Since her house buying had hit a definite snag, she wasn’t in the mood to admire the sky or lie out on the beach.
If she wanted a loan, she needed a job. She got that. On the other hand, she had cash in the bank, enough to cover the modest price of the cottage. Not wanting to burn through it all, however, she’d planned on funding half the cottage and then using the rest of her savings for much-needed repairs. Her mortgage broker had other ideas. So she either bought a fixer-upper and then did no fixing, or...she found a job.
Working wasn’t the problem. She was fairly certain Tag had meant his offer of employment, and she was desperate enough to do some arm-twisting if she had to. Unfortunately, Tag was more likely to demand other things from her. Things involving words like begging and groveling. She would have, if she’d been in his place. So she had a plan—she just didn’t like it.
She eyed Deep Dive, but Tag’s place looked like your typical dive shop and not one of the seven circles of hell. It was a few minutes past noon, and the morning divers had just returned, hauling their tanks up from the boat and washing out wet suits and gear in the tank in front of the shop. Their post-dive wrap-up managed to be both cheerful and loud. Even lurking on the sidewalk, she could hear divers swapping Did you see the... stories as they one-upped each other with fish tales.
Highly suspect fish tales. Mia was fairly certain the guy closest to her had not, in fact, spotted a twenty-foot hammerhead shark. Asking for help sucked. She’d rather be wrangling the hammerhead.
As if he could read her mind, Tag popped the door open and stuck his head out. His hair was damp as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, a scenario she could imagine all too easily. The slow, knowing smile he gave her made her want to scream. He couldn’t possibly know her mortgage broker. She’d called someone off-island, and it wasn’t like she was wearing a sign reading Desperate Woman Here.
“Are you coming in?” He waggled his fingers at her. “Or are you planning on standing there all day?”
As if it hadn’t been three days since he’d announced their pseudo-engagement and she’d kissed him. Okay. She’d practically scaled his big, tempting body on the front porch of what she really, really hoped was her new house. Details.
“Baby.” Since two could play at this game, she gave him a saccharine sweet grin and followed him inside. She needed to talk to him—beg, the little voice in her head noted—and an audience wasn’t her first choice, so inside it was. He disappeared through a side door and...wow. The command center Tag and his boys had set up here would have made Uncle Sam proud. Floor-to-ceiling monitors displayed real-time information about weather conditions, and banks of high-powered computers filled the available floor space. A radar map tracked incoming weather. The sun outside explained the calm inside, but Mia could imagine what happened when a storm hit.
Tag dropped down onto a chair, swung his feet up onto the desk, and leaned back. Nope. He had no intention of making this easy for her.
“Coffee?” He pointed to an ancient Mr. Coffee as low-tech as the rest of the room was high-tech. She weighed her need for caffeine against the sludge-like consistency of the liquid in the pot, and her stomach voted no.
“Uh...I’m good.”
Or would be, as soon she got this over with.
He shrugged, clearly in no hurry. Of course, he wasn’t the one who needed an insta-job and wanted to get it wrapped before five o’clock, to boot. It was just Tag, she reminded herself. She recognized the old dive-shop T-shirt he wore—which said something about the state of either his wardrobe or his washing machine—and his military cargo pants and steel-toes were familiar gear. He looked badass and sexy as hell, which of course made her want to swing herself onto his lap and ride him like a cowgirl. Kiss him some and see if she could distract him from his work. Which, a quick eyeball of the room revealed, they had all to themselves. Given the amount of high-dollar hardware in here, the door had to have at least one lock.
She could have the place locked down in less than a minute and then...
No. House first.
Then sex? Her libido begged.
“Tag, I—” Her voice cracked, the throaty rasp giving her away.
She moved toward him, not sure how to start. Getting her hands on his body, however, would probably send the wrong message. Deceptively simple lines of text covered his computer screen. She’d bet the code was as elegant and lean as the man lounging in front of the screen. He could probably blow up the world with a few keystrokes.