There was no way to outrun Taj or Ava for long. Both of her friends converged in the tiny office. Ava went straight for the mini-fridge and freezer and busted out the gelato. Taj grabbed three spoons from her desk.

"Spill it, Sera, who do we have to kill?" Ava asked.

Sera blew out a breath and slumped in her seat. “I think if you killed everyone I needed dead today, you guys would officially be serial killers.”

Ava took a spoonful of ice cream then passed the quart-sized container to her. Sera let the ice-cold raspberry gelato soothe her flaming anger as it slid down her throat. She hated not being able to tell her friends the truth. "For starters, Dylan was an ass this morning. Just annoying….er….new couple stuff."

Ava frowned in confusion. "Wait, are we talking about the guy from Friday night?"

Taj rolled her eyes. "Yo, keep up. They are a thing now. He is pretty much living in Sera's bungalow."

"What? Sera, is that wise? You don't even know the guy. Sure, he's sexy, but I mean who is he? Who are his people? Don't you remember what happened with Aaron? You thought you knew him well and you see how that turned out?"

Taj turned to her. "This from the girl who practically climbed over Sera to get to him on Friday. I mean come on."

"I did not. Besides, it was flirting. You do it brazenly all the time."

"Not with guys that are clearly into my bestie. Which is more than I can say for—"

"Oh my God, would you guys stop? I cannot take this shit today. Please."

Taj still scowled, but she sat back. "Sorry, honey. We'll focus on the real enemy." Turning to Ava, she caught her up in seconds. "So wait, Seduction 101 backfired?"

She took another spoonful. "Yeah, you could say that. I don't want to talk about it. But then this morning, as he's kissing me goodbye, there's Aaron insisting he has to talk to me. And of course that shit that happened with Jason just now. We were in here together on Saturday, both trying to get a leg up on this campaign—that was my idea Xavier gave him credit for."

Ava crossed her arms. "And this is why you're off men."

"Was off men," Taj corrected. "Dylan is changing that, because, well, sex on a stick. We just need to get you back in the saddle."

"You ever have a day you just want to reboot and start all over again? This is that day." She dragged in a breath. "Okay, Jason I can deal with. I let myself get sidetracked Saturday. I know this client. I can maneuver around him."

Taj nodded. "I can give you his tactics since I work with him a lot in sports."

This was good. She could get everything back on track. "Next is the devil incarnate."

"Well, look, I'll deal with Aaron. He's getting out of hand at this point," Ava volunteered.

Taj raised a hand. "I have a friend with lye. Don't ask."

Leave it to Taj to make her laugh. "I won't, but let's hold off on homicide for now. Ava, yeah, can you find out what wants? He seems bent on talking to me, but I'm not in a place where I can do that yet."

Taj raised her eyebrows. "That leaves Hottie Mcbody."

Sera tried not to groan at the apt new nickname. "I don't know what to do with him."

Ava pursed her lips. "Well, maybe it's too soon for you to be involved with someone. Sure he's cute, but you don't need that headache now."

Taj rolled her eyes. "Oh my God, who took your woman balls? What Sera needs is a boyfriend assessment. Why don't we all go to lunch and we can see the lay of the land."

Sera considered. If Dylan were a real prospect, there was no way she'd unleash the two of them on some poor guy so early on. She loved her girls, but they could be a bit much. But he wasn't a real prospect. And she needed a new angle to deal with him. "You know what? I think that's a great idea."

* * *

Regret was a funny thing. And Dylan was starting to regret taking this assignment. Serafina Justice was a giant pain in the ass. She was messy. And beautiful. And loud. And sexy. And she smelled like fucking honeysuckle. Everywhere he went in her house, her scent followed him. He couldn't get away from it.

Even when he came to work in the morning, the scent of honeysuckle lingered for hours. It was like she was deliberately trying to drive him insane. He hadn't had a good night’s sleep in days. Maybe that's the nightmares. Maybe it was her. Just watching her walk out of her bedroom every morning was like an exercise in patience and control. This shit was inconvenient. She was supposed to be an assignment. Then why is she getting under your skin?

Part of him wanted to tame her, while the other part of him wanted to kiss her again to see if she tasted as good as he remembered. It was the same part of him that thought the sleepy look was cute. He didn't do cute. She might not know it—hell, it was better if she never figured it out—but she had his number.

In a matter of weeks he would be back in New York, with Symone and Carmen. He could work on his relationship with Symone. And life would be grand. He needed to stop having these…feelings? No, it wasn't feelings. It was misdirected lust. Nothing more, nothing less. It was time to get that shit under control, he was a grown-ass man. And a slip of a girl wasn't going to derail his life.

Things had just gotten a little more complicated than he planned. You should never have kissed her. Well, twenty-twenty hindsight and all that. If he hadn't kissed her, he wouldn't be having those dreams that kept him tossing and turning. His mouth wouldn't go dry when she walked into the room. And the other night on the couch, his cock wouldn't have been hard enough to cut steel.

No, he made this bed and now he needed to lie in it…with her. No. Fuck no. Not with her. He wasn't lying anywhere with her. Every second he was around her, he could feel the thread of his control unraveling. And he hated it. In three short days, she was driving him crazy enough to turn him into someone he didn't recognize.

After finishing this assignment he was going to get his career back on track. His life back on track. Symone that was who he wanted. Not Serafina Justice. Then why can't you stop thinking about her? Because her fucking plan was working.

He'd focus on the work he had to do. That was what he was good at. He'd always been able to remove the emotion, remove the noise from any situation. All he had to do was figure out how to do that now. All it would take was some focus.

He was just off his game. When she called him and said she wanted him to have lunch with her friends, he had anticipated what it would mean to be sitting so close to her during a meal.

For starters, he hadn't really gotten a good look at her outfit this morning. By the time they'd left, she had a light trench coat covering it. If he had, he might've been mentally prepared for the vermilion-red wrap dress and how it hugged her curves. And worse, or better, depending on how he looked at it, the way that dress dipped into her cleavage gave him a fantastic view of her cleavage.

"Dylan? Are you okay? You haven't even touched your salad," Sera asked as she smiled up at him sweetly.

He knew better than to trust that smile. This was still her playing games with him. Teasing a starving man with prime rib was probably not a good idea. Ignoring the itch to touch her he shifted in his seat to adjust his hardening dick. "Salad's not really what I'm in the mood for." He then gave her an equally sweet smile. Or at least what he hoped was a reasonable facsimile for sweet and not wolfish.

Across the table, Taj and Ava studied the two of them. Taj with a broad grin, and Ava with a disapproving glare. He wasn't sure why the blonde disliked him so much. She might be a problem in the next several weeks if he didn't get her on board. Taj was outrageous and Dylan liked her. Called things how she saw them. He might not be Sera's real boyfriend, but he liked the fact that she had a friend that was no bullshit.

The jury was still out on Ava. She probably wasn't happy that he rejected her the other night, but he been respectful about it. There's no reason to hold a grudge.

"So." Taj leaned forward with a wink. "How did you two crazy kids spend the weekend?"

Sera beamed. "Oh you know, we did the couple thing." She slid her hand high onto his thigh and he choked on his Sprite, sending fizzy bubbles up his nose.

When Dylan recovered from his coughing sputtering fit, he placed a hand over hers. "Yeah, it was all lazy lie-ins and brunch for us." More like they retreated to their corners before another round.

Taj nodded in understanding. "Nothing better than a lazy Sunday morning love session to change your outlook for the next week."

As Taj talked, Sera slid her hand onto Dylan's inner thigh; he held his breath. Her pinky was dangerously close to the tip of his erection and his body and brain were of two minds about it. What the fuck was she doing? Why the fuck aren't you stopping her?

Because he didn't want to. His body might not want to stop but his brain certainly did. If he fucked up this assignment, Senator Justice could kill his career with a snap of her fingers. That didn't stop him from shifting his hips, though.

Her touch was firm, familiar, and so close to the tip. Sera took another bite of salad and then grazed the tip of his erection with her pinky. His body hummed like a purring cat. That was it. His brain happily handed over the reins to his cock. As if to say, Go on, this is clearly your area of expertise, have at it.

Meanwhile, Ava might not have known what was going on underneath the table, but she was suspicious of him. "So, Dylan, where is it that you live exactly? It's not like you've moved in with Sera permanently, right? I mean, you do have a job after all, or are you between gigs?"

Perfect, just what he needed—an overzealous friend with a bitchy streak. "My place is in Del Mar. But since Sera is so close to the office and we want to spend as much time as possible together, I ended up there this weekend to avoid traffic from the fairgrounds."

Ava turned wary blue eyes in Sera's direction. "Sera, it's not like you to vanish when you have a new guy."

Dylan held his breath. He wasn't sure if Sera would hold cover or not. After all, it's not like she wanted him here.

But after a tense moment she came through. "Ava, what's gotten into you? You've been nothing but sullen and rude since we sat down."

Her friend pursed her lips. "All I'm saying is you don't know anything about this guy and all of a sudden he's at your place, you're spending all your weekend time with him. How do you even know he's who he says he is?"

Dylan smiled her. "I get it, you're protective of Sera. She should have someone looking out for her. And to assuage some of your concerns, here's my card. Call the number. Check me out." He pulled it out and slid it across the table to her. “I'm one of the good guys." He also knew the cover would hold if she did call.

But somehow she still didn’t look mollified. More like irritated as she slid his card back toward him. "Fine, maybe you're legit. But that doesn't mean you're not a crazy."

Sera's brows snapped down. "Ava, that's enough."

"Jesus, Sera, I'm sorry, but you don't always make the right decisions when it comes to men."

Sera opened her mouth again but he squeezed her hand under the table and she snapped it shut. There is no point in her getting in some spat with a friend over him. "Look Ava, I said I get it. I'll just have to show you that I am a good guy and I'll be sticking around."

Ava sat back. But he got the impression they weren't done. She was merely rallying. Taj tried to help smooth things over a little. "Don't mind Ava, she's always this bitchy. But I for one am so happy that the two of you are a thing."

Sera tried to take back her hand but he held her still. She wanted to play? They were going to play. Shifting her hand from his thigh to hers, he felt the edge of her dress that had hitched up just past her knee. He used both of their hands to slide it up farther. The farther up her thigh he slid, the shallower her breaths became.

See how you like being teased. Over that petal-soft skin he drew lazy circles with his thumb. All the while he kept up a conversation with Taj and tried to engage Ava. Next to him, Sera gulped down her water.

He knew he should stop, but the devil inside made him do it. A small part of him kept waiting for her to stop him. But she didn't. And he didn't want to stop. Part of him wanted to see if he could drive her as crazy as she was driving him.

But when his hand reached the junction of her thighs and she still hadn't stopped him, he slid her a quick glance. Her pupils were dilated, her mouth parted softly. When she met his gaze the flaming electricity sparked between them. Jesus fuck, this was risky, and public, and his career hung in the balance of what he decided to do next.

But with her wide brown eyes focused intently on his, and her thighs parting slightly to give him better access, he couldn't stop. He had to touch her. He turned his attention back to the girls and kept up his end of the conversation with ease. All the while, he used his knuckles to gently graze over her sex. For what seemed like an eternity, they stayed locked in their private exhibition.

But when the waiter approached the table with their meals, suddenly the spell was broken. Sera snatched his hand from her lap and tossed her napkin onto the table. "I'm going to the restroom—I'll be right back."

Before she made her escape, she slid him a pointed glance. Now, if only he could trust her. If only his dick wasn't so hard he might explode. If only there wasn't a fire blazing under his skin, then he might've been able to stay at the table. But none of that was true.

He couldn't trust her. He cleared his throat. "That's a good idea. I'll be right back." He and Sera had some unfinished business.

* * *

It wasn't like Sera thought she'd escape, but she had to get away for a minute. To breathe. To let sanity prevail. This shit had gotten out of hand. For the love of God, she'd been sitting in a restaurant about to let him get her off. Not smart.

Even though she thought she was cut out for this, she obviously wasn't. This was Taj's territory. And Dylan was in a completely different weight class. Oh, she wanted him gone all right, but the sexual warfare tactic only worked if she wasn't susceptible herself. Considering she had been one knuckle slide away from orgasm, she wasn't immune.

That man was dangerous. She didn't have enough experience to handle a guy like that. Splashing cool water on her face, Sera vowed to get rid of him the good old-fashioned way—she'd call her mother and call a truce. Concede defeat. If the two of them kept this up, one or both of them were going to spontaneously combust. Preferably him. But she wasn't fool enough to think she’d walk away unscathed.

As she patted her face dry, the bathroom door swung open. Dylan shut it behind himself and locked it. Shit. "Look, I call uncle. Okay? This is stupid. We're just making each other insane."

He didn't say word, just stalked towards her, leaving her nowhere to run except into the sink. Dylan braced both of his hands on either side of her and leaned in close. "What's the matter, princess? You don't like it when someone else plays with you?"

She tried to turn her face away, his scent enveloped her, crisp, clean, inviting. "Fine," she ground out. "I shouldn't have fucked with you. I'm sorry. Let's just retreat to our corners before one of us does something stupid."

He leaned in close, dipping his head forcing her to look up at him. "Don't you think it's probably too late for that, Sera?"

She swallowed hard. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Isn't this what you want me to do? Usually when a woman touches my cock, it means she wants me to fuck her. Is that what you want, Sera? You want me to fuck you? The princess wants to fuck the help to get back at Mommy Dearest? For the last week you've been dangling the bait. What exactly did you plan to do if I took it?"

"Screw you, Dylan. I wonder whose bright idea it was for your cover to be my boyfriend? You've been going out of your way to drive me crazy since you got here."

He threw his head back and laughed. "I've been driving you crazy? What exactly do you think you've been doing? Running around in your towel? Walking around in t-shirts so thin I can see your nipples. And then that stunt back at the table? You've been trying to make me break. Trying to see if I'll either take the bait or I'll run."

She licked her lips nervously. "Any chance you plan on running? Because that would be a lot more convenient for me."

His gaze flickered to her lips. "Convenient? Answer one question for me, Sera. Did you like how I was touching you? Did I make you wet?" His lips didn't so much as ghost over hers as they promised bliss. He was so close. If she tilted her head up a centimeter, they'd be kissing. And it was pretty likely they wouldn't be stopping there. Even now, she could feel the hard length of his erection pressing up against her cleft. Pulsing just where she needed it to in a steady rhythm.

"Dylan, I—"

"Yes, Sera? What do you want? Because right about now, I'm on the edge."

She dragged in a shuddering breath. What did she want? For him to press in closer. For him to drag his rigid erection over her heated center. For him to touch her. But because he wanted to. And not because her mother had sent him. She wanted that night in the bar to be real. Like an icy shower, the thought cooled the fire between her legs. Better than an ice bath.

Sera managed to pull back an inch and meet his gaze. "Right now, I'd like to go back to lunch."

His hooded eyes snapped into focus and he shoved away from the counter. "No more games, Sera. I'm not the flowers-and-romance Ken Doll boyfriend that you can mold like clay. I'm here to do my job and I plan on getting it done."

* * *

Dylan leaned back against the sink and watched Sera walk out. She didn't look back at him and he didn't dare look away. As soon as the door closed he ran his hands through his hair. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.

He wanted her. The two of them were like two inevitable magnets being tugged together but fighting it to the death. After last night he thought he'd won. But Sera played to win. Why couldn't he get his shit together around her? One more second with her blinking up at him with those dark, mysterious eyes and he'd have been fucking her on the counter…of the bathroom…in a restaurant.

Would the real Dylan Donovan please stand the fuck up? Because he didn't recognize himself right now and that shit scared him. It was the first time he ever felt out of control with anyone—ever. They couldn't continue like this, or they'd be hate-fucking on as many clear surfaces as he could find and to hell with his future.

He forced himself to take ten deep breaths before he followed her lead back to the table. No doubt Ava and Taj knew what the two of them were up to. Or rather what they would have been up to if she'd tipped her lips up to his. Right about now, he'd be buried deep inside her, swallowing her sounds with his kisses.

As he walked toward the front of the restaurant where their table was tucked, his gaze flickered to the outdoor seating area. A familiar face caught his eye and his mind worked overtime to try to place it. But it wasn't until the man across the street gave him a shit-eating grin that his memory offered up a name and place.

Holy fuck, Tommy Cochran. Striding past their table, he held a finger up to Sera, and indicated his phone. Sawyer answered on the second ring. "What up, dude?"

"I need you to confirm the whereabouts of Tommy Fucking Cochran right now."

"Uh, don't your people have him in a cozy little cell in DC?"

Dylan jogged around to the front of the building, but the guy was nowhere in sight. "We're supposed to. But I just saw the son of a bitch on the street in San Diego."

Sawyer didn't miss a beat. "Give me a sec."

While Sawyer worked his magic, Dylan scanned the street. His heart thundered and his mind raced. If that was one of the Cochrans, then Sera was in real trouble.

Sawyer was back in a moment. "I don't know what to tell you, dude, but the Feds have him. Logs indicate that he just had his late-afternoon half-hour tour of the yard in the Fed. Whoever you saw, it's not your guy."

How was that even possible? A conversation with the senator was overdue. "Thanks for checking, man." He'd call Anita Justice when he was back in the office. Right now he had to try to make everything seem as normal as possible. The senator might not like it, but it might be time for the truth.