That seemed fair enough. Mollified, she listened as George laid out a battle plan—but she was only half paying attention. Evil Miranda needed to make a play today to win back Dane’s attention, she had decided. She had tried walking next to him as they’d marched out to plant the flag, but he’d slowed down, acting as if he were re-lacing his boots. Painfully obvious.
Was he afraid that just being seen with her meant that someone was onto their little midnight trysts? Or was he regretting their rendezvous? Or simply done with her?
He didn’t get to be done with her, she thought with a scowl. She got to decide who was done with whom, not him. And today, she’d just have to up the game a little. No problem.
And if her plans failed, well, she could always resort to one of the nut shots they’d been warned about. That stirred a thought in her mind. A dirty, naughty little thought that made her a bit scandalized…and a lot excited. She shouldn’t…
But she really, really wanted to.
She peeked over at Dane, his paintball gun resting on his shoulder. He slouched, leaning one shoulder against a nearby tree, and avoided looking in her direction. That decided her. Dane Croft wouldn’t stand a chance against Evil Miranda.
After a few minutes, the team split up to take positions for the game. Some of the team would be sniping from secluded positions, and others would attempt to take out the camp. Miranda had volunteered to snipe from a vantage point. She grasped her gun, put on her helmet, and began to stalk through the woods. Once she was out of sight, she cut through the trees. She was supposed to guard a lookout point a good quarter mile away from the flag, but screw that.
Instead, she cut across the forest back to the trail that she’d passed on her way out of camp and headed down it, and after Dane.
He was a decent clip ahead of her, and she lagged behind to make sure that he didn’t see her. If he did, he might warn her away. She trailed him for a bit, and when he arrived at his location, she ducked behind the nearest bush and unzipped her paintball jumpsuit. She stripped off her clothes—all of them—and then put the jumpsuit back on again. The air was definitely crisper without that second layer of clothing, and she felt her br**sts bob and jiggle with every step she took. She put a gloved hand on her br**sts and held them still against her chest. She hadn’t thought about the bouncing. Hopefully the others wouldn’t notice if they should run across her.
She buried her clothes in a pile of leaves and arranged a branch over it so it would be easily recognizable when she came back. Then she went to find Dane. She found him a short distance away, crouched behind one of the taller trees in the area and scanning the distance. His helmet was on, but she remembered that he had the only one that was a solid black. Plus, nobody else out here had those broad shoulders or that ridiculously tight ass. She moved toward him from behind. He hadn’t noticed her yet, which was good. She liked the element of surprise.
Smiling to herself, she crept quietly behind him and pulled off her helmet, carefully placing it on the grass nearby. Her gaze dropped to the ground and she noticed a nearby berry bush. A mental image filled her mind of nibbling berries off of his nak*d body, and she pulled a few of the berries off of the bush. What would be sexier than slowly licking and eating the berry in front of Dane? Just another gun in Evil Miranda’s holster, she decided. She slid up behind Dane and when he was close enough to tap, she reached out to run her hand along his nape.
He turned so violently that she stumbled backward in surprise. With a lightning-fast motion, he raised his paintball gun, then lowered it almost as quickly. “Miranda! What are you doing here?” Dane checked behind her. “Are you being followed by someone on the other team?”
“Nope,” she said in a sultry voice. She pulled out one of the berries and began to toy with it, playing with the small red fruit along her lips. “Guess what?”
His gaze became glued to that berry, just as she anticipated. Nice. “Uh, Miranda,” he began.
“I couldn’t wait to see you,” she purred in her best Evil Miranda voice, then tapped the berry against her lip playfully. “You’ve been very naughty, Dane Croft. Why are you being so cruel and ignoring me?”
“You know why.” He swallowed hard. “Can I tell you something?”
Her smile curved and she leaned forward to flick the berry against his mouth. “Of course.”
He caught her hand and forced her to drop the berry. “That’s poisonous.”
“Oh.” She stared at him blankly for a second, and then added, “I knew that.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She furtively scrubbed her mouth. “Poisonous…by contact?”
“Digestion,” he told her, his look very serious. “How many did you eat?”
“None.” Thank God.
He nodded at her and then turned back to his paintball gun. “You’d better go back to your post, then.”
She frowned. This was not how she’d envisioned their rendezvous going. Now he thought she was stupid. Rubbing her lip one last time, she slid over next to him and tossed her gun aside. “Was that all you wanted to tell me?”
He glanced over at her briefly, then went back to scanning the woods. “That was it. What else did you have in mind?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we could talk about what happened last night.” She kept her voice light and sultry. “You’ve been avoiding me all morning.”
“That’s because the others are going to find out about us.” His gaze flicked back to her. “You know I can’t let that happen. I made a vow to my partners that I’d be on my best behavior and I lied. I’m not proud of myself right now, Miranda.”
That didn’t sound like it would fit her plans at all. If he was going to be this cold with her for the rest of the week, she doubted he could turn it back on like a switch as soon as they were out of here. Her window of opportunity had to remain open, and she had to keep Dane hooked and insatiable.
So she bit her lip and thought for a moment more, then scuffed her hiking boot on the ground. “Hey, Dane.”
He didn’t turn back around, his voice short. “What?”
She unzipped the top of her jumpsuit an inch or two—not enough to expose skin, but just enough for him to notice the sound. “Guess who’s not wearing anything under their jumpsuit?”
Crouching at her feet, Dane froze. Slowly, he turned back toward her. “Miranda, what…”
And she pulled the zipper down the rest of the way.
TEN
Dane stared at Miranda as she slowly unzipped the jumpsuit.
Sure enough, she exposed inch by sultry inch of her perfect skin until the zipper paused below her navel, and she looked up and gave him a naughty look. “What do you think?”
I think you’re trying to kill me. “I think we need to talk, Miranda—”
She reached up and placed a finger over his mouth to shush him. “You’ve talked enough, and I’m not liking what you’re saying.”
“Miranda—”
She shook her head at him. “I like you, okay?” Her eyes were big and wide as she said that, as if she were trying to convince herself of that as much as him. “And I can’t stop thinking about what happened last night. And you know, I liked the three-peat.” She blushed at the words, trailing her finger down his front, as if fascinated by him. “And I thought you liked it, too.”
He had. He’d liked it too much. That was exactly the problem. He was losing his head where Miranda was concerned, because all he could think about was bending her over and sinking into the wet, slick satin of her p**sy again. Just at the thought, his c*ck started to rise in his jeans. His mouth tightened and he glanced down at Miranda’s body, the tantalizing narrow strip of flesh made visible by the gaping zipper. “I like you, too, Miranda, but—”
Again, she put her finger over his mouth. “So many buts,” she said softly. She took a step forward and then she was pressing those amazing, soft br**sts against his chest and his c*ck grew hard as a rock. “You’re not going chicken on me, are you?” she said in a soft voice, and trailed a finger up the zipper of his jumpsuit. “Because I thought a big man like you wouldn’t be afraid of anything.”
She’d deliberately sighed over the word big, and that made him all the harder. It was getting difficult to think straight. All he kept seeing was that curve of her breast exposed by the zipper, that sexy dip of her belly button. “We don’t have any privacy here in the woods.”
But that was the wrong thing to say. Her smile grew brilliant. “We have privacy right now,” she said, and her hand tugged the jumpsuit over to one side, revealing the perfect globe of one pretty breast, the tip taut and rosy. Underneath her breast, he saw that small triangular-shaped mole that seemed to almost mock him. “And I really want you to touch me again,” she said, her voice almost a sigh. “I keep thinking about your hands all over me, and your mouth, and your c*ck deep inside me…” Her fingers skimmed over the tip of her breast, as if just the memory made her want to touch herself right in front of him. “And I keep thinking about how much I enjoy touching you, too.”
He was having a hard time swallowing. His throat was so f**king dry all of a sudden. Dane’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he fought to swallow hard, but it was useless. He couldn’t see anything but that perfect breast. “Oh? So you’ve been thinking about touching me?”
“I have,” she agreed, and when she reached for the zipper of his jumpsuit, he didn’t stop her. She was a sultry enchantress, so sexy and confident and utterly sensual. Her gaze followed the zipper and it exposed his bare chest underneath. He let his hand brush over her covered breast, pushing the fabric back and exposing the other to the air.
He loved Miranda the seductress in that moment.
“Fuck,” he said in a ragged voice. Despite his resolve, here he was giving in to her demands. All it took was for her to show him one lovely breast, a pink nipple, and a teasing mole and he was a goner.
“Would love to,” she said with a sultry smile. “But right now I’m interested in a little something else.”
His hand went to cover her breast and he laid his palm over the peak, his tanned, callused hand looking foreign against her smooth skin. “And you want me to touch you?”
“Oh yes,” she breathed, then almost looked embarrassed at how it had come out. A hint of a flush touched her face and crept down to her br**sts. “I lose my mind whenever you touch me. I like it. It allows me to…lose myself in the moment.”
“And lets you come?” He whispered in a husky voice, leaning in close to her. Even after several days in the woods, Miranda still smelled good. Clean and fresh and warm. She bathed in the stream every morning, and he had to admit that he had picked campsites by streams for that very reason.
“Every time,” she admitted, biting her lip as if she felt scandalized bringing this up.
He let his hand slide to her belly button, then slid it into the V of the zipper and felt the curls of her sex. They were completely soaked and he hissed at that. “You are so wet.”