“Oh, really?” She moved nearer to him, so close she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. “I guess you are awfully neat and tidy,” she said, her gaze flickering over his uniform, so perfectly pressed and...sexy, in spite of everything that was going on between them. “It would be a shame if I got my mess on you.” And before she could police herself, she’d reached out and grabbed his tie, her dirt-encrusted hands sliding over the fabric, leaving a pale dust streak and tugging his face down closer to hers.

Her heart was pounding so hard it was making her light-headed. Her blood pumped to parts...more southerly. She had no idea what was happening to her. This was no sexual attraction as she knew it. It wasn’t anything as she knew it. She was angrier than she’d been in recent memory, and a hell of a lot more turned on, and she genuinely didn’t know how to process the two together.

She also didn’t know how to process that she was inches from his face, his tie clutched tight in her hand, as his dark eyes blazed rage into hers. Rage and something else. Something hotter. Something that looked a lot like the fire burning in her belly felt.

And then...and then he dipped his head, his lips crashing into hers. And that’s what it was. A collision. It wasn’t a testing, or a tasting, or anything tentative at all. It wasn’t nice, or fun, or easy. It was gasoline on a lit match. An instant conflagration that had gone from spark to out of control at the moment of contact.

She had no idea what was happening, only that she didn’t want it to stop.

She tugged tighter on his tie and angled her head, parting his lips beneath hers and slipping her tongue into his mouth. He groaned, rough and raw and not anything like the good guy he seemed to want the world to think he was.

He locked one arm around her waist, drawing her tightly against his hard body. His lips were firm and sure. And everything about him, about this, was so much more intense than she’d imagined it could be.

She released her hold on his tie and cupped the back of his neck with her hands, holding him to her. She shifted, breaking some of the contact, and he growled—an honestly feral growl—and bit her lip, drawing her back in close.

Pleasure rocketed through her, her nipples tightening into hard points, desire settling low in her stomach, an iron fist gripping her inside and tugging hard, sending a shock wave of need straight down to her core.

She wanted... She wanted it to go on forever. This need that wrapped her up in a cocoon and held her to him. That blocked out everything. All the worry, all the anxiety, all the anger, and turned it into something... Good seemed too insipid a word. And she wasn’t sure if this was good at all.

But it was necessary.

Suddenly, it was so very necessary.

She arched her hips against his and felt the very hard, irrefutable evidence of his own investment in this explosion of need. She wanted everything all at once with an intensity that defied anything she’d ever experienced. And she wanted it with all of herself.

Her heart seized tight, a painful spasm, and suddenly she felt herself move away from him, jumping back like a startled cat.

She was shaking. Her hands, her knees and everywhere in between. And kisses did not make her shake. And she didn’t kiss men she didn’t like. She didn’t kiss men in uniforms who had a fetish for order and cleanliness.

She didn’t yell at people, either, but right now the yelling was lower on her list of sins than the kissing.

“What did you... I don’t even... I’m going to go.” She turned, her shoulders stiff, her heart hammering in her ears.

“If I’d known a kiss would have gotten rid of you, I would have kissed you the moment I saw your car sitting on the side of the road.”

Oh. That. Did it.

She whirled back around, anger gaining traction in her again. “Well, sure, your kiss got rid of me. Congratulations. Now who’s going to help you get rid of the hard-on it gave you? Your right hand?”

He lifted a shoulder, his expression stone, the dull red color on his cheekbones the only indicator that he was affected at all. That the casual manner was a lie. “My right hand suits me just fine. And it’s a hell of a lot quieter than you.”

“Oh, sure, the masturbation reference you get. You must spend a lot of time alone.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked, the color in his face deepening. Embarrassment or anger? For some reason, she felt compelled to find out.

“No comment on that?” she asked. “Hugely shocking to me that women aren’t flocking to you.” But honestly, his body was stupid sexy and there were, in fact, women who seemed to flock to him. Or at least, one woman. That she’d seen. But, whatever, she was trying to make him mad, so truth didn’t have to come into it. Petty meanness was the only thing that mattered. “I mean, you’re a jerk. And you don’t like anyone in or around your house. You don’t even like flowers.”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest, and she had to fight to keep herself from looking below his thick utility belt down to where she was sure she would be able to see evidence of his arousal. She was so, so tempted. Because she’d felt it, and it had felt so good. And she was curious beyond reason about how it looked. How he would feel in her palm...

No. Stop it.

“I’m not fighting with you,” he said. “But I’m not changing my stance. My way, or no way. It’s up to you.”

So he wasn’t even going to acknowledge the kiss? He wasn’t going to fight back and feed her anger and make her feel justified and...and... That bastard.

“Fine,” she bit out. “I’ll work with you. But if you kiss me again, I’ll bite your tongue off.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be tempted again.”

That stung. And she had no idea why. Because they shouldn’t kiss again. They shouldn’t have kissed once. So that meant there was no reason for her to feel upset about him not wanting to kiss her again.

But she was.

“We’ll discuss this more tomorrow,” she said, straightening her shoulders, trying to maintain dignity she knew she no longer had. “And if I come back tomorrow and my azalea is maimed, uprooted or otherwise denigrated I will vandalize something on your porch.”

Then she turned and walked away, trying to calm her pulse, trying to calm the racing of her heart.

She just needed to go back to her place, calm down, and—now that the plumber had been in—get herself a cold shower to help recalibrate her stupid body.

And then everything would be fine. Tomorrow morning, she would be over this thing that had flared up inside her, and she and Eli could get on with planning the community barbecue.

Yeah, that was a very nice lie. And it was one she was going to keep on telling herself until she couldn’t anymore.

* * *

That woman is a menace,” Eli said, pacing the length of his brother’s living room, all the blood in his body still heated to boiling since he’d gone and done the most stupid thing imaginable and kissed Sadie Miller like she was oxygen and he was suffocating.

“I don’t know, she hasn’t caused much trouble other than bursting the pipes, but even with paying for that, her rent is bringing in enough that we’re still coming out ahead on the agreement this month.”

“Assuming she doesn’t cause any more disasters,” he said.

“Well, sure, assuming that,” Connor conceded, sinking deeper into the couch, his legs sprawled out in front of him, his arms spread out across the back.

“Which is a big assumption, all things considered.”

“Untwist your panties,” Connor said. “You’re just still pissed because I did this without consulting you. And you don’t like change. And you don’t like feeling out of control.”

Well, dammit, was he that obvious?

“This isn’t about me. It’s about her.”

“Sure,” Connor said, resting his head on the back of the couch and drawing his hat down over his eyes.

“Will you stop that?” Eli asked.

“What?”

“Stop being so damned disengaged all the time.”