe from falling backwards like an idiot or if she was about to have a heart attack because he was touching her.  Either way, she had to resume her off-hand manner, not wanting him to discover how much she wanted him to bend lower and kiss her. 

“I’m fine,” she said, and took a deep breath as she moved safely to the wall, laying a hand on the wood to keep herself from tripping over the air in front of her and looking even more foolish. 

Saeger looked down at her, those sexy eyes silently telling her that he wasn’t convinced of her “fine-ness”. 

“Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

Tyla shook her head and pulled her backpack higher onto her shoulder.  “No need,” she told him, and pushed past him, getting out of the locker room, which was relatively small.  Of course, a ballroom would feel small with just her and Saeger in it.  The man was huge with crazy broad shoulders and he was ridiculously tall.  Yes, Tucker, Knox, and Creek were about the same height, but they just didn’t feel as large to her as Saeger. 

“There’s every need,” he told her as he followed her out the door.  “It’s almost midnight and you’re not walking home alone.”  He turned off the lights as they exited the bar and Tyla turned around, glowering at him, but the effort was wasted since he had turned away and was locking the doors. 

“I walk home all the time at night.  And it isn’t even completely dark yet,” she told him.  “It won’t get completely dark for months now.”  Summer months in Alaska meant that the sun didn’t set until around eleven thirty, but the sky never went completely dark, depending on where in Alaska one lived.  That made it hard to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July, but it also meant that there was plenty of daylight to enjoy the warmer summer months. 

Saeger looked up into the sky.  “That’s something I’ve never gotten used to,” he said and put a hand to the small of her back.  “When I was growing up, we used to play flashlight tag in the early summer months.”

Tyla was stunned that he was talking to her as if…well, almost as if she were a friend!  This was so different from their normal conversations and she liked it. 

Looking up at him, she smiled at this newest revelation.  “What’s flashlight tag?”  Except for her years in the Peace Corps, she’d lived in Alaska all her life.  One usually only used flashlights in the winter, when there was less sunlight.  There were days when they only had about five and a half hours of daylight. 

“Everyone hides, one person is ‘it’ and counts to one hundred while holding a flashlight. When they finish counting, that person goes out to search for anyone he or she can find.  If the light of the flashlight catches the person, then they are ‘it’ next.  But if the person could make it to home base before being tagged by the flashlight, they were safe.”

Tyla cringed.  “I don’t think I’d like that game.”

He chuckled.  “It was fun to hide in the dark.”

She shook her head.  “I wouldn’t think so.  I prefer hiding during daylight hours.”

“It was worse when no one would come out and try to make it to home base.  The person who was ‘it’ would be standing alone in the dark, feeling like they had been abandoned.”

She smiled at the idea, still horrified though.  “I bet you did that all the time, didn’t you?”

“Nah,” he told her, putting pressure on her back when she was about to step into a puddle, guiding her around the water.  “I preferred beating everyone back to home base.”

“You were never ‘it’, were you?”

“Oh yea.  I’d take the lead.”

“Why?”

“Because I loved that scared feeling,” he told her. 

Winthrop, Alaska was small and most people walked if they lived in town.  Trucks were needed if you lived further outside the town limits, but Tyla’s apartment was right on the main street.  Unfortunately, that meant that their walk, and their conversation, was over too quickly for her preference. 

“Thanks for walking me home,” she told him, then looked up into his eyes as her keys dangled in her fingers.  “Who is going to walk you home now?”

He smiled slightly.  “Open the door, Tyla,” he commanded.

She tilted her head.  “You’re not very good at saying ‘please’ are you?”

“No,” he came right back and plucked the keys out of her fingers, unlocked the door and handed them back to her.  “Be a good girl,” he told her, nudging her inside her apartment.