I push the key into the lock, realizing that I forgot to call the real estate agent who said he’d look after the house for me while I was in California. I could have asked him to make sure the electricity was on, the air-conditioning was running, and there was a six-pack of beer in the fridge. But I didn’t, so I resign myself to dealing with a dark, stuffy house and an empty fridge.
But when I open the door . . . the lights are on and cool air slaps me in the face.
What the fuck?
My head swivels as I look around. The kitchen countertops are littered with bags of chips, plastic cups, beer cans, sunscreen, and liquor bottles. In the living room, a sectional couch with stained, sagging pillows faces a flat screen TV. A Ping-Pong table sits in front of the sliding doors, KEEP CLOSED! scrawled in black marker on a piece of paper taped to the glass. And outside, a partially-deflated, sunglass-wearing yellow rubber duckie drifts across the surface of the pool, deck chairs haphazardly arranged around the edge.
I drop my suitcase, my mind churning as I spin in a slow circle. “Hello?” Am I in the wrong house?
But no—my key fit perfectly in the lock. The address is the same one written on my deed and property transfer contract. And the house itself looks exactly as I remember from my walk-through a couple of months ago. Well, except for the food and frat-house furniture.
And Ping-Pong table. Jesus Fucking Christ.
I jog up the stairs, pissed as hell, but not at all surprised to find a bed in my bedroom.
Continuing down the hall, I discover that there’s a bed, or two, in every room.
I’m just pulling my phone out of my pocket, ready to file a police report, when my nose twitches with a familiar—and entirely unwelcome—scent. Smoke, acrid and earthy. Something is burning.
Not a cigarette or cigar. Not whatever people grill on their damn barbecues out here.
Fire. And not the metaphorical variety.
My heart rate picks up. It can’t be coming from downstairs; I was just there. But it smells . . . close.
Lunging across the room, I peer through the windows that take up almost two entire walls. One looking over the backyard with its pool and ocean view. Water, no fire. I turn to the other set of windows, the ones facing the side yard and my neighbor—another multimillion-dollar, gray-shingled beach house. My eye snags on something I definitely didn’t expect to see.
A woman in a fire-engine-red bikini.
Standing over a burning bush.
Barely twenty feet from my house, on my property.
Racing downstairs and out the back door, I sprint the length of the flagstone patio and into the side yard, coming to a stop just a few feet behind her. “What the hell are you doing?”
She doesn’t turn around.
“Hey!” I outstretch my arm, the tips of my fingers just grazing the curve of her shoulder.
An ear-curdling scream pierces the air as she spins, and I have only the quickest impression of doe eyes widened in fear, an upturned nose, and an open pink pout of a mouth before she begins stumbling backward.
Directly in the path of the enflamed tree.
Instinct takes over as I grab her by the wrist and haul her toward me. I have at least a hundred pounds and half a foot on her, and she flies forward, landing against my chest with a shocked, “Oof,” that at least puts an end to her scream.
And for a moment, the sizzle of the fire, the hum of the air-conditioning unit, the squawk of the birds circling overhead, the crash of the nearby waves—it all fades into nothing.
There is only the sound of my breath, the thrum of my heartbeat. And the lush curves and smooth skin of a stranger.
I come to my senses just as she jerks away from me, stepping to the side this time. Away from the fire. Away from me.
Those fierce green eyes that were open so widely just a second ago narrow, glinting at me with a mixture of anger and aggravation. She pulls a pair of earbuds from her ears. “What’s wrong with you?”
Her voice is a throaty rasp, nothing at all like her high-pitched scream. My dick gives an unwarranted and completely inappropriate pulse of appreciation that I ignore. “Me? Are you crazy? What are you doing?”
Her brows draw together, and she glances behind her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but that shrub has a fungus. The only way to ensure it doesn’t spread is to destroy the entire thing. Better one dead plant than a dozen.”
I blink, unconvinced. “You don’t exactly look like a landscaper,” I shoot back, gesturing at her barely-clad body.
Her cheeks, already flushed, turn a deeper shade of pink. “And you definitely aren’t someone I need to explain myself to.”
A few seconds pass, the air between us crackling more loudly than the flaming branches.
She breaks our stare first, bending down to retrieve the coiled water hose I hadn’t noticed and aiming it at the now blackened husk of vegetation. The flames disappear almost immediately, though she continues to soak the ground and every plant and blade of grass within a ten-foot radius.
But my attention isn’t on the landscape. The girl’s hair is lifted off her shoulders in a messy knot, exposing the bow at her neck. One pull and—
Shit. This chick is a goddamn arsonist. I don’t want her naked. I want her gone.
After several minutes, she turns back to me. “You’re still here?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She rolls her eyes and walks toward the house, putting one hand on the siding and bending down. Her ass is full and firm and fucking perfect, and only partially concealed by the tiny triangle of fabric I could rip off with my teeth. The hiss of water stops, and she stands up again, coiling the now dry hose around her arm before looping it over a metal hook extending from the house.
“Who are you?” I finally ask.
“You first.”
Unfuckingbelievable. “This is my house.”
She frowns. “Seth didn’t mention anyone new coming this week.”
Seth. The real estate agent that offered to keep an eye on my house while I was living in California. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on, but I’m starting to have an idea. “Don’t worry, Seth and I will be speaking very soon.”
What I really want to know is: how is this bikini-clad beauty involved?
She strides past me. “Well, you can’t stay here unless I hear from him.”
“Who are you?” I ask again.
She stops at the open door and spins. “Apparently, the first person to suggest you learn to shut the door.” She shakes her head, escaped tendrils of hair framing her face like red corn silk. “Don’t you see the sign? There’s no need to air-condition the yard.” With a huff, she steps inside, closing the door firmly behind her.
I wrench it open. “We’re not through talking.”
She lifts a glass of water from the kitchen table and takes a sip. “We are if you don’t close the door.”
Who the hell is this woman treating my house like it’s her own? “Do you live here?”
Her hand flutters to her neck in feigned surprise. “What gave me away?”
“Look, I don’t know what kind of scam you and Seth are running—”
“Scam?” She practically spits the word. “Listen, if you think you’re going to threaten me into letting you move in here without paying your share—”