Wicked Nights by Anne Marsh

in his erotic fantasies would make working with her even more complicated.
    She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher—other than the absolutely-not portion of it—and opened the
    door to the stairwell. They were apparently taking the stairs.
    He strode after her because it was hurry up or get left behind. Piper was a woman on a mission. She
    tackled the steps with the determination his sisters used on a new gallon of ice cream. The soles of her flip-
    flops slapped against the bottom of her feet. She sure was in a hurry to get somewhere.
    “There a fire someplace?” he asked, settling in by her side. Having longer legs was an advantage.
    “I can’t believe they couldn’t choose,” she burst out, ignoring his question.
    “Life’s a bitch,” he agreed. Her hair brushed his shoulder as she stomped across the landing. Their
    footsteps echoed in the stairwell loudly enough to be heard halfway to China.
    She stopped abruptly and he almost body slammed her. Thank God for instincts honed by military
    training. He snagged the handrail and waited.
    “You didn’t win,” she said, sounding absolutely sure of herself.
    “Neither did you,” he snapped. “Does the lack of a clear-cut winner from today’s meeting bother you?”
    She pursed her lips. He wanted to smooth out the crinkle with his finger. Or his tongue. Apparently, he
    wasn’t picky.
    Piper, he reminded himself.
    She’d probably bite his finger off. He didn’t kid himself. Whatever twisted reason had prompted her to
    suggest the bet, it wasn’t because she was attracted to him. Knowing her, it was a power play or some other
    complicated move in this game she insisted on playing with him. He was the only one who had the urge to
    change the rules.
    “We had a bet. Not knowing who the winner is doesn’t bother you?” she demanded, answering his
    question with one of her own.
    It absolutely did. Piper was a sensual temptation, and he found it harder and harder to resist her. He also
    enjoyed beating her, if only because it made her so adorably mad. That probably wasn’t what she wanted to
    hear right now, however.
    He opened his mouth and she cocked a hand on her hip. Waiting for him to admit that, yes, he enjoyed
    competing with her. Fighting with her. Doing...other things with her. The words that came out of his mouth,
    however, weren’t part of any master plan to win the Fiesta contract.
    “If we’re talking about the bet, it’s safe to say we both lost.”
    She blinked once before regrouping.
    “Good.” She glared up at him, stepping into him and backing him up against the stairwell’s wall. He
    loved the way she crowded him. “Because you owe me and I plan on collecting.”
    The erotic jolt that went through him should have warned him. Whatever his head thought, his body
    didn’t see Piper as the enemy.
    7
    CARLA, PIPER’S ASSISTANT, part-time dive instructor, gal Friday and supplier of oatmeal chocolate
    chip cookies, looked up when Piper slammed into the dive shop, the door rattling in its frame. The woman
    was a gem, and Piper worried sometimes that she would head out for greener pastures—or places with
    more challenging dive sites. So far, however, Carla had stayed put and Piper was grateful. When Carla
    raised an inquiring brow, Piper flipped the open sign to closed. It wasn’t like they were busy anyhow.
    Which was part of the problem. The darn economy followed by a bad summer storm had definitely put
    a dent in their business. In the wake of the storm, several cruise ships had skipped the island altogether, and
    the island’s hotels had been hit by a second storm of cancellations. Discovery Island had scrambled to clean
    up and make repairs quickly, but still, all of those things took time—and dive bookings had been drastically
    reduced.
    Carla had screwed her blond hair up on top of her head in a messy bun anchored by a flotilla of pencils.
    Small curls flew every which way, giving the woman a deceptively cute appeal. Carla was