Natalie Anderson - The Man She Couldn't Refuse

Becca had never explained to Tess what had happened that one time she’d gone to the café alone. She didn’t want to hurt her BFF, that was the whole point. But now Tess was happy. And now Becca was supposed to be doing her own thing.

Doing what she wanted.

Becca stepped up to him, because what she’d said to that other guy was true—for once, she wanted to be pleased. The lust Levi fired in her? She didn’t know which was the greater risk—to act on it, or ignore it. But she needed to know what he had in mind.

“You got plans for me, Flash?”

“Unfinished business.” Levi nodded. “Seems to me we ought to catch up and talk old times.”

“Talk?”

“It’s a well-known phenomenon that people from the same place bond together when travelling on foreign soil.”

“Bond?”

He smiled at her. And that was all it took.

“I have half a tank to go,” she said. “It should only take a few minutes.”

“May I watch?”

The way he infused that question with the naughty was quite some skill. She tossed her head, taking up the challenge in his expression. She’d been such a shy nerd—such a quiet sheep following her louder, confident friends.

“Alright.” She sized him up. “You can be my groupie. Five paces behind.”

“Groupie?” His nostrils flared. “Not a bodyguard?”

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“So you fend off unwanted feel-ups with your pistols all by your pretty self?”

“Soda in the eye stings worse than onion juice.”

He chuckled. “I bet.”

“I haven’t actually had to do it.”

He leaned in close. “You didn’t shoot me in the eye.”

He hadn’t given her a chance. “Why would I give up the opportunity to experience something with someone so skilled?” she cooed.

“Ah, so that’s what you really think of me.” He slapped his hand on his heart like she’d mortally wounded him. “But you know, this beach is teaming with guys who’ve slept with way more women than I have.”

She glared at him as he winked. He knew she’d just been making up a tart put-down.

“Don’t look so fierce, you’ll scare off your customers,” he teased.

“Actually, I’ve learned they like a woman with spirit.” She pushed past him and smiled at his sudden frown. “Don’t you look so fierce, you’re the one scaring them off.”

“Maybe you’re the one who should be scared. They could easily turn on you and you couldn’t get away. Now how would you handle that in your sexy warrior heroine outfit?”

Chapter Five

George: Don’t make the mistake of thinking an accent makes him a sex god.

Her customers turn on her? Becca rolled her eyes. Levi sounded worse than one of her over-protective cousins. The Wolfe men might be all high-action risk takers themselves, but they were fiercely concerned about the safety of others, especially females—and her the most, warning her to take care in most situations. She might have been quiet, but she wasn’t incapable. But though she’d grown up on the other side of the world from them, they’d been heavily influential without realizing it—flying in and inspiring her with their travel tales and confidence.

Eventually she’d gotten fed up with her parent’s cosseting and her own inaction. If her cousins could spend a year travelling the world on their own, earning their own way and choosing their own path, then so could she. She was taking her own risks. Calculated ones. And she wasn’t going to let Levi start in on the same old lecture she’d suffered through for months before she’d finally scraped together the cash to come away.

“There are plenty of women around,” she gestured towards the bathers on the beach. “I’m never far from the bar. So I suggest you stand back if you don’t want to get wet.”

Levi watched her stalk forward and call out to the people farther along the beach. Calling them to her like the siren she was. And they came. She told them the bar they ought to party on at and then gave them their “shots”.

“Line up, two rows.” She instructed confidently.

Once they did, she lifted her arms, firing shots of drink from her pistols in short streams straight into the open mouths of the zombies.

“Very Game Grrl.” He teased once her tank was emptied and the crowd had dissipated. But that concern lingered—she was more vulnerable than she’d admit.

Petite, pretty, utterly enticing.

She blew the end of the pistol as if it were smoking and looked up at him. “I’ve been practicing.”

“So now you’re an expert?” he asked.

They weren’t talking water pistols any more.

Levi’s muscles tightened. He recognized that look in her eyes. That not so gentle rise of color in her cheeks. It wasn’t embarrassment. Any woman who could so confidently stride along a packed beach offering energy shots to every stranger, and swatting away unwanted advances, wasn’t going to be easily embarrassed.

No, this was attraction. Lust. No longer quiet and shy, Becca Wolfe was all grown up. And she wanted him.

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