Wicked Nights (5 page)

Daeg whooped. “She’s taking you to the cleaners.”

Then, darn it, the four ball ricocheted off the table’s side, and she knocked one of Cal’s balls into the

pocket.

“My turn,” he announced, satisfaction filling his voice.

* * *

CAL BIT BACK a grin. That was his Piper. She’d gone all out, and her all-in strategy had backfired.

Spectacularly. If he sank his seven balls, the game was his. So much for losing intentionally.

He looked over at her. “What do you think I should buy with my hundred bucks?”

He wouldn’t actually take her money, but teasing her was too much fun to resist. She belted out a curse

and stepped away.

“Didn’t I hear you were trying to stop cursing?” His mother had pointedly mentioned Piper’s endeavor,

apparently under the mistaken belief Cal might want to try the same himself.

He picked out a cue stick from the rack while he waited for her answer.

Her yes, when it came, was grudging. “I’ll put a quarter in the swear jar later.”

He didn’t know where Piper had learned to curse, but she could definitely outswear many of the SEALs

he’d served with. Plus, not only was she creative, but she was loud. Her jar probably held enough quarters

to fund an entire new wing for the library she’d apparently announced was the jar’s beneficiary. Over the

course of the next ten minutes, he proceeded to sink his seven balls, one after the other, and Piper’s

obligations to the swear jar grew more substantial.

Tag whistled. “I shouldn’t have bet against you.”

She stepped up behind him as he eyed his final shot. It was game over as soon as he sank the eight ball.

“I’d like to propose a side bet unrelated to this game,” she said.

This
game. Not
a
game.

His critical-thinking skills suddenly became nonexistent, which was probably part of Piper’s master

plan. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach his ear. God knew what it looked like to the other guys in the bar.

Since her front was pressed against his butt, he wasn’t complaining.

“What are we negotiating?” His voice sounded gruff, but some things were definitely beyond his

control.

“The Fiesta contract.” She didn’t retreat. Nope. If anything, she pressed in tighter.

“I’m not stepping away,” he warned. If he wanted to bring more veterans out here to Discovery Island

to work, he had to have the additional business. No pool game got in the way of that.

“I wouldn’t ask you to bow out...more than once.” He felt rather than saw her smile against his throat.

Piper had always been honest. It was one of the things he liked about her. Her next words were a whisper

meant for him alone. “Loser takes orders from the winner for one night—in bed.”

Whoa. He hadn’t seen this bet coming.

“You’re crazy.” Of course, he’d known that for years. Piper had never met a chance she didn’t want to

take. Twice.

“If you’re so sure you’re going to win, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

He looked down at her arms, caging him in place, and wondered if she’d thought her bet all the way

through. “There are other ways to take a man to bed, Piper, if you’re desperate.”

The bar’s noise gave them just enough privacy that the others couldn’t hear their low-voiced exchange,

but this still wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in public.

She gave a little laugh. “I’m not desperate, Cal.”

He eyed his cue stick and wondered what his next step should be. “Then, maybe you could explain it to

me.”

“We’ve always had a certain...chemistry. Aren’t you curious?”

Oh, yeah,
his inner bad boy growled.

“I’m going to take my shot,” he warned, all thoughts of deliberately throwing their match vanishing.

“I’m winning. You don’t want to give me that kind of opening.”

“Go right ahead,” she said, and he had no idea what she was inviting him to do. And then...she blew on

his ear. Right as he shot.

He scratched, the eight ball rolling into the pocket. Well...hell.

She stepped away. “Too bad, Cal. You lose.”

Scratching the eight ball was an automatic loss. Piper was clever. And at least now he wouldn’t worry

about her grocery money for the week.

“You going to pay up?” She parked her butt on the edge of the table and smiled at him. “Because I think

we’re done here.”

He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and handed over a hundred. Had she even been serious

about their new bet?

“You shouldn’t walk around with this much cash in your wallet. Someone might take advantage of

you.”

She hopped down and started for the door, and the sassy twitch to her hips was the last straw. He

opened his mouth.

“Drinks are on me tonight,” she called back, pouring oil on his fire.

“Piper.” Her name shot out before he could stop himself.

“Yeah?”

“I accept,” he growled.

3

PIPER BREEZED INTO the conference room with precisely one minute to spare. Cal wondered briefly

if she’d sat outside, timing her arrival for maximum impact. Probably. Piper had always loved pushing

boundaries, pushing buttons.

Particularly
his
buttons.

He, on the other hand, had shown up early for the meeting with the Fiesta Cruise Lines team, tested his

equipment and made small talk with the visiting executives, getting a feel for the terrain. His audience today

consisted of two males, one female, all somewhere between forty and fifty-five. Sal Britten, Ben Lloyd and

Margie Kemp were recreational divers who had logged some fairly adventurous dives. He didn’t anticipate

any difficulty selling them on his planned program.

Piper dropped a mammoth white tote bag onto the chair beside him. “Did you miss me? Getting

anxious?”

He shot her a look.

She grinned back. “You were. That’s positively sweet. I’d almost think you were looking
forward
to

losing. To me. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it since our game earlier this week?”

Her eyes twinkled as she needled him. She wore a white dress that stopped several inches above her

bare knees. The perfectly modest V-neck showed no cleavage but drew his eye anyhow, as did the narrow

brown leather belt wrapped around her waist beneath the fitted blue-and-white-striped blazer. She looked

fresh and energetic. The cruise ship woman eyed her outfit and he could practically feel the two guys

melting. Piper had that winning effect on people.

“I’m not falling for your game,” he warned softly.

“And I’m not playing.”

She turned away to introduce herself to the Fiesta executives, rings flashing on her fingers as she

worked the room. He eyed her ring finger and discovered it was bare. Of course, he couldn’t imagine who

would take her on for keeps, but there were plenty of crazy men out there. Or men who’d abandon caution

when they got a good look at those high-heeled shoes of hers, which made him think of bondage clubs.

Not, of course, that he’d ever been to one, but he had internet, and the tan straps crisscrossing her feet were

suggestive.

She finished her meet and greet and turned back to him. Sal Britten paused in the middle of a long-

winded story about his most recent shark-cage dive off the coast of Australia (Cal would have killed for a

look at the man’s logbook, because he had his doubts about the man’s dive creds) and looked between

them. “Do you two know each other?”

“You
bet,
” he said, deliberately needling her.

Piper’s eyes narrowed, then she winked at him. “Cal here was hoping I’d be a no-show.”

If Piper didn’t get her butt in gear soon, they’d run late, so he ignored the wink and headed for the back

of the room. “This meeting starts now.”

She grinned at him, keeping pace with him. “Ready to lose, big boy?”

She made everything into a competition, a game. He was tired of it, frankly, but she wouldn’t let it go. If

she wanted to
compete,
he’d compete. He was a SEAL. He didn’t ring out. He didn’t quit.
Except when it

came to diving,
the unwelcome voice in his head pointed out.

The cruise ship guy looked over at them. “We’re ready to get started when you are. Who’s up first?”

Time for the opening salvo. “Ladies first. I insist.”

* * *

PIPER KEPT HER professional smile painted on her face, but her rescue swimmer wasn’t playing fair.

Cal waved her to the front of the room, inviting her to lead off the pitches with a lethally charming, “Ladies

first,” when they both knew going first was the weaker position. Their judges would hold back on scoring

to leave room for the last diver.

He grinned and settled back in his seat, arms folded over his chest. If he looked good in nothing more

than a pair of jeans and a faded cotton T-shirt, he cleaned up even better. He wore an open-necked shirt—

she’d never seen Cal bother with a tie for anything other than funerals and weddings—and a dark suit

jacket, which didn’t disguise the breadth and power of his shoulders. He had the build of a swimmer, his

body advertising that it was trained to pull him through the water at a killer pace. She’d seen him swim, and

it was a thing of beauty. She’d give him that much credit.

He was also big and bad, irritatingly calm as he sank back onto his seat, leaning slightly away from her,

his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. The conference-room table hid his

feet, and she fought the urge to peek and see if he was wearing steel-toed work boots. It was hard to

imagine him in dress shoes, but he radiated control and competence.

He raised an eyebrow. Right. Her pitch. She hadn’t prepared slides or a formal talk, but she knew her

message. She’d also loaded up her laptop with images she’d shot at the diving sites she was promoting,

because a picture was definitely worth a thousand words. All she had to do was get Sal, Ben and Margie to

imagine themselves in those waters, and she’d have them. She quickly tugged on her ear, hoping the lucky

gesture would bring her the same good fortune she’d had every time she’d climbed the dive tower and

competed.

“You’ve got a cruise ship full of passengers, most of whom have never dived before. The number of

newbies seriously outweighs the number of certified divers. I’d like to go after that segment, grow your

tour numbers. Why
wouldn’t
those passengers want to dive?”

She’d fallen in love with recreational diving during her own summer trips to Discovery Island. As soon

as she’d turned twelve, she’d been fitted up with gear and taught to dive. Her first excursions had been off

Discovery Island pier, fifteen-footers, where she could have dived to the bottom without the gas, but the

tank meant she could stay under for thirty minutes. She’d loved it and she’d been hooked. Sharing her

passion through her dive program just seemed...natural.

Cal sprawled in the back of the room, all hot-eyed, hard-bodied charm as she started walking the

executives through a cost comparison of land-based tours with diving excursions. There was more money

to be made on booking diving than most of the other shore excursions, and pretty soon her audience of

three was nodding along. Except for Cal, of course. His expression said he wasn’t convinced.

“If the passengers have never dived before, are you proposing resort dives?”

“Good question.” She smiled at the woman and launched into the next part of her talk, walking the

room through the shallow, baptismal dives she’d planned for the harbor as she displayed different images

on the screen. At thirteen to fifteen feet, anyone in reasonable physical health could give diving a try.

Pointing out the window at the gorgeous, light turquoise water, she asked, “Who wouldn’t want to get in

there and see what’s happening beneath the surface?”

Cal raised a brow. She knew that look of mocking disbelief. It was, she decided, too bad for him she

had every intention of winning this contract and wiping the smug look off his face.

* * *

PIPER HAD THE room in the palm of her hand, which further irritated Cal. Letting her go first had

seemed like a smart tactical move, but now he was second-guessing himself. She’d been every bit as

unprepared as he’d expected, talking off the cuff without a formal set of slides—and she’d captivated the

room with her charm and casual photos. The Fiesta executives leaned forward in their seats, hanging on her

every word as she walked them through a novice dive. Her sassy suit probably didn’t hurt, either, because

looking at her while she talked was no hardship.

She strolled past him as she returned to her seat, mouthing, “Gotcha,” and then shifted her monstrosity

of a bag to
his
seat when he stood up.

If she thought he was going down without a fight, she was even crazier than he remembered. The Piper

of his childhood had relished a good fight. Even as a girl (or maybe because she was a girl with three older

brothers), she’d always done her best to outrun, outjump and generally outdo anyone who crossed her path.