The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

“You’re laying it on a little thick there.”

His smile didn’t falter, but some actual fun seeped into it. “Too much?”

“Oh yeah.” She nodded, matching his mock serious tone.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to find another way to steal you away from him. Good thing I’m a helluva lot more adventurous. How about breakfast in Paris, lunch in Milan, and dinner Barcelona?”

A large hand clapped down on her dance partner’s shoulder—not hard enough to cause a scene but definitely serious enough to make a point—and brought their dancing to a jarring halt. Sawyer stood behind Tyler, all predatory determination and sizzling heat. Her belly did that flip-flop thing that released all the stupid kamikaze butterflies in her stomach and her breath caught.

“Leave her dining choices to me, Jacobson,” Sawyer said to her dance partner, but the smoldering look in his eyes was all for her.

And for once, her mouth stayed blessedly shut.

The other man stiffened, all the teasing drained out in an instant. “I’m just entertaining the lady while you’re busy.”

“I’ll take over from here,” Sawyer said.

“Of course.” Tyler released her and executed a deep, mocking bow. “Until next time… you know, I didn’t ask your name…”

Brain catching up to the fact that she’d ended up in the middle of a pissing contest that she highly doubted had anything to do with her, she ignored Sawyer’s scowling, caveman presence and reached out to shake the other man’s hand. “Clover Lee.”

Instead of shaking her hand, he brought it up to his mouth and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “An unforgettable name for an unforgettable woman.”

It was sweet, but there wasn’t any heat behind it—from either of them—and he walked off the dance floor without a parting shot directed toward Sawyer. Whatever the story was behind this little bit of dick wagging, it had the feel of a long-running feud, and Clover promised herself to play it smart and stay the hell out of it.

She took a step toward the spot where she and Sawyer had been standing before, but his hand slid across her hip and he turned her into his arms in one fluid, confident move. It only took a few beats of the music for that socially-acceptable space between their bodies that had been so easy to maintain with Tyler to disappear between her and Sawyer as if it had never existed. His long fingers splayed across the small of her back, the tips of two fingers warm against the strip of bare skin above the skirt’s waistband and set off sparks that tightened her nipples and weakened her knees. Suddenly, her Cinderella-at-the-ball fantasy dance didn’t feel so kid-appropriate anymore.

“What were you doing with Tyler?” Sawyer asked, his palm pressing more firmly against the small of her back at the other man’s name.

“Dancing.” True story. Also, it was about the extent of her conversational skills at the moment, since she was fighting against a determined tide of desire from the touch of only two of his fingers on her skin. Pitiful. She really needed to get laid more often, if this was all it took to knock her brain loose.

“He’s trouble,” Sawyer said with disgust as if the words tasted like day-old radiation. “Stay away from him. That’s an order.”

Clover craned her neck to get a look at Sawyer’s face from this close angle. His jaw was concrete and his dark eyebrows were pinched together in an angry V.

Holy shit. He was serious—and he expected his “order” to be followed.

That. Was. It.

Her feet froze, jerking them to a stop in the middle of the dance floor. Other couples whirled around them as indignation bubbled up inside her to the surface, sizzled along her skin, and decimated her very feeble verbal filter.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you and Tyler, but I am not a fire hydrant.” She kept her voice low and her face serene but jabbed a finger into his unyielding chest to bring her point home. “I am not a bone.” Jab number two. “I am not a grubby tennis ball covered in dried mud.” A third for good measure. “I am not a thing for you two dogs to fight over. I am a woman with my own brain, my own will, and my own determination. Sawyer Carlyle, you might be giving me a paycheck, but you sure as hell didn’t buy me and you definitely don’t have the right to tell me who I can and cannot dance with—especially not when you are obviously more interested in your phone than the rest of the world around you.” Shit. That last part got a little too close to the truth hiding in her soft, caramel center. Bring it home, Clover. “My job is to be your personal buffer, and your mom has kept her distance. Was there someone invisible that I couldn’t see who was bothering you?”

She sucked in a breath as the rush of adrenaline pounded through her, practically lifting her off her aching feet. Oh, if only it didn’t feel so good to let loose like that, she totally would have learned to keep her mouth shut by now. God knew that skill sure would help her keep a job for longer than five minutes.

Job.

“Goondu,” the word rushed out. Her former landlady in Singapore was right. She was an idiot.

Her lungs clenched and her stomach dropped into the great unknown abyss. She’d just told the man signing her paycheck to go fuck himself. Well, not exactly in those words, but that was the gist of it and she needed this job.

Clover Lee, you are a self-sabotaging asshole.

She didn’t want to meet his gaze. All the saints and angels above knew she didn’t want to, but she forced herself to look up at Sawyer. She’d been in front of the firing squad often enough to know it didn’t hurt any less if she closed her eyes and thought of Australia.

But his glower was gone. He was…smiling? Yep. It wasn’t a big one, but one side of his mouth was definitely curved upward.

“Uh…” She gulped. “Sawyer…Mr. Carlyle…Umm—”