Chapter 11 #2
“Your keys are on my dresser. I gotta run out and check on Miss Higgs. Vet said she didn’t have any more seizures last night, so I’ll probably get to bring her home.
Ain’t like they can do much for a cat her age anyway.
But don’t you worry. She can come with us when we go take care of your wedding rings.
You mind bringing your game thingie over here?
Wouldn’t want to have to break one of the military’s finest if your roommate can’t figure out where my eyes are. ”
Her ramblings should be annoying.
Her bravado should’ve gotten old before he’d stepped off the grounds of the pumpkin-chucking contest two weeks ago.
And her assumption that she could help him by doing something with his wedding rings should be insulting. Not just crossing the line, but fucking obliterating it.
But the part of him that had stood over a pair of pumpkin-gut-coated birth control glasses was insanely curious about what this woman would do with the band that could’ve been suffocating his finger now.
Did she have a magic formula to lift the odd guilt he still felt at being relieved his wedding had been canceled? At ignoring all the signs that while Allison would’ve made a damn fine officer’s wife, she’d never really been the woman of his dreams?
“Oh, and you might want to wear something you don’t mind getting dirty,” she said. “By the way, no more kissing until that date you’re making me go on. Just so you know.”
That did it.
Lance stalked out of the kitchen and around the couch. He snagged the bagel from her hand and tossed it over his shoulder. The coffee mug went on the coffee table.
He thought.
It was possible she’d have a mess to clean up when he left.
But he didn’t care.
Because Kaci had just dared him not to kiss her. As if she didn’t want to kiss him.
He damn well knew better.
He cupped her head in his hands and slammed his mouth over hers. The vixen parted her lips, clenched his shirt, and slid her tongue against his.
He was already stiff as a pipe, but that sassy mouth and her assertive grip on his clothes made him harder than he’d ever been. His shaft pulsed against the restrictive hold of his jeans, his balls ached, and he felt the pain all the way up in his stomach.
He needed to be inside this woman.
He needed to strip her down, bust through her defenses, and lose himself in her essence. Where she was simply a woman who wanted him, and he was a man going mad over needing her.
But what he really needed was to get a fucking grip.
He wrenched himself free. “No kissing. Right.”
While she sat sputtering on the couch, he retrieved his keys, marched out of her apartment, and let the door slam shut behind him.
Wasn’t sure how he’d explain it to his throbbing dick, but he was almost certain he’d done the right thing.
Almost.
If Kaci thought last night’s tequila had made her light-headed, the alcohol was nothing compared to Lance’s goodbye kiss.
Her head was woozy, her knees jelly, and her ovaries might’ve exploded, by the way they were aching.
Telling Lance he couldn’t kiss her?
She might as well have dressed herself all in red and jumped in a pen full of angry bulls.
Her legs had almost quit shaking by the time she stepped out of the shower, but her lips could still feel his, and she could still taste him on her tongue.
She needed to call him.
Find out if he ever wanted to see her again, or if she’d pushed him too far.
Pushing was what she did.
She’d pushed back against Momma putting her in beauty pageants in high school. She’d pushed back against sitting in the back row in pre-calculus and chemistry. She’d pushed back against advisors who’d laughed when she’d wanted to switch majors and study physics.
And she’d never stopped pushing.
Because there was always one more person telling her she couldn’t do it.
Ever since her daddy died.
Now, she was the one standing in her own way.
She was the one afraid to fly.
She was the one who had overreacted to not winning a pumpkin-chucking contest.
She was the one who kept pushing people away.
All the way to the vet, she couldn’t stop thinking about Lance. She was hardly looking for husband number two, but she wasn’t planning on being celibate the rest of her life either.
Seeing Miss Higgs was a good distraction. The poor kitty was moving slowly, but she hadn’t had any more episodes, and her blood work was as good as it got for an elderly cat. Given her age, the vet saw no reason to keep her any longer, so Kaci brought her home.
Where she found Lance waiting in the hallway.
“We’re kissing,” he said.
Miss Higgs let out a pitiful meow.
And Kaci’s inner vixen jumped up and did a happy butt-wiggle. She swallowed down her instinctive says you and instead unlocked the door.
Inside the apartment, Lance went straight to the TV with his game system.
Kaci cuddled Miss Higgs and scratched her under the chin, alternately making sure her cat was okay and watching him maneuver wires and cords with long, nimble fingers.
Too soon, her screen flickered with the familiar cockpit view.
Her stomach dropped.
Lance shoved a controller at her. Her grip tightened on Miss Higgs.
His dark features were set in granite. Not a flicker of a smile, not a hint of amusement.
“Happy to see you too,” she muttered.
Because she was.
He tossed his own controller on the couch and yanked his shirt off. His long biceps bulged, his sun-kissed shoulders took up half the width of the room, and the light dusting of dark hair over his solid pecs made her mouth go dry.
Her eyes flared wide and every muscle in her body clenched.
Miss Higgs yowled and crawled off her lap.
Lance plopped down beside her, all taut muscle, tan skin, and testosterone. “Say another word and I’m taking my pants off.”
Dear sweet baby Jesus, she could already see his erection outlined in his jeans.
Had she done that to him?
And if so, when?
He hit two buttons, and light flickered in her peripheral vision.
“Pay attention,” he ordered.
She blinked and forced herself to look at the screen. The woman’s voice cleared them for takeoff.
“Push your throttle up,” he said.
Her thumbs fumbled with the knob she remembered from yesterday, and the plane picked up speed.
“By the way, if you crash, you have to take something off.”
“Don’t come in here thinking you can—”
He reached for the button on his jeans.
Kaci snapped her mouth shut.
And a smug, satisfied smile crossed his lips.
It should’ve been ugly. Taunting. Demeaning.
Instead, she felt an intrigued pull deep in her core.
He was playing strip airplane with her.
And dang if it didn’t give her a rush heady enough to make her forget why she was pretending to fly in a video game.
She glanced at the screen.
Back at Lance.
And back to the screen.
The runway disappeared. Blue sky and fluffy clouds appeared out the front of the cockpit.
She studied her controller. Which button had he said was the aileron?
No matter.
She hit four or five buttons in a row, some short, some long, then pushed down on the throttle.
The view on the TV wobbled, the ground came into view, and everything on-screen exploded into an orange mess.
“Oops,” she said.
Lance tilted his head toward her.
Miss Higgs harrumphed and demanded to be let off the couch.
Kaci obliged the cat, then flicked a button on her blouse. Another button. A third.
She should probably call Tara and tell her not to hurry home.
His eyes went darker than midnight. His crotch visibly moved and his biceps bulged, but the rest of him held perfectly still.
She popped the last button and let her blouse hang open, her pink lace bra peeking through the gap. “Go on and be a gentleman and help me get this thing off.”
His lips tightened. When he reached up with both hands, his fingers brushed her neck and shoulders with featherlight touches. Goose bumps skittered over her skin. Cool air swirled around her back and belly.
And when Lance had her shirt off, he picked his controller back up, hit two more buttons, and once again they were cleared for takeoff.
She could’ve pointed out that she’d spoken and he hadn’t taken his pants off, but the thrill of anticipation was more exhilarating than chucking pumpkins.
“Go on,” Lance said. “Take off.”
She bit her lip to keep from asking what he wanted her to take off, and instead pushed up on the throttle knob.
The plane rolled down the runway, then went airborne.
Unlike yesterday, a storm didn’t appear in the corner of the screen, and they were flying over land instead of water. Lance pointed to a button on her controller. “Raise your landing gear.”
She hit the button and heard a click.
He pointed to a second set of buttons, his bare arm brushing hers. His hair had a clean shampoo scent, but the rest of him was all sexy, earthy male.
“Left rudder, right rudder.” He indicated the top buttons next. “Left aileron, right aileron. We’re coming up on wind shear. You’re gonna need these.”
Before she could ask how he knew, the view on the TV screen shifted violently.
She shrieked.
“Left aileron, right rudder,” he said.
She hit a string of buttons, but she had no idea if they were the right ones. Her heart leapt into her throat, and the plane pitched forward. Miss Higgs yowled. Ground rushed toward the cockpit windows. “OhmysweetbabyJesus, we’re gonna die!”
She tossed the controller and covered her face with her hands.
Maybe with two fingers spread so she could watch.
In case he was serious about taking off more clothes if she kept talking.
He snorted a disgusted, manly grunt of irritation, and moved his fingers over his own controller. The tendons in his neck were strung taut, that muscle visibly clenched in his jaw, and he radiated controlled, powerful focus.
She spread her fingers wider and glanced at the screen.
The horizon came back into view at the top of the screen, a strip of blue over the massive green forests on the ground. Slowly but surely, Lance righted the plane.