It was all part of a team-building exercise after all.

Giddiness filled me as I hurried up the ladder and through the hole in the floor. Sure enough, lying in the corner was the yellow team’s flag.

I crawled into the tree house, snatched it, and hurried back down. Rhys waited at the bottom, smiling up at me. I jumped from the third rung with a girlish squeal of delight and he caught me with a bark of laughter. I lifted the flag in victory. “We won!”

Our eyes locked, and suddenly the air expelled out of my lungs as the urge to kiss him became almost impossible to hold back.

“Uh, looks like we aren’t needed.” Laura’s amusement-filled voice drew our heads apart.

Rhys slowly lowered me to the ground, and I avoided his gaze. With a smile less genuine than the one I’d given him, I turned to Xander, Laura, Stuart, and David with the flag. “Rhys kicked their butts.”

Stuart grinned at my fake boyfriend. “There’s a surprise.”

Rhys shrugged while I attempted to tell myself that I didn’t find Paintball Rhys sexy as hell.

Standing in the clearing where our paintball exercise had begun, I grinned at the sight of my colleagues covered in paint. The only teams who remained unscathed were Rhys and I, Jackson and Camille, Xander and Laura, Stuart and David, and Ben and Nick.

Everyone else had been shot.

Jackson grinned at the red team. “Well done.”

“We had a great team leader.” Xander patted Rhys’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Jackson chuckled, “we’re all surprised the ex-professional boxer whooped our asses.”

Rhys shrugged, a slight smile curling his lips. My eyes zeroed in on his mouth, as Jackson’s voice grew muffled.

“Are we all set?”

“Huh?” I asked, dragging my gaze and thoughts off Rhys.

Jackson gave me a knowing look. “I said, now that the team exercise is over, let’s just play.”

My heart dropped. “As in … no rules. Just …”

“Play until we’re exhausted? Pretty much. We booked the outdoor grounds for three hours, and Rhys led the red team to victory in thirty minutes. We might as well get our money’s worth.” Jackson lifted his gun. “You all have ten seconds to get your ugly, khaki, no-good keisters out of here before I cover your cargo pants in paint.”

Laughter filled the woods at his Home Alone reference as we took off toward the cover of the trees. This time, knowing Rhys was the enemy, I went off on my own.

Pain flared in my shoulder, and I cried out, realizing I’d been hit. Spinning around, I saw Pete aiming at me with his stupid overpowered gun, a calculated look in his eyes. Just as he was about to fire again, red paint splattered all over his visor.

Then just all over him, period.

Glancing around, I found Rhys, standing behind a tree, gun aimed at Pete. His head turned toward me, and he winked.

I grinned. Grateful.

Then I shot him.

Rhys looked down at his chest in apparent shock, and I threw my head back in laughter. It cut off when he lifted his head, eyes narrowed in determination.

Oh dear God, what had I done?

With a yelp of apprehension, I spun around and bolted through the trees. I half expected to feel the sting of shots across my back, but instead I heard racing footsteps.

Oh hell!

A strong arm caught me around the waist, a heavy weight propelling me toward the nearest tree. At the last second I found myself turned and pulled into Rhys’s arms as we collided with the trunk. He wasted no time pushing me against the tree as he ripped off his mask. Determined heat filled his beautiful green eyes as he gripped the bottom of my mask and gently took it off.

“What are—”

My words were lost in his kiss.

A deep, thorough, searching kiss that made my toes curl in my sneakers and my fingernails bite into his shoulders. His body pressed deep into mine, and I instinctively spread my legs to accommodate him. Everything faded in the heat of his kiss. Watching him kick butt—no, Rhys kicked ass —and defend me was unexpected foreplay.

It wasn’t a typically romantic kiss. In fact, it was much like our kiss at his loft—wet, hungry, breathless, needful, passionate, sexy. And I never wanted it to stop.

Rhys’s grunt rumbled deliciously down my throat seconds before he broke the kiss with a grimace. “Fuck.”

As he glanced over his shoulder, it took me a second to come out of my lusty, lip-swollen haze to realize Jackson, Camille, Laura, and Xander surrounded us. They grinned, and I blushed beet red.

“This is just too easy,” Jackson snorted, stepping back to hold up his gun.

He, like the others, was covered in paint.

Rhys stepped back.

Convinced I was blood red from the tip of my toes to the top of my head, I avoided everyone’s gaze as Rhys turned to the others. That’s when I saw four paint splatters on his back. He’d taken hits while we were kissing, and I hadn’t even noticed.

My goodness.

“You’ve been hit.” I stated the obvious in all my fluster.

Rhys looked over his shoulder at me, eyes full of laughter. “It was worth it, sweetheart.”

“Yes, thank you for the show,” Xander teased.

I lifted my gun in warning, and he chuckled, aiming back at me.

To everyone’s surprise, Rhys stepped in front of me, his hands raised in surrender. “How about we let Parker walk out of here unscathed, huh?”

“That’s okay.” I moved around him, even though I really didn’t want to get shot at again. It hurt more than a sting. “I can take it.”

In answer, Rhys pulled down the neckline of my shirt to bare my shoulder. His thumb swept the skin. “You’ve already got a nasty bruise from where Pete hit you.”

As lovely as his concern was (and he seemed genuinely worried about my bruise), I covered his hand with mine and guided my shirt back up to cover the skin. “Everyone else has been hit.”

Rhys frowned. “Everyone else is not five foot nothing, weighing in at ninety pounds.”

“Uh, five foot two and a hundred and ten pounds, thank you very much. Plus, I can take care of myself.”

“Fine. Let them take aim.”

I nodded, my inner feminist pleased.

However, Rhys crossed his arms over his chest and stared at my colleagues. “Of course, if it were me, I wouldn’t really want to risk my mortality by bruising up an ex- heavyweight champion’s girlfriend. But that’s just me.”

Groaning, I watched as the others exchanged knowing looks, and then my boss called time on the game.

Rhys looked at me, his gaze dragging down my body and back up again. His eyes lingered on my mouth for a second too long.

“Why?” I blurted out, referring to the second explosive kiss he’d given me.

He shrugged. “No one will question our relationship now, Tinker Bell.”

Disappointment filled me as I realized the kiss had not been a spontaneous response to me shooting him, but a calculated move. A strategic play.

Rhys wanted to earn that money I was paying him, I reminded myself.

Right there and then, I decided for my well-being not to let Rhys Morgan’s mouth anywhere near mine ever again.

I left the field with only Pete’s yellow paint splatter on my shoulder and a whole bunch of pent-up indignation and sexual frustration in my gut.