Chapter 6 #2
“Has anyone ever told you you’re fascinating?”
His voice was too heavy on the sincerity and too light on the sarcasm. She didn’t like it.
“If you want something, go on and spit it out.” She lifted the grocery bag in her left hand. “I got milk spoiling here.”
“You have a bag of okra and squash.” He pushed off the wall. “But I’d be happy to walk you home to see to it that your groceries get put away.”
He’d be happy to snoop around her apartment, looking for Gertrude.
As if she’d be stupid enough to put the boar in her apartment.
And even if she’d had temporary insanity, Tara wouldn’t have let her.
“Aw, that’s just too kind. But I wouldn’t want you getting any ideas about my intentions toward you if I let you in my apartment.
I know how you boys get confused when the kissing starts. If you can call that kissing.”
His gaze went smoky as it dipped to her lips. “No, kissing wasn’t the right word for it, was it?”
She hated when he agreed with her. “Definitely not.”
“More like making love with our mouths, wasn’t it?”
Zing! There went her panties, melting themselves off. “You are just too precious for words, bless your heart.” She patted his cheek.
Huge mistake.
His skin was hot and stubbled, and getting close enough to touch meant close enough to smell. He carried a scent of pine and pool water over something earthy and male, and her primitive urges made her gaze snag on his lips.
His cocky, smirking, outrageously shapely lips.
He angled his body so she was half-trapped against the wall. “No shame in admitting you’re attracted to me.”
“My momma taught me not to lie.” And if her momma were in her grave, she’d be rolling over. As it was, she probably already had a long list of reasons she’d roll over when she got there.
“Are you fighting this because we got off on the wrong foot? Or is it because you’re insane?”
“Don’t make me bless your heart twice.”
He wasn’t touching her, but he wasn’t leaving much room for the Holy Ghost either. “What are you afraid of, Kaci?”
Nothing she’d admit to him. She barely liked to admit any of her fears to herself. “Not a danged thing.”
He held her gaze without blinking. “Besides losing?”
“I never lose. And what are you afraid of?”
Where his eyes had been dark magnets a moment before, they were doors now. “Not a danged thing,” he parroted.
“Oh, sugar,” Kaci breathed, “you’re as much a liar as I am.”
His cheek twitched. “I don’t know if anyone’s as much a liar as you are.”
He might have a point. But the man was hiding something. “You got a secret, Captain Wheeler. And I’m fixin’ to find out what it is.”
“Get ready to lose, Dr. Boudreaux. I know what you did. And I won’t stop until I prove it.”
A good shiver tickled her backbone. “You have fun with that.”
His lips tipped up, and that shiver went straight to her core.
“I will, Dr. Boudreaux. Have no doubt, I will.”
He flashed a cocky smile and left, and she sagged against her door.
The apartment door across the way popped open half an inch. “That boy giving you trouble?” Mrs. Hamm whispered.
“No trouble,” Kaci assured her neighbor. “He’s just flirting because I’m irresistible.”
The door opened wider, and the sweet new grandmother winked. “That’s how Gerald and I started too. You let us know if he gets to be trouble, and we’ll take care of him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hamm.”
Lance was trouble all right.
But he was exactly the kind of trouble she needed to handle herself.
Lance stepped out into the sunshine, wondering if he was thinking with his brain or his other head.
He wanted to kiss her again.
He was single. If he wanted to kiss a woman, even a hillbilly physics professor in a porn star’s body, who would stop him?
Just one kiss. Maybe a roll between the sheets.
He’d been with the same woman for three years. Looking back, those were three long years when he’d forgotten his own favorite hobbies and sacrificed more and more time with his buddies to set himself up with the perfect wife, who, he’d come to realize, had actually been pretty boring.
Wasn’t wrong to want something else to jump-start his new single life.
But it was probably wrong to want it with this woman.
She’d stolen Gertrude, he was almost certain.
And that was what he needed to focus on.
Not on the wariness lurking behind her bravado. Not on the way he wanted to kiss the sass right out of her. Not on the way she smelled like whiskey and lemon drops, or how he never knew what would come out of her mouth next.
He needed to get a grip and focus on what was important.
On what was real.
On what he could fix.
And Gertrude was what he could fix.
He’d seen Kaci drive into the parking lot in a red Jeep, so he started there. Not that he expected to find anything.
That woman was physically incapable of making anything easy.
He smiled.
He got part of why she kept pushing him away.
He’d left her in a bar after one of the most intense kisses he could ever remember having.
He could’ve explained it to her in two simple sentences.
I was supposed to get married that day. But I don’t make out with women, especially women whose names I don’t know, to get over other women.
But Kaci?
She struck him as the type who’d appreciate earning that knowledge more than she’d appreciate having it spoon-fed to her. As the type who appreciated the mystery and the unknown. The puzzle.
He’d let her play with that for a while.
In the meantime, he’d learn what he could about her.
The first thing he discovered in the parking lot was that her Jeep seemed pristine. No tufts of Gertrude’s fur in the back, no indents of her body, no stray Mardi Gras beads or her maid’s cap.
But the Jeep’s tires were muddy.
Conclusive?
Nope.
But he was just getting warmed up.
“I’ll figure you out yet, Dr. Kaci Boudreaux.”
And he was looking forward to every minute of the game.