1
“KYRA!” JESSE CHANDLER shouted to his business partner as he strode into the barn housing the offices of Crooked Branch Horse Farms. He juggled purchases from the tack shop until he reached a sawhorse table where he could set them down. “I’ve got all the leather you wanted. Saddles and bridles, riding gloves and a dominatrix outfit—oh, wait. That last one wasn’t a business purchase.”
He sorted through the new supplies in the converted old building Kyra used strictly for storage and office space. The horses Kyra bred and trained lived in much more modern quarters behind this barn.
Removing price tags and testing the leather of the new stock, Jesse waited for his best friend and colleague to appear. He’d never made her blush in over ten years of trying, but hope sprang eternal. No matter that Kyra Stafford was the one woman in Citrus County he’d never hit on, he still loved to make her laugh.
“Perfect,” came a feminine purr from over his left shoulder—far closer than he’d anticipated. “I think you need an assertive woman to keep you in line, Jesse Chandler.”
For about two seconds, he reacted to the sultry promise he must have imagined behind the words.
Awareness fired through him, heated his insides despite the breeze drifting in the wide-open barn doors. The Gulf of Mexico rested a mere thousand acres away to border the northwest corner of the state-of-the-art Florida horse farm and training facility. Surely the gentle wind off the water should have helped him keep cool in February.
But then Kyra stepped around him to stand by his side and look over the new tack, her long blond hair grazing his arm. Smart, sensible Kyra Stafford who had never flirted with him for so much as five seconds.
What the hell was the matter with him?
Shaking off an absurd sense of attraction he’d never felt for his best friend before, Jesse attributed the Twilight Zone moment to too many nights alone. He definitely needed to remedy that situation this weekend.
“Funny, I don’t see any dominatrix garb here.” Kyra glanced up at him with her bright blue eyes. Innocent blue eyes, damn it. And smiled. “Be careful what you wish for, Jesse.”
From any other woman, Jesse would have pegged that remark for blatant enticement. But he was obviously going through major sensual deprivation if he was hearing come-ons in Kyra’s speech.
Hell yeah, he’d be more careful.
Clearing his throat, he decided maybe they were just both getting too old for the game of trying to make Kyra blush. “Guess I left the spiked collar at the store.” He started hanging bridles on the wall, determined to make tracks between him and this ill-advised conversation. “That’s okay. I don’t go for the hard-core type anyway.”
“Seems like you’re not going for any type lately,” Kyra observed, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she leaned a blue-jean-clad hip into the sawhorse table. At twenty-four, she looked sort of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Bonanza—a petite blonde in dusty cowboy boots with enough determination and drive to move mountains, or, more often, stubborn horses. “Is southern Florida’s most notorious bad boy finally mellowing?”
Allowing a saddle created for one of their new ponies to slide back to the plywood with a thunk, Jesse turned to face the woman who knew him best. The woman whose question mirrored his own recent fear.
“You know I couldn’t mellow if I tried.” Not that he would try. He was too content with bachelorhood, even though his last girlfriend was sticking to him like glue despite his best efforts to move on. He needed to show Greta he wasn’t the forever-after—or even a three-date—kind of guy.
“Why? Because there’d be ten women lined up in Victoria’s Secret lingerie and armed with apple pies if they knew you were thinking about settling down?”
She tried on a pair of fawn-colored riding gloves and stared at her hand encased in suede.
Jesse grinned. “As if that would be such a hardship.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him in one of Kyra’s classic don’t-bullshit-me looks.
He shrugged. “I don’t know what’s up. I’ve been putting in a lot of hours making final preparations around the Crooked Branch before I turn my attention to my custom homes business. Maybe I’ve just been working too hard lately.”
He hated leaving Kyra to run the business all by herself, but that had been her stipulation from the moment they’d went in on the operation together. She’d vowed to buy back his substantial share of the farm once she’d made it a success.
And damned if she wasn’t whooping butt on that promise already. As soon as she clinched one more horse sale, she’d own the controlling share of the business.
The farm had been great part-time work for Jesse in the years he’d played minor league baseball for kicks. But now that he was closing in on thirty, he was mentally ready to hang his own shingle for a custom home-building business and let Kyra go her own way with the Crooked Branch. His older brother had told Jesse last spring that he would never be able to still his wandering feet, but Jesse disagreed.
He might not be able to commit to any one woman, but he could commit to a place, damn it. Not only was he putting down roots in Citrus County, he was cementing his ties to the area by starting his own business here.
Still, he worried a little about leaving Kyra to her own devices at the training facility. Running a horse-boarding-and-breeding business wasn’t exactly a cushy way of life and as the date for him to bow out approached, Jesse couldn’t help thinking about all the tough jobs that Kyra would be left with to handle solo.
The physically demanding aspects of handling stubborn horses. The chauvinistic attitudes of some of the owners.
He hated the thought of anyone ever giving her a hard time.
She eyed him with quiet patience, reminding him why she was so damn good at working with antsy horses. “Are you sure you’re working, Jesse, or are you maybe overcompensating for leaving in two weeks? No offense, but this is more tack than we’ll need in two lifetimes.” She studied him in that open, no-holds-barred manner that had made him trust her from the moment they met. “Are you just using the excuse of work to hide out from some overeager female of the week?”
Jesse shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Caught.
Why in the hell had he thought he might be able to hide anything from this woman? Kyra’s eyes might be innocent, but they were wise.
Jesse shoved the stack of too many gloves to the back of the sawhorse table. “Honestly, I’m having a little trouble with Greta lately. She looks at me and sees picket fences no matter how much I avoid her.” He’d met the German model in Miami Beach last fall and they’d spent a crazy few days locked in her condo overlooking the water.
Between Greta’s flashy lifestyle and jet-set friends, Jesse had assumed she wanted the same things from their time together as he did—simple, basic things like mind-blowing sex and a few hours to forget life wasn’t as perfect as they pretended.
But ever since then, Greta had called him on and off, even going so far as to show up on his doorstep over the holidays to see if he wanted company.
“She thinks you’re marriage material?” Kyra’s skeptical tone suggested a woman could be committed for harboring those kinds of thoughts.
“Go figure. But she’s damned persistent. And you know how I hate to hurt people.” One of the foremost reasons he avoided relationships like the plague was to ensure he never hurt anybody. He’d learned that lesson early in life when his father had torn Jesse’s whole family apart with infidelities until he walked out on his wife and kids for good.
Too bad Jesse’s tact of keeping things light with Greta had bitten him in the ass this time.
“You need a different kind of woman.” Kyra sidled closer.
Or was that his imagination?
“Damn straight I do.” He folded his arms across his chest, unwilling to take any chances with his overactive libido today. The last thing he needed was any freaky twinge of attraction to Kyra again.
“A woman who wants the same things from a relationship you do.” Her voice took on a husky quality, reminding him of what it was like to trade pillow confidences with floral-scented females in the dark.
Not females like Kyra, of course.
He cleared his throat.
“That’s how I’m going to approach things from now on.” Jesse turned back to the mountain of leather goods on the plywood table and mentally started dialing numbers from his address book. A night with Lolita Banker would satisfy every stray sexual urge he’d had today, and then some.
“Then why don’t you let me help?” Kyra’s hand snaked over to his, gently restraining him from shuffling around the new bridles. “I know exactly what you want.”
Damnation. Her touch sizzled through him even as her words called to mind sensual visions. The arch of a woman’s back, the pink flush of feminine skin, the sweet sighs of fulfillment as...
Jesse’s gaze slid from Kyra to the mound of fresh hay that waited not ten yards away.
Holy freaking hell.
He withdrew his hand from her light touch as if burned. Then again, maybe he had been. At the very least, his brain circuits had obviously fried because there was no way in hell she’d meant anything remotely sexual.
Determined to escape that provocative vision forever, Jesse closed his eyes and clutched the new saddle in front of him like a shield. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him because he wouldn’t be seeing Kyra much once he started his new business.
“Great idea.” He forced the words past dry lips, trying like hell to remember the color of Lolita’s hair, the shape of her mouth, anything. “Let’s grab a beer after work and you can help me figure out how to let Greta down easy. You know somebody to hook her up with?”
He backed toward the barn doors, clutching the saddle in a death grip. Perhaps it was a good thing he’d be leaving the Crooked Branch in two weeks after all. “Besides, Lolita Banker’s waitressing at the bar on Indian Rocks Beach. Maybe I just need to meet someone else to help me—” Forget all about seducing my best friend? “Get my head on straight again.”
Turning away from those vivid blue eyes and poured-into-denim body, Jesse shouted over his shoulder. “Happy hour starts at six.”
* * *
HAPPY HOUR?
Why didn’t they call it something more apt like frustrated-as-hell hour?
Kyra fumed as she watched Jesse’s motorcycle kick up gravel on his way out of the driveway—as if he couldn’t put enough distance between him and her lame attempt at seduction.
She’d had a thing for Jesse from the first time they’d met. His perpetually too-long hair, dark eyes and prominent cheekbones gave him a dangerous look that hinted of long-forgotten Seminole heritage. He wore one gold stud in his ear, which, according to high school legend, he’d had ever since his tenth-grade girlfriend convinced him they should pierce a body part together. Jesse had kept the stud long after the girl.
Kyra had met him right after the ear-piercing. She’d caught him sneaking out one of her father’s horses at night to indulge in wild rides. Eventually, she’d discovered his midnight trips were more about escape than about raising hell. But that knowledge never altered her vision of Jesse Chandler as a danger-loving thrill seeker.
She’d been all of ten years old at the time and far too starry-eyed with Jesse to spill his secret to her manic-depressive dad. She’d started leaving Buster saddled for Jesse so he wouldn’t break his neck riding bareback.
Every morning, Buster would be groomed and locked in his stall, his tack neatly hung on the wall.
Their friendship had cemented that summer, despite the five-year difference between them. Their paths rarely crossed in the school system, but Kyra heard all the rumors about him and collected Jesse folklore the way some girls collected scrapbooks of their favorite rock stars. She’d outgrown that infatuation with him, but the man still had the power to dazzle her. To make her wonder...
Unwilling to put her heart on the line, she’d ignored the stray longings for her best friend over the years, even going so far as to convince herself they could operate a business together.
Crooked Branch Farms was now one of the most prestigious breeding and training facilities in southern Florida, but all of Kyra’s hard work and new success still hadn’t fulfilled the ache within her that had started one sultry summer night fourteen years ago. In fact, now her workplace was tainted with longing for Jesse, ensuring she could never fully escape from thoughts of him.
Ever the practical thinker, Kyra had devised a two-prong plan to solve the problem. First, she was working her way toward taking over the controlling half of the business. If she could sell one more horse this year, that goal would be attainable and she’d be able to run the Crooked Branch independently.
Part two of her plan was much more fun. She wanted to seduce Jesse and experience the mythical sexual prowess of a man who’d long inhabited her dreams.
She knew he would never settle down. Yet that didn’t make her want him any less. In some ways, it made him a safe—temporary—choice for her wary heart.
If he ever noticed she wasn’t sporting pigtails anymore.
Sighing, Kyra stalked back to her office and flung herself onto the futon across from her bookshelves. As she idly sifted through a stack of paperwork, she admitted to herself today’s attempt to make Jesse see her as a woman had been an unmitigated flop. It’s not like she wanted picket fences, either. She simply wanted a night to act out her longtime fantasy before he left their business for good.
So there wasn’t a chance she’d facilitate his seduction of Lolita Banker at the Indian Rocks Beach bar. For all Kyra cared, he could just twist in the wind while Greta the German Wonder-bod made him feel guilty about not playing house with her.
And in the meantime, Kyra would turn up the heat on her own seductive plans—just as soon as she figured out what they were. Heaven knew suggestive talk wasn’t the key according to her experience with him today.
How could a man be so blind?
She needed a more fast-acting approach, a surefire way to get his attention.
Just then a flyer caught her eye from her pile of paperwork. A pamphlet advertising Tampa Bay’s annual Gasparilla festival. This year the mock pirate invasion of the city was sponsored by a company Jesse’s older brother owned.
Her eyes scanned the paper, slowing over a phrase that suggested the festival was hiring a handful of actors to stage strictly-in-fun kidnappings of partygoers. Jesse’s brother Seth had hand-scrawled a note across the paper asking Jesse to consider playing one of the buccaneers himself, in fact.
Kyra knew he had nixed the request pleading that he needed to indulge in some R & R and just enjoy the festival before his home-building gig kicked into high gear in another two weeks. She also knew that probably meant he would be searching for a flavor-of-the-week woman at Gasparilla. Especially since his usual method of telling a woman they were through was insinuating himself in a new five-day relationship.
All of which put Jesse at the festival while leaving one buccaneer slot still vacant.
She’d wanted a way to make Jesse Chandler see her as a woman, hadn’t she? She had the feeling an old-fashioned corset and fishnet stockings would do the trick. So what if pirates were usually peg-legged men dressed in rags with bad teeth?
Kyra would improvise.
And abduct the hottest man in Tampa Bay for a night he wouldn’t forget.
* * *
THREE DAYS LATER, Kyra stood on the deck of the famed Jose Gaspar pirate boat. As the warm February breeze lifted her hair from her neck, she tugged the strings on her black leather corset a little tighter and more breasts magically appeared.
The modern day push-up bra didn’t have anything on eighteenth-century technology.
Studying her reflection in the blunted steel of a costume dagger given to her by an overzealous event stylist on board the boat, Kyra thought she looked as close to a sexpot as she was possibly capable. Sure she’d never have the perfect figure of Greta the German Wonder-bod, but by a miracle of her black leather getup, she had more curves than ever before.
No matter that any spare ounce of flesh on her rib cage had been squeezed northward in order to achieve the effect. For today at least, she looked downright voluptuous.
Kyra shoved her dagger into a loop on her black cargo miniskirt. Her leather corset just reached the waist of the skirt while a gauzy, low-cut blouse skimmed her breasts underneath the leather. She hadn’t bothered to wear a bra for the event given the old-fashioned lace-up garment currently holding her breathless.
She wouldn’t lack for support, but if the February Gulf breeze turned cold, she’d probably be showing a little more than she’d like through the white cotton blouse. Who’d have thought the wardrobe they’d given her would be so treacherously thin?
Still, Kyra was pleased she’d taken the plunge and committed herself to today’s cause. After years of near-invisibility around Jesse, she needed something dramatic to make him notice her as a woman.
How hard could it be to sway him once he noticed her in that way?
As the bellow of mock cannons echoed in her ears, Kyra peered across the ship deck filled to overflowing with local luminaries dressed as pirates and waved to Jesse’s scowling older brother, Seth. A self-made millionaire, Seth Chandler had always enjoyed a more low-profile approach to life than Jesse. Yet Seth had been forced to don an eye patch today when the lead buccaneer had quit an hour before the Jose Gaspar set sail.
A role he didn’t seem to be enjoying if his surly expression was any indication.
The dull roar of the crowd standing onshore near Tampa Bay’s convention center jerked her thoughts from Seth back to the present. Leaning on the rail surrounding the main deck, Kyra squinted out across the water in the hope of finding her quarry.
A swirl of purple, yellow and green gleamed back at her. The Gasparilla event shared several things in common with New Orleans’s Mardi Gras—its signature colors, a parade organized by Krewes that tossed beads and other souvenirs to attendees and a serious party attitude.
But the resemblance ended there. Gasparilla celebrated a distinctly Floridian heritage with its nod to a famous pirate and the events on the water. As the 165-foot boat sailed toward shore, a flotilla of over two hundred smaller watercraft followed in its wake.
And of course, Mardi Gras didn’t present the opportunities for a friendly kidnapping that Gasparilla offered for the first time this year. Anticipation tingled through Kyra as her chance to open Jesse’s eyes drew near.
Just as they dropped anchor, she spotted him.
All six feet two inches of rangy muscle and masculine grace talking animatedly with friends. Or maybe some new conquest. Kyra couldn’t fully see who he was speaking to through the crush. Funny how her feminine radar had been able to track him without any problem, though.
She’d known he would be here because Seth had asked him to drop off his boat at the festival today. Jesse had mentioned that he was looking forward to spending most of the day in downtown Tampa—after the invasion of the city there was a parade, followed by a street festival into the night.
A night Kyra intended to claim for her own.
Before she could secure a solid plan for making her way through the throng to reach Jesse, Seth swung out over the mass of partygoers, signaling the start of the pirate invasion. Chaos ensued on the boat and off as buccaneers leaped, swung or ran off the Jose Gaspar to greet attendees and abduct a few innocent bystanders.
Born athletic and toned from days on horseback, Kyra didn’t flinch at the idea of climbing a rope and flinging herself out into the mob. She was a little surprised at the substantial chorus of male appreciation as she did so, however. Apparently her fishnet stockings and brand-new cleavage invited attention because she was seriously ogled—and groped—for the first time in her life.
“Take me, honey!” a partygoer shouted as he stumbled into her path. Wearing a crooked three-cornered hat emblazoned with a Jolly Roger and a Metallica T-shirt, the guy sloshed beer over the rim of his plastic cup onto the toe of her lace-up black boots.
Kyra righted his precarious cup and sidled past him, her gaze scanning the crowd for Jesse. She wasn’t so desperate for attention that she’d settle for the lecherous stare of a drunken stranger.
Unfortunately, her corset attracted plenty of the wrong kind of attention.
She smacked away a hand that brushed along her thigh, wishing she’d brought along a riding crop for crowd control. Who’d have thought a glorified push-up bra could turn so many heads?
Desperate to find the only man whose attention she really cared about, Kyra caught sight of him leaning into the shade of a palm tree planted in between the concrete slabs of sidewalk some fifteen yards away. Focused on her muscle-bound goal, she stepped around a strolling hot-pretzel vendor and a mother clutching the hands of toddler twins wearing eye patches.
Only then did she spy Jesse’s companion. Greta the German Wonder-bod giggled relentlessly at every word out of his mouth, her perfect figure looking svelte and toned in yellow shorts that barely covered her ridiculously tiny butt. A white T-shirt spelled out Monaco in matching sunny yellow letters.
Kyra knew damn well Greta didn’t need the aid of a corset to give her those amazing curves. The German model had an effortless beauty that wouldn’t desert her when the festival was over. Even if she made a living slinging hay in blue jeans.
The ache of second-guessing tightened in Kyra’s chest. Would it be cruel to pull Jesse away if he would honestly rather patch things up with Greta? God knows, it looked like he was enjoying himself, his dark eyes alight with good humor and his lone dimple flashing in his left cheek.
But then again, Jesse had a way of making any woman feel like she was the center of his universe even as he plotted how to dance around any sort of commitment. His elusiveness was part of his charm.
And hadn’t he just confided to Kyra three days ago that Greta wanted much more than he could provide?
Refusing to allow a little feminine insecurity to thwart her plan, Kyra charged toward the couple. No way would Jesse have invited Greta here today if he was worried that she was taking things too seriously. Greta was probably just chasing him the same way so many women did.
She pulled herself up short.
The way Kyra was chasing him for the first time in her life.
But at least Kyra knew what would come out of a relationship with her best friend. A few nights of amazing pleasure so she could get over her age-old crush on him and they would go back to being strictly friends.
Committed to her plan, Kyra withdrew a silk scarf from the pocket of her cargo skirt and wrapped one end of the filmy material around each of her hands.
She didn’t have the option of carrying off Jesse over one shoulder the way a guy pirate might kidnap his wench of choice. Therefore, she had to resort to more underhanded means of abduction.
Edging up behind Jesse, she was neatly hidden from Greta’s view by his broad back. A white tank shirt bearing the name of a horse show she’d competed in long ago exposed his tanned shoulders and strong arms. Low-slung black shorts hugged his hips and a very fine...back view.
A shiver of excitement jolted through her as she neared him, along with a slight tremor of nerves.
Before she could change her mind, Kyra looped her pink silk scarf over his head to cover his eyes. In a flash, she pressed herself to his warm back to whisper in his ear.
“Don’t fight it, hotshot. Consider yourself a pirate prisoner.” The words tripped off her tongue in a breathy rush as her body reacted to his with spontaneous heat. “For today, you’re all mine.”