Free Warning Wendy by Kim Dare

 
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    “What the hell are you thinking?”
    Wendy Jenkins glanced away from her computer monitor for a moment.
    Lucas Stone was tall. Meeting his eyes required her to drag her gaze up a considerable distance. Along the way, there were lots of very nice lines of muscle to be distracted by. After a few seconds, her gaze finally made it to its intended destination.
    “Right now, I’m thinking that it would be very nice if our boss spontaneously combusted,” she said. “Have you heard what his latest great idea is?”
    “Don’t try to change the subject,” Lucas snapped.
    Wendy twirled her computer chair around to face him. “I don’t know what the subject is.”
    He glowered. It was a good expression on him. She instantly decided that her normally mellow colleague should get grumpy far more often. It was hot as hell.
    Suddenly, he leaned forward, dipped his head and brought his lips close to her ear. “The subject is you signing up to run around the forest being chased by a gang of deranged perverts.”
    “It is?” she asked, as innocently as she could manage. “That’s strange, because I don’t remember having any intention of talking to you about it.”
    She knew then that she’d have to kill her friend Ben. It was the only sensible course of action. Part of her wanted to think that Ben wouldn’t rat her out to Lucas, but it was only too easy to believe the little sod would do it.
    She should never have agreed to work at the same place as her best friend from the local kinky scene. It was just too much damn trouble. And, as for finding out she’d also be working damn near nose-to-nose with the hottest guy she’d ever seen—a guy who would make a bloody good dom if he wasn’t such an unflinching prude…
    Wendy shook her head and turned her chair back toward her desk. It spun all of two inches before it came to a sudden stop. Lucas’ grip on the hard plastic arms of the chair was white-knuckled.
    “You are going to talk to me about it,” he said. “Then, you’re going to get in touch with the organizers and tell them to take your name off the list of prey—”
    “No, I’m not,” she cut in. Folding her arms to disguise the way her nipples peaked and showed through her blouse whenever he got too close to her, she leaned back in her chair and did her damnedest to look complete unaffected.
    His aftershave was subtle. It only just teased her senses, but there was a hint of another scent too—one that was all Lucas, all alpha male.
    She shifted in her chair and flicked her hair back over her shoulder.
    “If you don’t take your name off the list, I will,” he warned.
    “You don’t have the right.” Only her master would have that right, and she was well aware that Lucas didn’t have the least bit of interest in becoming any such thing, more’s the pity.
    He jerked back to his full height and glared down at her. “You can’t for a moment think this is a good idea.”
    She turned back to her desk, successfully this time. “Actually, I think it’s a bloody fantastic idea.”
    Lucas huffed and stormed off. She didn’t peer over her shoulder and watch him go. She already knew he had a fantastic arse. She also knew that if she looked in the reflection in the window on the far side of her desk and just to the left, there was no need to be so obvious as to twist around whenever she wanted to check him out.
    As he marched out of sight, Wendy sighed and directed her gaze heavenward. She really hoped this game of dominant hunters and submissive human prey managed to take her mind off him, because God knew she’d tried everything else, and she’d be damned if she’d moon over him for another six months.
     

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
    Lucas tapped his foot against the rough concrete covering the floor of the barn and studiously ignored the dozen or so other men congregating there.
    “Gentlemen your attention, please.” The dom organizing the event stepped up onto