“You know what they say about all work and no play, don’t you?” a feminine voice asked

Michael blinked at where Kyra stood on the other side of his drafting table, sexy as all get-out. “I didn’t know you were still here,” he said.

She smiled, her gaze taking in the empty firm. “I could say the same of you.”

Before he could ask why she was working late, Kyra pulled her shirt up over her head, hersmile decidedly devilish. Michael heard the rasp of a zipper, then saw her shimmying out of her leather skirt, leaving her standing there wearing only her bra, panties and those naughty high heels he’d taken such a liking to lately.

She cleared her throat. “I’ve often fantasized about what it would be like to be stretched across your drafting table, having you work your magic on me instead of those blueprints.”

Without a second thought, Michael swept his papers off the table and onto the floor. Then, with the adrenaline flooding his system, he boosted her onto the table.

Kyra gasped, her sexy laughter filling the room. “Are you sure it will hold me?”

“Sure. And if not,” Michael murmured, bending to press his lips to her stomach, “we’ll find out if these carpets are worth what we paid for them….”

Dear Reader,

Best friends to lovers. The best of both worlds, right? Only, sometimes the transition isn’t as simple as it seems. And then sometimes it’s better than anybody could have imagined….

Trendy architect Michael Romero already had it bad for his best friend, Kyra White. But when she transforms herself into a walking, talking fantasy, he can’t keep his feelings under wraps any longer. Even if those feelings are not what Kyra expects. So, taking up his usual “best friend” role and catching her when she falls, Michael sets out to make her fall for him. The problem is, he ends up falling even harder….

We hope you enjoy Michael and Kyra’s sexy, sassy journey into each other’s beds and hearts. We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com, as well as www.temptationauthors.com for contest news. And be sure to keep your eyes peeled for our next Harlequin Blaze novel, Every Move You Make, available in September.

Wishing you love, romance and hot, steamy reading,

Lori & Tony Karayianni, aka Tori Carrington

Books by Tori Carrington

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

876—PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

15—YOU SEXY THING!

37—A STRANGER’S TOUCH

The Magnificent McCoy Men miniseries

740—LICENSE TO THRILL

776—THE P.I. WHO LOVED HER

789—FOR HER EYES ONLY

823—YOU ONLY LOVE ONCE

837—NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

Skin Deep

Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for all of you who have ever wondered “what if….”

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

1

Section I:

Change is good…Real good

AW, HELL, what was it about her?

Michael Romero absently rubbed the back of his neck with his palm and eyed where Kyra White sat two tables away at the Tampa, Florida bar and grill frequented by employees of neighborhood businesses, including the architectural firm where he and Kyra both worked. Aside from being co-workers—he was one of four partners while she did the bookkeeping—they were best friends. A relationship that had been cemented when she’d first hired on at Fisher, Palmieri, Romero and Tanner four years ago. The first week on the job, she’d made a number of nervous mistakes and his partners had wanted to let her go. Instead, Michael had realized where the problem lay—her fear that she wouldn’t live up to the job—and had befriended her. No big sacrifice. She’d turned out to be one hell of a bookkeeper. And the status of their relationship quickly escalated to them becoming best friends and led him to where he was right now. Essentially lusting after a woman who was off-limits to him.

Well, maybe “lusting” wasn’t the word. But there was something about Kyra that jumped up and nipped him on the butt whenever he wasn’t looking. Scratch that. Whenever he was looking at her, while she didn’t have a clue about the direction of his thoughts. A strange kind of gravitational pull that made it virtually impossible to think about anything or anyone else.

Of course it didn’t help that Kyra was sitting with the latest in a long line of short-term boyfriends, guys who would rate high on anyone’s moron scale. His gaze skimmed over Kyra’s long, shiny chestnut-brown hair, her oval green eyes, her clean, girl-next-store features, and her slender form beneath a long, loose-fitting khaki skirt and boxy white blouse. Funny, he never much thought about her in sexual terms whenever they were face-to-face, trying out a new restaurant, playing on the firm’s softball team, or watching the latest video. Then she was his best friend, full of enthusiasm and challenging ideas, ready to laugh at his lamest jokes, constantly carping about his poor diet and his need for a woman deserving of him.

At times such as these, however, Michael wondered if the guy she was with knew how lucky he was that he could press his mouth against her soft pink one. Fan open her blouse to expose her elegant throat. And then, Michael pondered whether any of Kyra’s boyfriends had a clue how to handle a woman like her. Touch her in just the right way. Stroke her slick heat until her breath came in quick gasps and her body tensed in climax.

Aw, hell.

Michael stared at jerk number—Hell, he’d lost count over the past four years, stopping at somewhere around number ten, though he suspected there had been a few more since then. Thirteen. He’d label this one Thirteen just because it felt right. Aside from being a very smug, up-and-coming attorney, Craig Holsom was attractive and he knew it. Kyra had been dating him for three weeks. A record even by her standards. Holsom’s gaze wandered to a passing waitress, making no secret of his interest in the girl’s generous physical assets. Michael stared down to his lap, where he was scratching his palm, and realized he was filled with the sudden urge to knock the grin straight from Holsom’s face.

He grimaced, then took a long chug of his beer. He should have gone home instead of dropping by Lolita’s for a brew with Kyra. Especially since he knew Kyra was meeting Craig. He was incapable of saying more than a semicordial hello to any of her dates before begging off with one excuse or another to settle at another table. Tonight’s excuse had been a nonexistent date that was supposed to meet him there. It had become nonexistent as of two hours ago, when Jennifer Polasky had called him at work and told him she had to work late and was turning down his dinner invitation. She’d wanted a rain check, but Michael wasn’t that interested and told her he’d call to reschedule sometime next week. He didn’t bother to write a note to himself because he knew he wouldn’t be contacting her.

Michael’s mind ventured back to the object of his gaze. He’d already figured out that some of what he felt for Kyra stemmed from his need to protect her. He took great satisfaction in knowing that he knew her better than any other person alive—her sister Alannah aside—including all of the men she dated put together. He admired her strength when she’d told him she’d grown up in a two-room shack in a small town outside Memphis, Tennessee. He was equally as appalled when he’d learned she’d been working since she was ten, baby-sitting, pet walking, newspaper delivering, then graduating to fast-food joints so that she and her older sister Alannah could eke out a living after their parents had died. And he was even strangely proud that he’d been able to help her help herself when she’d flubbed up a receivables report and was almost dismissed from her job at the firm. Now she practically ran the place, keeping everything and everyone in line, proving to be the glue that held them all together when things got rough.

She was a breath of fresh air to a man who had grown up in a confused family environment. And she was a harsh taskmaster who refused to let him feel sorry for himself.

“Remember…things could always be worse,” was one of her trademark sayings.

And she was living proof that they, indeed, could be.

But why she continued to prove the point by dating men who didn’t have a clue about her true worth ceaselessly mystified him. Whenever he brought it up, she laughed, waved her slender hand, and told him that she was attracted to whichever guy she was attracted to, simple as that.

And Michael had been there to help pick her up whenever one of the jerks dumped her, as they all eventually did.

Kyra’s face turned suddenly ashen. It was only then that Michael realized he’d been staring at her nonstop. He looked at Holsom, the way he held his hands, palms up, the elevated state of his brows as if explaining something Kyra wasn’t equipped to handle.

Uh-oh.

Michael’s fingers tightened on his beer bottle as Kyra reached out and rested a hand on Holsom’s sleeve. Michael wished he hadn’t sat so far away. If he were closer, he’d be able to listen in on what they were saying. Then again, he didn’t have to hear the words to translate their meaning.

“I…don’t understand,” was written all over Kyra’s pretty face.

Holsom plucked her hand from his forearm and put it down in front of her, then patted it patronizingly. The bottle in Michael’s hand nearly shattered. “It’s over,” Jerk Number Thirteen mouthed.

Here we go again.

Michael started to get up from the table. It was getting a little old, this playing the knight-in-shining-armor bit. Especially since he never earned the princess’s traditional gratitude.

Kyra urgently said something to Holsom and he coiled back, staggering to his own feet.

Double uh-oh.

Michael forced himself to leave his beer where it sat on the table and began to make his way toward his best friend.

But he was afraid he was too late.

“Oh, yeah?” Holsom said, his face turning an unappealing shade of purple. “Well you’re about as lively in bed as a dead fish.”

Oh, boy.

KYRA WAS CERTAIN her jaw was stuck in the open position. She gaped at Craig Holsom as if he had two heads. Which, at the moment, he did, because the room suddenly swam in front of her, not so much a fancy room in a trendy club, but the fish tank Craig had just plunged her into the middle of.

He was dumping her.

And he had just insulted her abilities in bed.

The problem was, Kyra wasn’t sure what bothered her more. Sure, okay, when he’d said it was over between them a few minutes ago, she’d been unable to swallow the comment that their relationship could have been clocked on an egg timer…pretty much the same way sex with him had run. Then he’d gotten up and compared her to a dead fish in front of everyone.

Kyra let her eyes close and rubbed her temples. This couldn’t be happening. Not on top of everything else that had happened today. First she’d awakened to hear her landlady pounding on the floor, complaining her alarm buzzer was too loud. Then during lunch hour, she found out the dry cleaner had lost nearly every piece of clothing she owned aside from what she had on. To top all that off, this afternoon she’d stumbled onto an accounting error at work that could mean her job if she didn’t figure out what amounts she’d added up wrong and quick.

She’d considered opting out of drinks with Craig altogether, fearing what else fate had in store for her that day. Instead, she’d figured things couldn’t get much worse.

Oh, how very wrong she’d been.

Quiet giggling from the club patrons penetrated Kyra’s distracted state. She blinked and stared up at Craig who was wearing an all too satisfied expression on his face.

Kyra twisted her lips in contemplation. You know something? Michael was right. Craig was a jerk. The only problem was, Michael was always right. Which was infinitely irritating.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man in question moving in her direction. Dear, sweet, solid Michael. Good. Because she’d need him to help her get out of here with at least a modicum of dignity.

Kyra pushed away from the intimate table for two, her knees wobbling so hard she was afraid she might knock over her chair. Thankfully, she didn’t. She glanced at Michael’s thunderous face, then at Holsom’s smug expression, half tempted to let Michael have a go at her latest ex. But, strangely, she wasn’t all that upset that Craig had broken things off with her. In fact, she was…relieved.

What did that mean?

It meant she should have walked away when he’d compared her skin to a peach at the produce section of the local supermarket three weeks ago. What a lame come-on line, she thought now. And about as original as the guy himself. The loser probably hung out at the supermarket to pick up chicks.

Kyra glanced around the club, realizing that almost every pair of eyes was on her, waiting for her response to Craig’s comment.

She tilted her head and smiled at her ex, satisfied that he looked instantly afraid of what she might say. And he had good reason to be. “Yes, well, Craig, better a dead fish than a lost cause, even with Viagra.”

She shoved her chair under the table, which in turn hit his chair, knocking the back of it against one of Craig’s more strategic areas. He gasped and grabbed the vicinity in question with both hands, while one of Kyra’s own hands went to cover her mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”

She felt fingers on her arm. “Let’s go,” Michael said in that deep baritone that always commanded her attention.

“You bitch!” Craig said, probably meaning to shout the insult, though it came out as a high-pitched wimper. Even with her genuine remorse, she felt the voice fit.

Michael slowed his step, and this time Kyra found herself tugging him toward the door.

“Call her that again and you’ll be eating your teeth,” she heard Michael tell Craig.

Thankfully there were no more exchanges in the few moments it took them to get from the table to the door. Once outside, Kyra blinked against the setting sun, then collapsed against the closed door, the thick late-summer Florida heat seeming to spray beads of sweat all over her skin. She blinked up into Michael’s glowering face. A lock of raven-black hair hung over his brow, his natural honey-colored skin looking darker yet in the waning light.

She glanced toward the door then found herself smiling. “I really didn’t mean to…well, you know, hit him with the chair.”

“That’s a shame, seeing as it was so fitting.”

She blinked and the side of Michael’s mouth budged up in a grin. He really was devastatingly handsome when he grinned.

“Have I told you lately that you really know how to pick ’em?” he asked, rolling the sleeves of his crisp white shirt up his hair-peppered forearms while his brightly colored tie flapped in the warm breeze.

“Every chance you get.”

“Yeah, well, I must not be telling you loudly enough.” He jabbed a thumb toward the club. “Why you let morons like Holsom get the better of you, I’ll never know.”

“Who said he got the better of me?” Kyra quirked a brow at him. She pushed away from the door and began walking toward the parking lot where they’d parked their cars, hers a thirty-year-old Mustang convertible, his a rugged late-model SUV with two air-conditioning units.

With each step Kyra took, she felt any amusement still lingering from the encounter seep from her muscles. On any other occasion she might blame the reaction on the intense late-summer Florida heat. But she knew that wasn’t the case now.

Her boyfriend had just broken up with her. Worse, he’d insulted her sexuality.

“Uh-oh. Here it comes. Phase two,” Michael said quietly beside her.

Kyra elbowed him in the ribs. He caught her when she might have tripped over her own feet. “Shut up.”

“Let’s see. First there’s amusement, because, well, let’s admit it, a breakup between you and one of your boyfriends is always a source for humor.”

“Glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

His grimace said the opposite was the case. “Then comes the grieving period. No matter how undeserving the jerk, you’re always hurt by his rejection.”

“Key word being rejection here, I think,” she pointed out.

Michael stopped next to her Mustang, accepted her keys, then opened the door for her. She instantly pushed the button to release the ragtop and pushed it back.

“Then after that comes the eating. Week-long binges filled with all the stuff you gripe at me for eating.”

She smiled at him. “As I recall, you do enjoy that phase.”

He gave her a partial grin. “Yeah, maybe that part’s not so bad.”

She climbed in and he closed the door after her. She turned the key and the sound of vintage Heart instantly filled the humid air. He arched a brow and she turned the volume down.

“They don’t deserve you, you know that?”

Kyra fastened her hair back with a ribbon she had draped around the rearview mirror. “I don’t give you this much hell when you break up with one of your girlfriends.”

He chuckled softly. “That’s because I’m not the one in need of consolation. They are.”

“Ah. I see.” She scanned his dark features, feeling better just talking to him. “While I, on the other hand, am nothing but a heap of sobbing female hormones in need of mopping up from the floor.”

“Uh-huh.”

She smiled, but even as she did, a damnable tear slid down her lower lash and splashed onto her blouse. She rubbed at her cheek in irritation. She knew Craig Holsom didn’t deserve a single look back. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. Rejection was rejection, no matter how you looked at it.

Michael was right. She was an idiot. Although he’d never really come out and told her that.

“Hey,” he said quietly, curving his fingers under her chin. “Are you going to be okay?”

She stuck her chin up in the air and sniffed. “Of course.”

“Hmm.” He brushed another tear from her cheek with a slow rub of his thumb. His gaze seemed to linger on her mouth, then he met her gaze. He gave her a coaxing grin. “You up for our normal postbreakup outing?”

“It’s what I live for.”

He narrowed his gaze at her, then tapped her visor to block the setting sunlight. “Follow me. I have a new place in mind.”

Kyra watched him walk across the lot to his SUV. Tall, broad-shouldered and slender-waisted with thick dark hair and a grin that would look too naughty even in the bedroom, Michael Romero was drop-dead gorgeous. And he was her best friend.

He paused next to his car then half turned to look back at her pensively, his profile in shadow. Kyra caught her breath, then swallowed hard.

And he was her best friend…

MICHAEL LAID HIS HAND against Kyra’s lower back and guided her inside the cozy little bookstore he’d found on the outskirts of town. The moment he’d spotted it, he’d known Kyra would love it. And he wasn’t disappointed. Her quiet, wide-eyed pondering of the teetering shelves that covered nearly every inch of available space told him she’d forgotten the club, Holsom, and the breakup of a relationship that was bound for the Dumpster the instant it started.

“Oh-hh,” she said quietly, as if they were in a library rather than a bookstore. “I love it.”

He couldn’t help grinning down at her. “I knew you would.”

Her gaze darted from here to there then back again.

“Lead the way. I’m right behind you.” He glanced at his watch. “But try to limit yourself to a half hour.”

She groaned.

“Okay, forty-five minutes. Or I leave without you.”

She smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek, igniting all sorts of interesting emotions he wasn’t quick enough to deny. “You’d never leave without me.”

He watched her disappear between the shelves and exhaled a long, even breath. Oh, she was right there.

He stepped in her wake, watching as she walked her fingers over the bindings of the mismatched, different-colored books lining the shelf at shoulder level. Her brown hair was still held back by that silly red ribbon she always wore when she drove with the top down. Which was all the time. Her skirt whooshed around her ankles as she walked. He silently cursed and called himself twelve kinds of a fool for continuing to act like Kyra’s friend when more and more lately he wanted to claim her as his lover.

“Have you read this?” she asked, tipping a book out from the rest.

He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t want to, either.”

She smiled at him. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

His gaze leisurely skimmed her well-defined pink, unpainted lips. Oh, no. That was precisely the problem. He was afraid he knew exactly what he was missing. And it was beginning to drive him crazy.

He put his hand over hers and slid the book back into its slot. Her expression sobered and she flicked her wet tongue across her lips. Michael fought a groan and removed his hand, then continued down the aisle.

No, no, no. No matter how very tempting, he could never allow their relationship to cross over to an intimate level. He valued her friendship too much for that. And he’d seen firsthand that she wasn’t very good at the dating game. He didn’t think he could handle getting hot and heavy with Kyra only to say goodbye to her and their friendship in a few weeks’ time.

Not a day went by that he didn’t thank, and occasionally damn, fate that he’d been involved with someone else when they’d first met at the firm four years ago. If he and Jessica hadn’t been going out, he probably would have made a play for Kyra. She probably would have gone for it. And the mess that would have ensued would, in all likelihood, have guaranteed not only that she would have left the firm, but also that he would have missed out on what had evolved into one of the most important relationships in his life.

As an only child, his mother from Peru, and his father from Spain, he spent a great deal of time trying to define exactly who he was. And if Kyra didn’t help him in that quest, she at least insisted that he forget about that battle every now and again. And for that he would be eternally grateful. He was just him, she’d told him time and again. He wasn’t accountable to anyone but himself. And that’s exactly the way he felt. At least when he was with her.

Well, mostly when he was with her. Now he glanced at his watch, wondering how far she’d go over the time limit he’d set. And just how in the hell he was going to get her out of there.

“TICK, TOCK,” Michael said behind Kyra.

She glanced to find him tapping the face of his watch. She smiled then rounded a corner, absently running her fingertips along the spines of the books. She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. She loved everything about books. The way they sounded when you cracked them open. The scent of freshly milled paper. The varying textures, from the smooth glossy paperback covers with raised lettering to the puckered leather of hardbacks. The different artwork that depicted someone’s vision of the characters or the topic inside. Fiction, nonfiction, commercial bestsellers, obscure literary tombs, the text between the covers didn’t matter. She inhaled all of it with the passion of a long-time reader.

There were few things she liked better than losing herself in the pages of a sizzling, hot romance. Especially after having suffered a failed one of her own. Of course, Michael told her she was crazy for reading romance novels when her life already resembled an ongoing soap opera. “Stay tuned tomorrow for the next installment of ‘The Days of Kyra White’s Love Life.”’

She smiled as she found the romance section of the bookstore and began tipping out book after book.

Have it. Read it. Interesting but not up my alley right now. One by one, she scanned back-cover copy, took in the author name, eyed the artwork, then slid the books back into their neat little slots. One year Michael had given her a subscription to a book club for Christmas. She’d suspected he’d done it so he wouldn’t have to accompany her on these book-buying expeditions. She’d maintained the subscription, but there was still something about the experience of buying a book in person that filled her with a deep sense of satisfaction. A feeling of joy. Of being surrounded by dozens and dozens of stories peopled with characters she could always identify with.

The sense of…well, not being alone.

She twisted her lips. Okay, so maybe Craig’s breaking up with her did bother her more than she wanted to let on. But less than she would have suspected. What got to her was his comment on her sexual prowess. Or lack thereof. Was she really that bad in bed? Could that be one of the reasons why she got dumped so often? She made a face. Well, that might be the problem if she slept with even a moderate percentage of the guys she dated. But she didn’t. The truth was she hadn’t felt moved to.

She reached the end of the section and idly moved on to the next. Hmm. Still romance. But of the nonfiction variety. She pulled out a book entitled Fifty Ways to Please Your Lover and leafed through the contents. Her eyes widened at the graphic scenes depicted at the beginning of each chapter. Okay. She slowly slid the book back in and took out the next one.

Sex Kitten 101.

Before she could question her interest in it, Kyra absently opened the book to the index. Words such as “transformation,” “new attitude” and “breaking old habits” leaped out at her, one after another. She thought of Michael’s comparing her life to a soap opera. Pretty much of the same old, same old, with little variation.

She glanced up from the book and caught a reflection of herself in a multipaned window between the two bookcases opposite her. Outside the sun had totally set, so the glass threw her image back at her almost as cleanly as a mirror. Kyra swallowed, lifting a hand up to finger the silly ribbon in her hair, took in her long, straight brown hair, tugged at her oversize shirt. Plain. Simple. Direct. She’d consciously chosen the look because she thought it best depicted what she was all about. She glanced at the book in her hand, wondering if it was long past time for a change. And maybe this whole sex-kitten approach would be just the ticket.

She turned the book over and scanned the back-cover copy. “‘Is your life based on reacting instead of acting?”’ Kyra nodded. “‘Tired of the same old person staring back at you in the mirror?”’ Oh, yes. “‘Want to shock those closest to you?”’

She leaned back so she could look down the aisle she’d come from. Michael stood there, frowning at a stretch of travel books, his dark hair tousled, his white shirt as crisp as ever, his slacks hugging his long thighs to perfection. She swallowed hard then straightened and looked back down at the book clutched in her hand. Michael would probably scoff at the purchase. A self-made man, he’d pulled himself up by the proverbial bootstraps with little help from his parents or anyone else. And, she supposed, so had she. But there was a big difference between being a bookkeeper and being a partner in a very successful architectural firm.

She ran her fingers over the cover of the book, questioning the wisdom of any sort of radical change. The truth was, despite her hit-and-run dating experiences, she really wasn’t all that experienced when it came to the opposite sex.

Then again, it might be immensely gratifying to shock those closest to her. The image of Craig crawling back to her on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness certainly held a great deal of appeal. But for some reason, it was Michael’s face she saw when she imagined herself doing anything with the information the author touted.

“‘No risks. No prizes,”’ she said softly.

“DONE.”

Michael glanced up from the travelogue on Central America he held and stared at where Kyra stood next to him, a glossy hardback book clutched in her hands.

“I think you set a record.”

She tucked a stray strand of glossy brown hair that had escaped from the ribbon behind her ear, then shrugged. “It just kind of jumped out at me.”

He reached for the book, surprised when she pulled it out of the way. He raised his brows. “What gives? You’re usually eager to show me how literate you are and pester me to read whatever you chose.”

“This one’s just for me.”

“Female porn?”

She laughed and moved past him, leaving the subtle scent of her perfume in her wake. He groaned and followed, his curiosity piqued.

“Come on.” He leaned closer and whispered into her ear, “Let me see.”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You know I’m going to find out sooner or later. You might as well give up now.”

She plopped the book cover down on the cashier’s desk. He took out his wallet but she brushed him aside. “Not this time. Thanks.”

Kyra never turned down a gift. Generous herself, they seemed to always be paying for each other’s purchases. Neither of them had ever objected.

He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, playing nonchalant. “Okay, I give up.”

She eyed him, suspicion shadowing her large green eyes. “Uh-huh. Like I buy that one.” She handed over the money, directing the bookstore owner to quickly bag the book. “It’s not going to work.”

Michael opened the door for her, then followed her outside. The sun had completely set, leaving a hazy glow around the street and parking-lot lights. The air was so thick you could have tripped over it.

He took her key, opened the door to the Mustang and handed her in just as he always did. He told her he was just being a gentleman. He knew it was because he always got a little glimpse of some prime leg as she climbed inside. Of course it helped that she was completely ignorant of his not-so-innocent game.

“So,” he said, watching as she put the bag with the book on the passenger seat. “Do you feel better?”

She nodded. “Much. Thanks.”

He glanced at his watch. “What do you feel up for? Some primo Cuban or seafood?”

She twisted her lips. “Actually, I’m not very hungry. I thought I’d just go home and call it an early night.”

Michael narrowed his gaze. Talk about not so innocent. Kyra had to be one of the worst liars he’d ever met. Which, of course, was yet another reason why she was so endearing.

“Book that good, huh?”

Her laughter sounded unnaturally husky in the moist night air. “Go home and nuke something, Michael. I’ll see you at work in the morning.”

He hesitated then finally pushed away from where he was leaning on the door. “Okay. ’Night.”

She grasped his hand, her skin remarkably hot.

He glanced at her.

“Thanks. You know, for this.”

“What are friends for?”

“Hmm.” She seemed to give him a once-over. “What, indeed?”

Then she started the Mustang and pulled away, not even giving him the little wave she normally did.

Michael rubbed his chin, then started walking toward his SUV. Why did he feel as though Kyra had just broken some sort of unspoken code between them? And why did he both dread and celebrate the possibility?

2

OKAY, something definitely was not right.

The following evening, Michael wove his SUV through rush-hour traffic, heat rising in waves from the sizzling asphalt, thick black storm clouds gathering on the horizon. He slammed on the brakes to avoid ramming a car that had cut him off from the front and prayed the guy riding his bumper wouldn’t hit him from behind.

Michael blew out a long breath. Wrangling with traffic was not helping his dark mood.

He’d had an odd sensation in his gut ever since he’d watched Kyra drive off from the bookstore. And that feeling had only gained momentum since then. He’d gotten her answering machine when he’d called to check on her last night. And every time he’d ducked into her office throughout the day, she’d had her nose stuck in that book. She’d still refused to let him see it. And the paper bag she’d taped to the cover only lent a more mysterious quality to the hardback. Then when he’d stopped by her office to see if she wanted to go for a cup of coffee after work, he’d discovered she’d left an hour earlier.

What in the hell was the matter with her? Was she upset with him? She didn’t seem to be. In fact, she didn’t seem to be all that upset about Craig Holsom and their breakup, either. Which was odder still. It usually took her a good long week of moping, mock depression, and marathon eating to get over a breakup, even if the relationship itself had only lasted the same amount of time.

He just didn’t get it.

An exit ramp emerged to his right, a new shopping complex beckoning him from beyond. He swerved to get off the crowded highway. Maybe he’d given up too easily last night. Maybe she’d needed him. Maybe he’d read the signals wrong and she’d spent the night washing her pillow with tears.

The thought made his jaw clench. Craig Holsom, and the dozen or so that had come before him, didn’t deserve an hour of Kyra’s company, much less a single one of her tears.

A pint of Ben & Jerry’s. That should get Kyra to open up to him. Tell him what was going on. He quickly stopped by a nearby store, made the purchase, then pointed the SUV in the direction of her apartment complex. Within twenty minutes he stood on the second-floor landing, knocking on her door.

“Kyra?” he called through the old, neon-pink-painted door.

No response.

He grimaced. Her Mustang was parked at the curb, so he knew she had to be home. “I know you’re in there, so you might as well open up.”

Of course, there was the possibility that she’d already replaced Holsom with the next jerk on her list. The thought bothered him more than it should have. Far more.

He cursed under his breath and knocked again.

“Do you mind! Some people are trying to watch Wheel of Fortune! Keep it down up there!” the landlady who lived a floor below bellowed up the stairs. “This ain’t no bordello.”

Not that you could tell by her language, Michael thought. He stared down the winding stairwell right into Mrs. Kaminsky’s too-thin, aging face. He always found it hard to believe that such a window-shattering voice could come from such a small package. “Sorry, Mrs. K., I’ll try to be more quiet.”

“You do that!” she yelled, nearly blowing back his hair.

Michael grimaced and stepped up to Kyra’s apartment door. Why Kyra put up with the old battle-ax was beyond him. Strangely, she seemed to like the landlady’s interference. Perhaps because she’d had such little parental involvement for so much of her life.

“Kyra?” he said more quietly, curving his hand around the doorknob. It turned easily. Figures she’d leave her door unlocked. Then again, he couldn’t imagine any thief with the guts to get past Mrs. Kaminsky.

He pushed open the door and peered around the colorfully decorated interior of the apartment. The old place was nice. With large, airy rooms and polished pale wood floors, the one-bedroom apartment almost made putting up with the curmudgeonly old landlady worth it. Almost. If Michael were Kyra, he’d have moved out a long time ago.

“Kyra?” He softly closed the door behind him, eyeing a line of discarded clothes littering the floor. He frowned and picked up the skirt she’d been wearing earlier. Kyra was fastidiously neat. It wasn’t like her to just leave her clothes lying around…He picked up each item as he went, then peered into the empty bedroom. Where was she? His gaze focused on a small, empty box sitting just outside the closed bathroom door. Dropping the skirt, he picked up the box and knocked on the door.

“Kyra, are you in there?”

A small squeal told him that she was. He turned the box around. Hair dye? He grimaced. What in the hell was she doing in there?

The lock clicked on the door and he stepped back, expecting her to come out. He quickly discovered that she hadn’t been unlocking the door, but rather locking it, as if afraid he would come in.

“Kyra, what the hell is going on?” he asked through the thick wood.

“Go away,” she said.

Michael leaned against the doorjamb and sighed. “You’re upset with me. That’s it, isn’t it? The reason why you didn’t want to go out to eat with me last night, why you barely talked to me today.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

He looked at where he still held the ice cream in his other hand and considered putting it in the freezer. “If I said something to make you angry with me, I apologize.”

“No need to apologize.”

“I see. Is that because there isn’t anything to apologize for? Or are you saying I shouldn’t waste my time because what I said or did was completely unforgivable?”

A soft giggle filtered through the wood. He stared at the door, wondering just what was so funny.

“Kyra, come on out here and talk to me. I’m not into talking to doors.”

Silence.

Uh-oh. This was worse than he thought. And he was at a loss as to what to do next.

Not once in the past four years had he seen Kyra angry. In fact, he hadn’t a clue what it looked like. Would she giggle if she was upset? He wouldn’t discount the possibility.

Well, there had been that time when they were in a mall parking lot and a woman had dumped a kitten out of her car mere feet from a busy intersection. Kyra had rescued the scrap of fur—the feline in question that even now lazily considered Michael from his perch on top of the silent television—and given the woman what-for. He’d almost forgotten about the incident because it was so uncharacteristic for Kyra to lose her cool about anything. You wanted to cut in line? No problem. It probably meant you were in more of a hurry than she was. Heck, you might even have a wife in labor waiting in the car who wouldn’t go to the hospital until you got her that case of beer. You honked your horn at her and she would wave at you, thinking the gesture a greeting rather than a rebuke.

Michael sighed and closed his eyes. There was no telling exactly what was going through Kyra’s mind.

Suddenly the door opened inward, taking away Michael’s leaning support and nearly toppling him to the floor.

“Give a guy some warning, why don’t you,” he mumbled, fighting to straighten himself.

Only once he was standing, he realized that the open door wasn’t the only thing to knock him off balance. Kyra’s appearance absolutely floored him.

“SO?” KYRA ASKED, barely able to conceal her excitement as she forced herself to stand completely still in front of Michael. “What do you think?”

He stumbled backward a couple of steps, his mouth moving, although no sounds came out.

“I know. Something, isn’t it? I hardly recognized myself in the mirror just now.”

And she hardly had. Who knew what a difference two little hours could make in someone’s life? Kyra reached up to pluck at her newly cropped hair, still feeling light-headed by the absence of the weight of her long tresses. But she hadn’t stopped at the short, sassily styled ’do. Oh, no. On the way home from the salon she’d decided she’d wanted to change the color, as well, and picked up one of those home dye kits. She’d always been curious about the saying that blondes had more fun. She wanted to find out for herself if it was true.

Then, of course, there was her new wardrobe. Having to replace the things the cleaner had lost anyway, she’d gone shopping with the check they’d issued to cover the loss. But she’d stayed well away from the places where she usually bought her clothes. Instead she’d ventured into the trendy little shops in Ybor City and taken the advice of the salesgirls. The outfit she had on now was her favorite—a hot-pink stretchy tank top with a tight little mock-leopard-skin leather skirt.

True, so maybe she’d felt as if she was in little more than her underwear and wondering where the rest of her clothes were when she’d first tried the racy outfit on. But the more minutes that had ticked by, the more comfortable she’d felt. Not only in her new duds, but in her skin, period. And the new clothes helped her make one very important discovery—she had breasts! Sure, she’d always known she’d had them, had them. She just hadn’t realized how round and smooth and sexy they were. Which was plausible because they were usually hidden under three layers of clothing and an unattractive slingshot of a bra.

Michael suddenly looked pale. Her smile vanished and she stepped forward, nearly tripping over the four-inch heels she wore. Okay, these would take a little getting used to. “Are you all right?” she asked, guiding him away from the plant stand that held her favorite fern and toward the couch. He plopped down onto the pale cushions as though his spine had disappeared, and sat there staring at her.

She giggled, the sound emerging foreign to her own ears. She didn’t giggle. In fact, she didn’t even think she knew how. “I know, isn’t it something? The girl at the store told me hoseless was the way to go, but I think the fishnet stockings make the outfit. Don’t you?”

“I—I—I—”

Kyra put her hands on her hips, liking the feel of her body beneath the sexy material. “You…?”

“I…brought you some ice cream,” he croaked, thrusting a bag in her direction.

“Hmm, Half Baked, 2-Twisted. My favorite,” she said. “But I’m afraid if I have any of it right now, I’ll pop a seam or something.”

“Or…or something,” Michael agreed.

Walking on the tips of her toes, she stepped into the kitchen and put the ice cream in the freezer.

“So?” she prompted, standing in front of him again.

“So—” He cleared his throat. “So, what?”

She rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling. “You didn’t answer my question. What do you think?”

His dark eyes narrowed as he looked everywhere but at her.

“Oh, come on, Michael. Look at me.”

“No.”

His quick refusal made her laugh.

“It’s like looking at my sister naked. If I had a sister. Which I don’t. But seeing as…” His mouth clamped closed and he continued staring at the opposite wall.

“Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”

His gaze slammed into hers. Kyra nearly stumbled backward from the impact. A heated question loomed large in his dark eyes as he considered her. A shiver ran over her skin like a lover’s touch, heating her blood and making her nipples harden.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “What’s the matter? It’s not like you haven’t looked at me before. You’ve seen me in less than this plenty of times.”

“Oh, yeah? When?”

“When we go to the beach, for starters.”

“Oh.”

She smiled.

“You’re…you’re…”

She gestured with her hand. “I’m…”

“Blond.”

She sighed. “Trust you to state the obvious. For a guy who designs houses, you are completely unimaginative in your personal life, you know?”

“Yes, well, judging by the looks of you, you have enough imagination for both of us.”

A reaction. Now they were talking.

“Do you think it’s original? I mean, I just kind of went with my gut. Chose things I liked instead of what I thought would be appropriate.” She shivered again, relishing the zing of daring rushing through her veins. She held up her hands. “Wait. Now that I finally have your attention, I want your complete opinion.” Swiveling around on the heels a little too quickly, she teetered precariously, and reached for something to hold on to. There was nothing. She landed squarely in Michael’s lap.

Air rushed from Kyra’s lungs at the sudden move. She giggled and wriggled around to face him. And immediately became aware of a reaction she would never have thought she’d get from him.

“Oh,” she murmured. “Oh!”

Talk about your shockers. Yes, she had expected to shock Michael. But she hadn’t expected to be shocked by his…well, shock. She caught her breath, amazed that she had elicited such a reaction. And more than just a little thrilled….

OH, INDEED.

Awareness surged through Michael’s bloodstream like an overpowering drug. Everything that was Kyra filled his senses. Her sweet smell. Her soft hair. Her even softer skin. Her slender, very voluptuous body.

Somehow, Michael managed to shift Kyra from where her bottom fit snuggly against his painful erection. But he stopped himself short of lifting her all the way off his lap. Truth was, he liked her right where she was, thank you very much. Even if it was only for a few precious moments.

And, God help him, he liked the changes she’d undergone. While he’d always been fascinated with her long, shiny brown hair, the short, blond curls suited her oval face and the warm-honey tone of her skin. And the cut somehow made her pink lips look all pouty and kissable. He’d never really realized how full her mouth was until that moment, watching with rapt attention as her wet tongue flicked across her bottom lip.

Aw, hell.

And the clothes…

Yes, while he had seen her in a bathing suit, her choice in swimming apparel had always been as unassuming as her choice in clothes. He’d always known she had a nice figure, but within a blink of an eye she’d gone from pleasingly attractive to va-va-voom hot.

And he’d give anything in the world to kiss her in that one moment.

Kiss her? Hell, he wanted to sink into her slick flesh and ram into her like nobody’s business.

“Michael?”

He blinked and two very pert, very round breasts filled his line of sight. The pink material of her low-scooped tank hugged the mounds to perfection…and did little to hide her own reaction to their close proximity. Forget kissing her. He wanted to fasten his mouth around one of those engorged nipples. Scratch that. He wanted to swallow both of them at the same time.

Kyra wriggled, gaining his attention as her leather skirt slid against the smooth material of his slacks. He groaned and blinked again, bringing her face into focus.

She smiled at him. “I have breasts,” she told him.

He nearly choked on his own saliva.

“I mean, of course I have breasts. We’re all born with them. It’s just that—” she looked down, considering the area he’d been drawn to mere moments before “—who knew a bra could do this?”

“Um, yeah, who knew,” Michael agreed. She shimmied to straighten her top, and nearly pushed him right over the top. “Um, Kyra?” he said in low warning. “I think you’d better get up.”

She blinked at him. Charcoal-black ringed her lashes, making the green of her eyes that much more mesmerizing. “Oh,” she said, considering him. “Oh!”

Michael didn’t know which was worse. Her realizing what kind of state he was in or her not responding in kind to that same reaction.

Kyra budged, finally pushing up from the couch and regaining her footing. Or as much of it as she was going to gain in those sexy, black stiletto…those ridiculous heels. Heels that made her legs look as if they went on forever. And that she would probably break her neck in if she tried to walk more than ten feet.

“So…you like?” she asked point-blank, propping a slender hand with purple-painted nails on a too curvy hip. Was that leopard skin?

“Um,” he said, struggling to a better sitting position on the too soft couch. He didn’t dare stand for fear that he might injure himself. “‘Like’…isn’t the word I’d use, exactly.”

Was it him, or had suggestion just darkened her eyes?

“Then what is the word you’d use?”

Siren? Luscious? Hot? “Different,” he said.

The cat lifted his head from his position on the television. Michael was sure that if Mr. Tibbs had been able to roll his eyes at him, he would have. He glared at the tom, and gestured vaguely toward Kyra.

“Is there any particular reason for your…this…”

“Transformation?”

He hiked his brows. Transformation? As in a permanent way of living? As in out with the old, in with the new?

As in there was no way in hell he was going to survive with her looking like that twenty-four/seven?

He gave a deep, loud mental groan. He couldn’t handle two minutes with Kyra looking like that. How was he going to endure an entire friendship? “Um, that’ll do.”

She plucked up the clothing he’d dropped earlier, then swaggered toward the kitchen. Her gait was unsure, gutsy, making her look that much sexier. She opened the chrome garbage can and dropped the items inside, brushing her hands together as the lid closed.

She looked at him and he felt the urge to look away, as if merely meeting her eyes would reveal his true feelings.

“Does there have to be a reason? I mean, aside from my being long overdue for a reality check?” She twisted her lips. “I’ve lived twenty-four years looking like an old maid. It’s about time I looked more like the women my age.”

No woman your age looks like this, he wanted to tell her. But the words never made it past his lips. Sure, other women might dress that way, but not one of them could pull off the look the way Kyra did with so little or no effort. There was a quirky innocence, a playful charm, that made Kyra even sexier and impossible not to notice—as certain parts of his body could attest to. A curious naiveté and irresistible daring that made her look like one-third dressed-up teen, two-thirds single, professional female on the make.

Michael wanted to bang his hand against his head until it started working again. Until he stopped drooling after his best friend and started thinking with the parts of his body that mattered. Until he stopped wanting to throw her onto the couch behind him and explore those succulent breasts and plunge into her sweet-smelling flesh, those high heels piercing the air behind his back.

Instead he tugged on his shirt collar until he choked himself.

“Are you ready?” She struck a pose that was one-hundred-percent challenge. “It’s time to go out to let the world know the new Kyra has arrived.”

3

KYRA ACCIDENTALLY DROPPED the tiny beaded handbag the shop girl had assured her went with her outfit. Which wasn’t all that difficult considering that the purse looked as though it had been designed for a Barbie doll rather than a grown woman. But it was cute and so unlike anything she would normally buy for herself that she’d decided to go for it. And she now stood staring at where it lay on the sidewalk, wondering how she was going to pick it up.

She started to bend.

“Ah…I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Michael rumbled from behind her.

The sidewalk outside Lolita’s was hot enough to steam rice on. Kyra could feel the heat shimmer up the parts of her legs not covered by her stockings. It filled her with a sense of anticipation that hardened her nipples. At least, that’s what she told herself. That Michael’s distracted behavior since she’d emerged from the bathroom might have anything to do with her feelings was too complicated to consider.

Kyra tapped her finger against her glossy lips and considered her dilemma. She’d have to rethink the way she went about everything from here on out. If she had bent to retrieve the bag, as she would have done naturally before, she would redefine the term “mooning” with a view of her hot-pink thong panties. Crouching would have given anyone in front of her a view from the other side.

Michael cursed under his breath and snatched up the bag for her. “What do you have in there? Your lipstick?”

“Lip gloss,” she corrected. And that’s about all that fit into the bag. She didn’t see the point in carrying it at all, really. Except that it had been nice to watch Michael pick it up for her.

She smiled at him and continued toward the door of the club.

She felt fingers encircle her bare arm and gasped when Michael jerked her back and away from where she was about to open the door.

“You’re not going in there,” he said for the fifth time since they’d left her apartment.

“Why not?” she asked. Hopefully now that they stood outside the club she’d get an answer. Before he’d merely gaped at her, doing the fish-out-of-water-mouth-moving bit.

“Because you look like…that,” he finally said.

“Michael, we’ve been over this. This—” she gestured at herself “—is the new me. And the sooner people get used to it, the better off for everyone.”

“I’m never going to get used to it.”

She reached out and patted his cheek. If her hand lingered a little longer than it should have, it was because she enjoyed feeling his stubble sting her skin she told herself. “You will. You’ll see.”

From behind his back he produced a lightweight jacket she recognized as his. She knew he kept it in the back of his SUV for winter early-morning golf outings. He tried to drape it across her shoulders and she successfully stepped away from him.

“What are you doing? It’s hot as blazes out here.”

“But the air-conditioning is on in there.”

“Good,” she said, “maybe it will cool me down.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he said, his gaze dropping to her neckline. “The air conditioner is on in there.”

She stared at him blankly. “You’re not making any sense, Michael. Now, will you stop being such a stick-in-the-mud and come on?”

She heard him mutter a line of curse words and felt her smile widen. She found she liked frustrating him. He was usually the one in control, the one giving her advice, the one always solid and commanding. That she had managed to gain a little bit of control in their friendship made her feel…well, powerful somehow. More adult. And more than just a little sexy.

At this time of day the club was jumping, filled to the rim with the “after work” crowd that had decided to stay, and the night crowd that was just getting started. Kyra did a once-over, immediately knowing that the person she was looking for wasn’t there.

She mentally stumbled, but refused to let that detail stop her. She headed for the long, art-deco bar instead of one of the tables and slid on to one of the stools.

“Hiya cutie.” John Boy, the ’tender, greeted her with a grin and a bowl of peanuts. “What’ll it be?”

“The usual, J.B.,” she said, smiling.

Michael appeared at her side, scowling at the guy who was drinking in his visual fill of her on her other side. “Would you stop,” she admonished with a jab of her elbow. “How’s a girl supposed to make new friends with you scaring everyone off?”

The ’tender put an unfamiliar drink in a shot glass in front of her. “You want a beer chaser?”

Kyra raised her brows. “What’s this?”

“Jim Beam.”

J.B. Jim Beam. Kyra felt like giggling. She’d been coming to the club for four years and not only didn’t John recognize her, he’d missed his own nickname. Her usual drink was a Virgin Mary, with the emphasis on virgin. She’d never ordered beer much less hard liquor before.

“You’re looking a little happy with yourself,” Michael muttered under his breath, accepting a brew from John.

“He doesn’t recognize me,” she whispered, leaning closer to him. She caught a whiff of his cologne. A new scent that subtly coated his skin and made her mouth water with the desire to see if it tasted as good as it smelled.

He turned his scowl on her. “Of course he doesn’t recognize you. I bet you don’t even recognize you.”

She crossed her legs, conceding the point. “This is even more fun than I thought it would be.”

“That’s hard to believe.” Michael downed half his beer then dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, looking a little rumpled and agitated, and completely unlike the Michael Romero she knew. “You were enough of a jerk magnet before. Now…”

Kyra picked up the shot glass, trying to figure out how one went about sipping a drink of this nature.

“You’re supposed to down it all at once,” Michael said, a challenging spark in his dark eyes.

“But wouldn’t that get me drunk?”

“That’s the point.”

She twisted her lips and stared at the drink again.

Her reluctance stemmed from a long-standing dislike of anything having to do with alcohol—any alcohol. She’d grown up with a father who’d drank not to get drunk but to sustain a constant drunkenness. She knew what this presumably innocent-looking poison could do to a person. How it could destroy lives. Distort judgment. Render virtual monsters. It was one of the reasons she’d stayed so far away from anything alcoholic. Except for that one time…The night of her sixteenth birthday. She swallowed hard. She and Alannah had been split up, Alannah to a foster home while she’d been placed with a distant aunt.

She’d hurried home to her aunt’s trailer from her part-time job after school, hoping against hope that her aunt had remembered her birthday just this once. She’d found the cake she’d bought and put in the refrigerator the night before on the table, half-demolished, a fork sticking out of the center of the candles. There’d been a half bottle of vodka next to it, the tipped-over contents soaking what remained. And the money she’d saved, wrapped in foil and stored in the freezer, had been gone. She’d come across her aunt passed out over the side of the bathtub, apparently in the midst of taking a shower.

She’d cleaned her aunt up and put her to bed, thrown away the cake, searched for the vodka bottle her aunt kept stashed in her underwear drawer and walked out to the tree swing. There she had alternately swung and drank until she’d puked her guts out.

She’d never touched another drop again.

Unlike her aunt, who to this day still hoped her niece would finance a trip to the liquor store every time Kyra visited the shadowy trailer outside Memphis.

Kyra’s gaze trailed to Michael and his intense expression. She hadn’t told him that particular story, but he knew many of the details of her background. Her heart swelled at the empathy in his dark eyes while another part of her perked up in challenge.

With more nonchalance than she felt, she said, “Here goes nothing,” and downed the fiery amber liquid.

“Here goes everything,” Michael said, and motioned to John. “Bring her a beer.”

Kyra held her breath, waiting for the burning sensation to pass. Her eyes teared, but she refused to give in to the urge to cough. God, but that was one of the nastiest things she’d ever tasted. Why did people choose to drink such awful stuff?

She gave in and coughed until she was afraid her stomach would end up on the bar in front of her.

Attractive thought.

“Come here often?” she heard a male voice say at her elbow.

A giggle that shocked even Kyra bubbled up from her throat at the terrible come-on line. “All the time.”

She glanced at the man in question. She’d seen him in the club a number of times, but had never talked to him. Word had it that he worked at the insurance agency up the way.

“Buzz off, buddy,” Michael said.

Kyra elbowed him and turned her attention to the other man. “I’m Kyra White,” she said, extending her hand.

The man warily eyed Michael, then took her hand. “Charlie Schwartz’s the name, insurance is my game.”

“Nice to meet you, Charlie.”

His gaze budged slowly from Michael back to her and he leaned forward. “Who’s that?”

She jabbed a thumb in Michael’s direction. “Who, him? You mean aside from being a major pain the butt?” She smiled at both men, earning a scowl from Michael and a grin from Charlie. “He’s my best friend.”

Charlie sidled up a little closer to her. “Sounds like a position I might be interested in.”

“Give me a break,” Michael said.

Kyra reached for the beer the ’tender had put in front of her. “What? Do you think you’re the only man capable of being my friend?”

“I’m saying that Charlie isn’t as interested in being your friend as he is interested in seeing what you’re hiding under that skirt.”

“I have what every other woman has.”

Michael eyed her dubiously. “Yeah, but it’s one he hasn’t seen before.”

Charlie leaned closer. “Can I get you another drink?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Michael said. He straightened from where he was leaning against the bar. “Sorry, Charlie, but this girl’s taken. Hit the road.”

Kyra laughed. Not as a result of Michael’s caveman tactics, but because of the phrase he’d used. “Sorry, Charlie.” She hadn’t heard those words paired up since that commercial. What was it for? Tuna? She couldn’t remember.

She sipped her beer, shrugging when Charlie gave her a questioning gaze. “It was nice to meet you, Charlie.”

MICHAEL TRIED to cover Kyra with his jacket but was thwarted again by a simple shrug of those smooth, great-smelling shoulders.

“Would you stop?” she said with a deep sigh, though the twinkle in her green eyes told him she was thoroughly enjoying his attentions.

“Not until you either agree to cover up or leave.”

She tugged at the hem of that tiny skirt, calling his attention to the legs it barely covered. He cleared his throat and turned his head away, trying like hell to ignore the heat spreading through his groin.

Kyra tugged on his shirtsleeve in playful rebuke. “What is it with you tonight, anyway?”

He scowled at her. “I don’t get what you mean.”

“First you try to stop me from leaving the apartment, then you continually try to cover me up, and now you’re chasing people away from me. You’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Yeah, well, I could say that you’ve never done anything like this before, either,” he said under his breath. “And those people you referred to aren’t people. They’re dogs.”

Her burst of laughter further irritated him. He rubbed the back of his neck and lifted his bottle, only to find he’d emptied it. He raised his brows and lowered the amber glass back to the bar.

“You don’t get it, do you? Even after all these years, and all the jerks you’ve gone out with, you don’t have a clue how the male mind works.”

Kyra sat up a little straighter, then recrossed her legs. “Well, then, maybe you should educate me.”

Educate her. He didn’t want to educate her. He wanted to take her home and lock her up in her apartment, alone, until she came to her senses. “Take that guy, for example.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He wasn’t interested in being your friend. He was interested in checking into the nearest motel room with you.”

“Why not his place?”

“Because his wife’s probably at his place.”

He could tell by the widening of her charcoal-rimmed eyes that she hadn’t noticed the wedding band the idiot hadn’t bothered to take off before approaching Kyra.

“Got you.”

She made a face at him. “I just swapped names with the guy, Michael. Not phone numbers.”

“Only because I chased him off.”

She visually bristled. “And how do you know that doesn’t just prove my point—he wasn’t interested in me sexually, but was only seeking out a male-female friendship?”

“Because the type of male-female friendships that guy’s after include some extracurricular activities.”

“Like tennis?”

“If it includes a bed, yes.”

“Bed tennis. Sounds interesting.”

Michael cleared his throat. “And short-lived.”

Kyra crossed her arms under her newly found breasts. Michael’s gaze followed the movement, no matter how hard he fought not to look. “I’m getting the distinct impression you don’t like my new look, Michael.”

He blinked at her. He loved it. He hated it. He ordered another beer. “If I didn’t think the sole intent of it was to get back at a certain someone, I wouldn’t mind a bit.”

He narrowed his eyes, watching as her skin paled.

“How did you know?” she asked quietly.

“Because I know you.”

“And you’re saying my new look is not me.”

“I’m saying that you can be whatever you want to be, Kyra. But don’t change for some jerk who hasn’t a clue how much you’re worth.”

A thoughtful shadow entered her eyes. Michael grimaced and looked the other way, glaring at the guy next to him who was also appreciating Kyra’s displayed assets.

“And how much am I worth?” she asked, her words a mere whisper in the loud room.

He accepted a fresh beer. “What?”

“Come on. You heard me, Michael. And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Well, he’d certainly stepped straight into that one, hadn’t he?

“Let’s just say, more than ten of the jerks you’ve dated in the past four months combined.”

“That much?”

“More,” he said before he could consider the wisdom of the admission.

“I see.”

Kyra turned her attention back to her own barely touched beer, running her purple-tipped fingernails up and down the bottle, then tugging at the label.

Uh-oh. He hated when she got quiet like this. Mainly because it meant she was formulating a question he would be totally unprepared to answer.

“I’m hungry,” he announced, taking a few bills out of his pocket and flicking them on the bar. “Let’s say we go get something to eat.”

Kyra laid a hand on his arm. “I say we stay and talk about your love life, instead.”

Oh, hell. There it was.

“When’s the last time you went out with someone, Michael?” she asked.

“What’s that got to do with the price of beer?”

She shrugged, jiggling those sweet swells of flesh. “Hey, if my love life is open for discussion, so is yours.”

“Or lack thereof,” he muttered.

“Exactly my point.”

He stared across the bar at the bottles lined up against the mirror. “Kelly Jackson.”

“One dinner doesn’t count.”

“Penelope St. Clair.”

She nodded. “Okay. Yes, you did go out with her a few times. About a year ago. Until she, like everyone else you’ve gone out with, got tired of running second fiddle to your career.”

“Yes, well, maybe I haven’t found a woman as driven to succeed as I am.”

“What about Janet Palmieri? Phyllis said you two had gone out a time or two before I hired on at the firm.”

His partner? He grimaced. Trust the rumor-mongering secretary to fill Kyra in on that unworthy piece of gossip. “Two dinners. Not worth mentioning.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re not willing to put the time you put into your career, into your personal life.”

“Hey, I put time into our friendship.”

She smiled. “Yeah, you do. Curious fact, that.”

“How do you mean?”

“Michael, why haven’t you and I ever gone out?”

Whoa. Dangerous question.

He told himself to keep it light. Light was good. Hesitating was bad.

He held her gaze without blinking. “Come on, Kyra. We go out all the time. We’re out now.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She continued to mutilate the label on her beer bottle. “Why haven’t you ever asked me out?”

“What?” He nearly choked on his own tongue.

“You heard me. You. Me. Why haven’t we ever dated?”

“We work together. And besides, I’m not your type.”

“How do you know?”

He tried to figure out where she was going with this. “Because you’ve never asked me out.”

“Ha-ha.”

He tried to cover her up with his jacket again.

“Try that one more time and I’m going to sock you.”

Michael froze, immediately recognizing the threat in her eyes. At some point in the conversation, she’d grown serious. And her expression reflected that. Was it when she’d asked why he’d never asked her out on a date date? He’d hazard a yes. But that was a question he wasn’t up to answering right now. Simply because he was asking himself the same question.

Another applicant for jerkhood sidled up beside Kyra at the bar. Michael’s fingers tightened on his jacket as he moved to place it across the back of the stool.

The guy in a too white suit that screamed “northern transplant” tugged on his lapels and grinned suggestively at Kyra. “I’ve just come to a conclusion about something.”

Kyra turned her attention to the guy and smiled. “Oh?”

“I’ve decided that I want to come back in my next life as that skirt.”

Michael clenched his jaw at the obvious come-on. And nearly ground his back teeth to a pulp when he heard Kyra’s easy laughter in response.

She launched into an explanation about how she came about wearing the tight, shiny, sorry excuse for a skirt to the stranger, opening the door to conversation even further. Michael’s patience thermometer edged up with each second that passed.

“Mind if I touch it?” the latest jerk said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Oh, sure,” Kyra said.

Michael snatched the guy’s hand away before he could make contact with the leather. “Think again, moron.”

“Michael!” Kyra stared at him in open shock.

“Come on,” he said, planting his jacket over her shoulders along with his hands. When she tried to wriggle away, he tightened his fingers until she gave a little yelp of pain. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Michael…oh!”

He practically hauled her off the barstool, telling himself he didn’t care if she broke an ankle when she stumbled in those sexy—ridiculous heels. He didn’t stop until they were standing outside the door, much as they had the night before, but this time for entirely different reasons.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Kyra said, her face flushed, sparks lighting her remarkable green eyes.

“Yeah, well, believe it,” he said, allowing her to shrug out of the jacket now that they were outside in the thick August heat. “It was either that or I was going to hit the guy.” He leaned closer to her. “Don’t tell me you bought that stupid come-on line.”

She thrust out her chin, putting her face even closer to his. “It was original. And he was nice.”

“He was a jerk.”

“Well right now, you’re the only one acting like a—”

Michael wasn’t sure how, when or why it had happened. One moment he’d been arguing with her, the next his gaze had fastened on her animated mouth, and he’d been filled with such an urgent need to kiss her that he…well, he did.

And the instant his lips met hers, he knew he was a goner.

Somehow he’d always known, deep down inside, that kissing Kyra would be a life-altering event. She’d bitten most of her shiny lip gloss away, leaving only the smooth, plump texture of her lips. So full. So warm. So inviting. So damn irresistible.

Her eyes were wide and full of disbelief. But Michael couldn’t help himself. With a soft groan he thread his fingers through her spiky blond hair and hauled her closer, shuddering when she went boneless against him, her lips parted, her tongue darting out as if in anticipation of his next kiss.

WOW….

Kyra opened up under the assault of Michael’s decadent mouth. The equivalent of a Fourth of July fireworks display exploded in her mind, the next burst bigger than the last, until her toes curled up tight in her high-heeled sandals. All she could think was that it was a good thing Michael was holding her up or she would have collapsed to the sidewalk in a puddle of steaming lust.

Oh, sure, she’d often times wondered what it would be like to kiss Michael. But that was usually when she was in bed by herself late at night, reading her latest favorite romance novel. And if she got a little carried away in the shower from time to time with thoughts of Michael’s grinning face running through her mind, well that was between her and her handheld shower massager.

But the real thing…wow! The real thing was proving to be better than anything even her favorite romance novelist could have cooked up. As Michael’s tongue plundered her all too willing mouth, she thought each and every one of her cells would fuse into the next until she wasn’t so much a separate entity but rather a physical part of the man kissing her.

Behind her, the door opened, causing Michael’s shadowy dark eyes to open along with it. A spark of recognition seemed to hit him at the same time it hit her and they jumped away from each other as if burned. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, Kyra thought as she fought to catch her runaway breath. What she’d felt, while held so close to him, had come very close to the sensation of being burned.

And it wasn’t going away.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” Michael said, pacing a short distance off, then back again. He stared at her as if looking for some sort of explanation on her face, but all she could do was drag the back of her hand sluggishly against her very-well-kissed lips.

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