Crazy Love (3 page)

“I’m in the mood for something different, Cy. Something cold.”

“Caffé Freddo?”

“Is that your fancy iced coffee?”

“With an extra dollop of homemade vanilla ice cream on top.”

“Done.”

Sierra glanced at her watch, remembering the stack of data matches she had to process before knocking off for the day. “Make that to go, please.”

“Sure thing.”

Cy fiddled with the espresso machine and the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans made Sierra salivate. “How’s the dating business these days?”

“Busy.”

“You remember my preferences?”

Sierra bit back a grin. Cy regularly interrogated her on likely prospects when she came in for a caffeine fix but Sierra hadn’t yet come up with a six-five Nordic god who played the harp, debated philosophy and read tarot.

“I’m keeping my eyes open,” Sierra said, sliding her money across the counter as Cy handed over a tall iced coffee. “Promise I’ll let you know when the man of your dreams pops up.”

“Is that what you told my mother?”

Sierra stiffened, the deep voice perilously close to her ear, her skin prickling exactly like it had earlier when City Boy had strutted into her office.

Damn his soulful, all-night-dirty-talk timbre designed to melt. Like his looks weren’t enough.

With Cy riveted to their every word, Sierra forced a sassy smile and turned to face him.

“Sorry, can’t disclose that kind of information.”

Rather than backing up and giving her room to move, Marc leaned closer, invading her personal space, reinforcing exactly how tall he was.

“What
can
you disclose?”

“Nothing.”

“Why am I taking you to dinner then?”

“You’re buying? Great. See you then.”

She edged around him, only to be halted by an arm that shot out and braced behind her, effectively pinning her between a wall of broad chest and a stainless steel counter.

“Where’s the fire?”

Burning her up from the inside out as a startling desire ripped through her, fierce, potent, out of control.

She swallowed and resisted the urge to run her iced coffee across her brow as he smiled. A triumphant smile that said he knew exactly how his nearness affected her and was loving every minute of it, a sexy smile that drew her gaze to the groove in his cheek.

Her hand clenched with the effort not to reach out and touch it, dip her finger in it and by the time she registered the crackle of crumbling Styrofoam, it was too late. He yelped as creamy froth exploded from the top of her take-out cup and sprayed his shirt.

“Oops.”

He leaped back and muttered a curse as he grabbed a bunch of serviettes from the counter and dabbed at the mess while she deposited the offending iced coffee on the counter.

The harder she tried not to laugh, the more her mouth twitched and when a few stray milk foam blobs landed on his shiny shoes in the shape of a smiley face, she lost it.

“You’re nothing but trouble,” he said, resident frown back in place as she howled with laughter, great loud belly laughs that had Cy darting concerned glances their way while serving the other lone customer in the café.

“Sorry,” she managed to say between guffaws, swallowing a chuckle, only to find another bubbling up in its place, tickling her throat, irrepressibly infectious.

“If your apology was genuine, I’d accept it. As it is—” he shrugged, dumped the sodden serviettes in the trash reserved for empty sugar packets and stick stirrers, “—you owe me.”

“What did you have in mind?”

His heated stare had her wanting to dunk in a vat of iced coffee to cool off.

“I’ll think of something.”

Oh boy.

“Dinner for starters?”

“Looking forward to it.”

She bolted before she told him exactly what kind of payment system she’d like to instigate to make up for her clumsiness.

“Hey. You forgot your coffee.”

With her hand on the door, she turned, her gaze sliding down his drenched shirt. “It’s on you—uh, I mean the house.”

He laughed as she’d intended and before he tempted her to flirt some more, she made a run for it.

CHAPTER TWO

Cupid’s Dating Tips for the Enlightened Male

Thirty minutes of begging at the end of a date is not considered foreplay
.

Sierra wriggled out of her jeans, swung her legs onto the plinth and lay back. “Thanks for squeezing me in, hon.”

Belle swirled a wooden spatula through the hot wax, the action making Sierra’s eyes water in anticipatory dread.

“Why the emergency bikini wax?” Belle checked the wax temperature with a tiny dollop on the back of her hand. “If you’re going to all this trouble for our dinner tonight, don’t bother. I bat for the other team.”

“Funny.” Sierra held her sides in a mock laughter stitch. “Actually, I need to take a rain-check on dinner. Something came up.”

Like her long-neglected hormones.

Belle stirred the pot faster and held up the spatula, her eyes gleaming behind the hot dripping wax.

“Emergency bikini wax, canceling our dinner, something came up. Can only mean one thing. Game of GOLF?”

Sierra averted her gaze from the wax, wondering if men knew what women went through in the name of beauty.

“I don’t do casual sex.”

Belle snorted. “This is me you’re talking to. I invented GOLF, remember?”

How could she forget? The two of them had headed to Vegas for a weekend five years ago, needing to spread their wings and ogle hot guys. Love Byte had been open for almost a year and she’d needed some serious down time, while Belle never needed an excuse to party.

Sierra had wanted to have a little fun by dancing, flirting and catching a few shows, Belle had been the one to insist she “go out and get some guaranteed orgasmic laid-back fun.”

And though she wasn’t into one-night stands, she’d had a fabulous weekend holed away in the penthouse suite of the Grand with a famous baseball player who expertly wielded his bat and balls and who shall remain nameless to this day.

Vegas had been a blast but she hadn’t counted on the empty, let-down feeling afterwards, knew then her first one night stand would be her last. She didn’t do casual. In fact, she hadn’t done much of anything with guys lately unless the occasional dinner and smooch counted.

So where did her irrational lust for City Boy fit in? She may have bombed out in the birdie and eagle stakes recently but why not hone her game now?

Because Marc Fairley was pro. If she thought that baseball player was major league, he had nothing on City Boy.

A guy like Marc showing up in her hometown scared her. She knew why he was here; she didn’t like the way she reacted to him. He pushed all her buttons and she liked it, way too much. She didn’t do involvement. She didn’t do love.

What she did was have fun, flirt like crazy but above all protect her heart. Relationships were painful. She could peddle them, endorse them and sugarcoat them. She couldn’t do them herself.

“Who’s the lucky competitor?”

Sierra flinched as Belle spread hot wax on her upper thigh.

“Marc Fairley.”

“Stats?”

She would’ve preferred to grit her teeth at the oncoming assault of pain as Belle ripped away the forest she’d been cultivating down there since her last wax too long ago to remember, but prattling through the pain would be as affective.

“Tall, about six-four. Lean. Snazzy dresser.”

The first rip of fabric, stuck to wax and going against the direction of hair growth, sent a shudder through her but she continued on valiantly.

“Black hair, brown eyes, good-looking in that clichéd tall, dark and handsome way.”

The second rip broke through her resistance.

“Yee-ow! Shit, that hurts.”

Her best-friend-cum-skilled-torturer tut-tutted.

“If you waxed the re-growth on a regular basis you wouldn’t have this problem.”

“What for? No-one’s been trekking near that forest in over a year.”

Bella strolled around the table and Sierra clenched her hands into fists, bracing for the agony to start all over again.

Belle shook her head. “You should make like a boy scout anyway.”

“Always be prepared?”

Rip
.

“Ow!” Sierra poked out her tongue at Belle. “I hate you.”

Rip, rip
.

“How about a Brazilian?”

“Hell no.”

Sierra leapt off the couch and pulled on her jeans in record time. “You’re a sadist.”

Belle brandished the spatula with a smirk. “That last extra rip was for standing me up tonight.”

Belle washed her hands at the corner sink, her evil grin reflecting in the mirror above the hand basin. “Hope he’s worth it.”

Sierra shrugged. “It’s just dinner,” she said, annoyed her stomach danced the Rumba.

She knew the score. City boy had hinted at a dinner invitation in the hope of getting what he wanted: info on the happy couple. He’d basically said as much when they’d bumped into each other at Aphrodite; probably thought wining and dining her would loosen lips.

Delusional. She’d string him along, throw a few red herrings his way and get him to leave her favorite couple alone.

“Just dinner? Riiiight.” Belle tapped her bottom lip, pretending to ponder. “Then what was the wax about?”

Sierra held up two fingers in the classic Boy Scout sign.

Belle chuckled and walked her to the salon door. “You’re incorrigible. And I want to hear every last sordid detail.”

Marc Fairley hated this place.

From the minute he’d driven under that ridiculous heart-shaped sign “
You’re in Love
” at the town’s perimeter, he knew he was in trouble.

Wacky, small-town USA at its best and for the hundredth time since he’d arrived he wondered what his immaculately coiffed, classy mother was doing in a place like this.

Two words sprang to mind.

Hank Stevens.

His mother had fallen for some yokel named Hank. If that wasn’t bad enough she’d
emailed
him the news. Since when did his computer-illiterate mom learn how to turn on a PC let alone use the Net? Must’ve been around the time she logged onto Sierra Kent’s website and listed her sexual preferences for the world to see.

Sierra Kent. Another anomaly in a world gone mad. What was a stunning redhead doing running a sleazy dating agency? And holed up in this dead-end town?

He’d blundered into the offices of Love Byte ready to bully as much info as he could get out of what he’d pictured as a slime-ball proprietor with a pencil-thin moustache for toying with his recently divorced mother at her most vulnerable.

Instead, he’d been stunned by the sexy babe wearing designer clothes, her sharp wit knocking him flat faster than one of his father’s put-downs. And wishing he’d waited a few more days for Finders-Keepers, the LA investigators he used regularly in business dealings, to come up with info on Love Byte’s owner before barging in unprepared.

He recognized class when he saw it and Sierra Kent was all that and more, bundled up in one hot little package begging to be unwrapped.

Despite his intentions to get the lowdown on this Hank character before confronting him, break whatever deal his mother had made with the agency and hightail it back to LA ASAP, deranged mom in tow, he’d somehow arranged to have dinner with the copper-haired harridan. Worse, he was looking forward to it.

It wouldn’t be all bad. Gleaning the information he wanted would be a hell of a lot more pleasant over dinner than dragging it out of her in that corny office she ran.

His hit-run-and-save mission had hit a snag. Not only would he now be spending the night in Hicksville, he’d be fraternizing with a local.

If the guys in LA got wind of this, he’d be laughed out of the next board meeting. He could see the Los Angeles Business Journal headlines now:
A-Corp CEO in Love…and loving it
.

He suppressed a shudder, flipped open his cell and hit redial, desperate to speak to Rob, his deputy, for the simple reason to reassure himself A-Corp did in fact exist and LA was real, not some figment of his imagination. For the longer he sat behind his steering wheel and stared at the main street of this town, the harder it was to believe he hadn’t set foot in a time machine and wound up in the fifties.

The town square was picture perfect, from its immaculately cut bowling green lawn to the pristine sandstone paths leading up to a red brick town hall complete with massive clock like the one from
Back to the Future
, surrounded by a bunch of antiquated shops that gave quaint new meaning.

Couples holding hands strolled the main street, peering in shop front glass so sparkly-clear he could shave in it, with antique light posts and giant terracotta pots filled with flowers standing sentinel out front of every shop.

Throw in the soda fountain, the old-fashioned corner store, the striped pole outside the barber’s, the drive-in and little wonder his head was spinning. Was this place for real? What happened to Martini bars, day spas and digital technology? And where would he get his morning Ristretto fix? Flat white didn’t do it for him anymore. Though he could always head back to that café where he’d bumped into Sierra in the hope he’d run into her again.

Crazy. Being away from the smog was getting to him all ready.

“A-Corp, Rob Alden speaking.”

Marc rubbed a weary hand over his eyes in the vain hope all this would disappear; when he reopened them, it hadn’t.

“Rob, it’s me.”

“Where the hell are you? Things are frantic around here.”

“I’m in Love,” he replied without thinking. It sounded more ludicrous verbalized than it did in his head.

“Are you doing drugs?”

“You know me better than that.”

“Yeah, and that’s why I reckon you’re snorting something. The Marc Fairley I know chases skirt but never falls in love.”

Marc leaned his head against the car headrest, shut his eyes, blocking out the Happy Days vista in front of him.

“Ever heard of the town Love?”