Chapter 15 #2
He was going to regret this. Even buzzed, he knew it was a bad idea. But he still stepped around his squadron buddies and flung himself out into the night.
Kaci turned back toward him. She bit her lower lip, then looked down again. “Thank you for landing the plane safely this morning.”
He stopped and crossed his arms. Chilly tonight. “Like you said. I want to live as much as you do.”
“I can be…outspoken sometimes.”
“I shouldn’t have called you a baby.”
“About this deal we made,” she said. She shoved her hands in her pockets, then looked up at him. “I need to change the terms.”
Hell. He hadn’t meant to make her feel bad. “Kaci—”
“I need to take you on a date. Not the other way around. Because I—I was getting the better end of everything. So…can I take you out? On a date? And then you never have to see me again.”
She was the one putting it all out there, going out on a limb, risking her pride, risking him saying no.
So why were his cheeks warm, and why couldn’t he figure out what to do with his hands? “I never said I didn’t want to see you again.”
“You don’t have to. When it comes to me and men, that’s just how it ends every time. But you’ve been really nice to me, and I’d like to be really nice back. I can do it. I promise I can. Well, my mouth might get involved a little, but I’ll try to make it behave.”
She was adorable. “I like your mouth.”
“Even when it’s talking?”
“Maybe twenty percent of the time. Just when you’re funny.”
She barely cracked a smile, and even in the semidarkness, he could tell it didn’t reach her eyes. “So I’ll call you about setting up a date.”
“Kaci—”
“And I’m sorry for having a meltdown on you. All the meltdowns. Have fun with your friends tonight.”
“Kaci,” he said again.
“Seriously. Go have fun with your friends. Miss Higgs and I have plans tonight, and she gets cranky when I leave her too long.”
She faded into the dark night.
But if she thought she was leaving that easily, she could think again.
This wasn’t the Kaci he knew.
Which meant something was wrong. She’d hit her head on landing this morning.
Or she was still dealing with the trauma.
Or not dealing with it at all. He trailed after her, his slow gait turning into a trot as he realized how quickly her shadow was disappearing into the night.
“Kaci, you should probably go see your doctor.”
“I’m fine. Just trying to be a better person.”
“We crash-landed in an airplane this morning.”
“Wasn’t any crashing, Captain Hot Shot. You put that plane down just like we were on a runway.”
“You’ve never seen a plane land on a runway.”
She was almost to her Jeep down the street from Pony’s place, still speed-walking as though the devil were on her tail. “True enough, but if we crashed, that plane would’ve been in pieces.”
“Kaci—”
“Go back to your friends. Have a good time. You and me? We need a little breathing room. My head’s not on straight, and you just make it more muddled.”
He could relate.
“I said I’ll call you,” she said. “You ever known me not to follow through with a threat?”
She drove him crazy and she brought out the worst in him, but the woman knew how to make him laugh. “Don’t wait too long,” he said. “I might forget who you are.”
“Don’t you wish.”
Of everything in his life he might ever wish he could forget, Kaci Boudreaux was not on that list.
She hugged the edges of her Jeep while she marched to the driver’s door. “I won’t hold it against you if you don’t take my call,” she added.
Damn impossible woman.
He stalked around the Jeep, cradled her head, and covered her lips with his.
To make her quit talking, he told himself.
To prove to her that he wasn’t a total asshole, he told himself.
To kiss a hot chick because he was a red-blooded male who liked sexy blondes, he told himself.
The truth, though, might be that he needed to know she was okay.
That she wasn’t still mad at him for making her go up in that airplane today.
That she still liked him enough to want to kiss him back.
Because if she kissed him back, maybe they’d go farther.
Into her backseat. They could ditch their clothes. Explore each other’s bodies. He could taste her skin, hold her breasts, bury himself in the deepest parts of her.
Lose himself.
Just be.
She pressed her hands firmly against his chest, pushing him away.
He stepped back, his shaft painfully trapped by the denim of his pants. “I didn’t mean it,” he said. “You’re not a baby, Kaci. You’re strong and unstoppable.”
“Go have your fun with the boys. I can’t do this tonight. But I’ll call you.” She hoisted herself into her Jeep.
He leaned in the open window. “Soon?”
She bit her lip again. “I got some work I need to do on me.” She kissed her first three fingers, pressed them to his lips, and revved the engine. “Go on. Be a good boy and go get in trouble with your friends.”
He didn’t want to, but he stepped back and let her go.
And when her taillights disappeared around the corner, despite knowing he was heading back into the bar with his buddies, he felt oddly alone without Kaci there with him.
She might be a menace, but somehow, she’d become his menace.
Kaci collapsed onto her bed and pulled Miss Higgs in for a cuddle. “I think I’m in trouble, kitty,” she whispered. She could still taste Lance on her lips and feel the heat of his touch on her scalp. “He shouldn’t kiss me like that.”
Miss Higgs kneaded her arm and heaved out a rusty purr.
“I know, I know.” She kissed her cat’s head. “I’ll always have you.”
Miss Higgs grunted.
“And I’m not going to Germany either. That bird? That bird was a sign. God doesn’t want me in airplanes.”
No answer from the cat.
Obviously, she agreed.
Kaci had a sneaky suspicion a certain sexy flyboy would give her hell when he found out she was canceling her trip to Germany, but she couldn’t think about that.
Not tonight.
She lay there stroking the cat until her purrs faded. Miss Higgs’s fragile chest rose and fell slowly, and a kitty snore occasionally slipped out.
But Kaci couldn’t sleep.
She’d messed up more than just her plans for Germany.
She’d let herself believe she could keep things with Lance on a platonic level. That they could be reluctant friends with benefits.
But he was becoming so much more.
Ron had never called her out on anything. And she’d never trusted him enough to confess her deepest fears, her biggest secrets to him. She’d never given him a chance to understand her or a chance to help her.
She didn’t like needing help.
But she’d never felt as alone as she felt tonight either.
Not when she lived at home with Momma, who never knew quite what to do with her.
Not when she was battling to prove herself after switching majors during her undergrad years, nor when she was battling for credit for her work through her graduate years.
Even when Ron had told her she could either have kids now or kiss him goodbye forever, she hadn’t been lonely.
But tonight, she wished Lance were here.
Well, not Lance. Maybe someone just like him who would listen to her talk about what had happened between them today.
Who wouldn’t judge her for how terrified she’d been when she’d realized the propeller on the plane was sputtering.
Who would laugh with her over her unbelievable good luck in actually hitting him in the back with a mud ball.
Who would tell her that he forgave her for pitching a hissy fit and calling him names and being a general pain in the ass.
Okay, yes.
She wanted Lance here.
She wasn’t sure he wanted much more than to just get her naked a few more times and then be done with her.
But he never made her feel as though he wanted her only for sex.
He made her feel funny. Unique. Worthy.
Human. Fallible but forgivable.
Lovable.
But he’d made one thing very clear today: First and foremost, he was a military man, committed to Uncle Sam.
“He’s going to break my heart, Miss Higgs.”
The cat slumbered on. Kaci untangled herself to flip the light off, then crawled under the covers and wrapped her body around her sleeping cat.
Lance was probably still out with his friends. Having a good time with a group of guys who hated her. And why shouldn’t they?
Look what she’d done to their pig. And their keg. And she’d put a stain of cheating accusations on their pumpkin-chucking trophy. Even if she’d been trying to protect her girls, she’d smeared their good names.
But she’d fix it.
She’d make everything right.
And then, maybe, she’d be worthy of having a friend like Lance for real.
Or maybe, just maybe, she’d be worthy of something more.