Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Kat somehow managed to wrestle all her new gear through the plaza and up the steep steps to her apartment. Kane had been more than happy to supply her with everything she would need for her trip, including—and probably most importantly—his excellent advice.
He’d pulled out a map and shown her a few trails that would be good for her skill level and done his best to reassure her that she was more than capable of hiking in everything she’d need for a night or two on her own. He even tried to convince her that she would enjoy it.
He wasn’t successful in his efforts, but if nothing else, Kat felt slightly more prepared. At least when it came to the appropriate gear.
As for emotionally prepared, well, she didn’t think she’d ever be ready for it.
The door was unlocked and Andy’s shoes were at the front door, which meant he was home from his workout. She felt the familiar thrill race through her knowing he was already home.
“Hey,” she called out, unable to see past the pile of things she was carrying. “Guess what I did today? Look what I?—”
“Hey, Kat. We have company.”
“Company?” The question was no sooner out of her mouth than Andy had relieved her of her packages and Kat had a clear line to the visitor sitting at her kitchen table.
“Jess.”
The beautiful brunette looked up and gave Kat a warm smile, which only made her feel like an even bigger bitch because dammit, Jess was a lovely woman and she knew that logically. Still, there was nothing logical about the jealousy that instantly consumed her.
“Hi, Kat. I was just?—”
“On a date with Andy?” Oh God, she could hear the cattiness in her voice, but she was totally unable to stop herself. “In my house. Yeah. I can see that.” She nodded and without a glance in his direction, she left Andy holding her things.
“Kat, that’s?—”
“Inappropriate?” She shot the word like a dagger in his direction and marched straight through the kitchen to the staircase. “It really is.”
It wasn’t until she got upstairs and shut her bedroom door—with a little too much force—that she released the breath she’d been holding.
Kat leaned back against the door and dropped her head in her hands. She’d been a first-class bitch to a woman who did not deserve it.
Andy didn’t belong to her. He could date if he wanted to. Besides, she already knew that he was interested in Jess. Not that it made it any easier to see with her own eyes. Somehow she’d managed to push the thought of them together completely out of her head. And that only made it all so much worse when she’d walked in, because not only did she feel like an idiot, but it also became crystal clear to her that despite all the lies she’d been telling herself for way too long, Andy meant a lot more to her than just a happy for right now situationship, friends with benefits, or whatever stupid label she’d tried to put on it.
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, but she refused to cry because she was the only person responsible for all of this. She’d done?—
“Kat?”
The knock on the door startled her.
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
She heard him sigh. “Well, I am.”
There was a trace of humor in his voice that shifted her mood in a flash from one of feeling sorry for herself to full-on rage. She spun and flung the door open.
“You think it’s funny? You bring your date into my house after…well…when we are…gah!” Frustrated, she moved to slam the door in his face, but Andy caught it and stepped forward, making it impossible for her to close the door .
“When we’re what?” He looked straight into her eyes.
She narrowed them, letting him feel the full force of her glare. “Go back to your date.”
“She left,” he said simply. “And she wasn’t my date.”
“Yeah, right.” Kat tried to turn away but a hand on her arm stopped her. “What else would you call it then? Oh God.” She slapped a hand to her forehead as it all became clear. “She’s just a friend with benefits, too, isn’t she? And you brought her?—”
“Enough.”
Andy stepped forward and grabbed her other hand in his as he pushed her up against the wall, her hands over her head, so she couldn’t get away. Anger, mixed with hurt and passion and too many things for Kat to sort through, pulsed through her veins. She struggled to wrench free from his grasp, but he held her tight.
Andy dodged her knee smoothly, before pressing his hips to hers, holding her in place and rendering her unable to kick out. “Kat. Stop.” He stared directly into her eyes. “Will you give me a minute to explain what?—”
“There’s nothing you can say.”
“That’s not true.” His lips twitched up into a little smile that he was only barely containing. “I can say that Jess and I are only friends. I can say that she’s not my type at all.”
She stopped fighting against him, but she couldn’t look at him. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned to the side while Andy kept talking.
“I can tell you that I’m not into tall, willowy brunettes.” There was the slightest trace of laughter in his voice again, but it was gone a moment later when he said, “Fiery redheads with a completely unreasonable temper are more my type.”
Andy watched her suck in a breath.
She still wouldn’t look at him, but he knew she was listening to him now.
“I can say that there’s no one else, Kat. Not even close. There hasn’t been for a long time, because as much as I know it’s a bad idea…” He inhaled deeply. “No,” he said on an exhale. “It’s a terrible fucking idea. But it doesn’t matter, Kat. I can’t stop thinking about you. You are in every one of my thoughts. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is. Or what I’m doing. It’s you. It’s always you.”
She opened her eyes and turned slowly to face him.
There were tears in her eyes, but Andy couldn’t stop. “I know this is supposed to be temporary or some situationship or whatever else it is that you keep saying, but I don’t want that and I can’t pretend anymore that I do.”
“Andy, I?—”
“Kat.” He stopped her. He wasn’t ready to hear her tell him all the reasons they couldn’t be together. Why they didn’t make sense and how her family would never be okay with it. He knew it was coming. But he needed just a few more minutes of pretending.
Without releasing his grip on her, Andy shifted both her arms into one hand, being careful of her still-healing injured wrist. Andy used his newly free hand to cup her cheek and keep her face turned up to him. “Kat, I’m done with all this bullshit of happy for right now. I want to be happy. With you. ” He shook his head and tried again. “No. I am happy with you. And I think you are too, Kat. Tell me I’m wrong.”
She didn’t answer right away. As the moments passed, Andy started to question whether he’d read everything wrong. Every kiss, every hug, every single fucking moment that they’d had together. Had she really bought into her own bullshit?
“Andy, you don’t even live here.” When she finally spoke, her voice shook. “You live eight hours away. Even if I wanted this for real, how could it even?—”
“ If you did? Does that mean?—”
“Andy, I can’t let myself get hurt. Not right now, not with everything going on. This isn’t real, Andy.”
“Fuck that.” He dropped her arms and used both his hands to hold her face. “This is very real, and you know it, too.” He kissed her to prove just how real it was between them. The moment their lips met and she melted into his kiss, he knew he hadn’t read anything wrong. Kat felt exactly the same way he did.
He pulled away from her enough to say, “And, I do live here, Kat. I didn’t want to tell you right away, but I took the job working for the ski team. That’s why Jess was here. She’s helping me find a?—”
She shoved him back so sharply and suddenly, Andy almost tripped over his feet, but he caught himself before he fell on his ass. “What the fuck, Andy?”
Kat had her hands on her hips, the tears on her cheeks now dry. She stared at him, open-mouthed. “You mean, all this time you’ve been lying to me?”
He put his hands out and stepped cautiously toward her. “Not lying so much as not wanting to add to your stress. And selfishly, I didn’t want you to put an end to things if you thought I was staying. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m just—” She dropped her arms. “You’re staying?” The anger had drained out of her voice. She looked up at him and shook her head. “Really?”
Andy pulled her into his arms and kissed her again. “Really. Jess was helping me find a place, but I’ve been putting that off, too, because, dammit, I really like being here with you, Kat. And I know I can’t stay here forever. It doesn’t make sense, so I am going to get my own place, but that doesn’t mean I want this to end.”
“You don’t?”
“Woman.” Andy laughed and scooped her up so she could wrap her legs around him. “You have got to know by now that I don’t want this to end. Turns out I like you, Kitty Kat.”
She trailed kisses on his neck. “I like you, too.”
He needed her naked. Two strides across the room, and he tossed her back onto her bed. “Oh, I know you do.”
Andy reached down, tugged her leggings off, and tossed them to the side. “You like it when I do this.” He dropped down on the bed between her legs and pressed her thighs apart, to give him access to her sweet center.
She moaned with anticipation. “You know I like that.”
He had no self-control. He dipped his head and dove straight into his task. She shrieked and writhed immediately, but he held her still with one arm as he alternated between licking and sucking in just the way he knew would drive her crazy.
It didn’t take long for her body to tense. “Andy, I’m going to?—”
“Fuck yes, you are, Kitty Kat.”
The moment he slipped a finger into her wet heat, she clenched around him as her orgasm took hold.
Hearing Kat cry out in pleasure was the sweetest sound in the world. He waited until her body relaxed under his touch before climbing up to pull her into his arms and kiss her. “That is the sexiest thing in the whole world.”
She slipped her hand between them and squeezed his hard length, making him groan. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I can think of something else that’s pretty freakin’ hot.”
Fully satiated, her body limp and exhausted from their make-up session, all Kat wanted to do was stay in bed and let Andy hold her. But he had other ideas and insisted that they get dressed and head downstairs so she could show him what she’d bought earlier.
Her trip to the store to pick up camping supplies felt like a lifetime ago, so much had happened. Hiking alone in the woods was the last thing she wanted to think about, but Andy was relentless. And when he promised to make her a quesadilla at the same time, she gave in.
After all, a girl needed to eat.
“It looks like you’ve got everything you need.” Andy stood with his hands on his hips and assessed the equipment she’d laid out on the living room floor. “Sleeping bag, tent, stove, backpack.”
“Don’t forget these delicious-looking dehydrated food packs.” Kat held up the pouches. “Kane said these ones weren’t half bad.”
She gave them a side eye and tossed them back on the pile.
“So when are you going?”
That was the question she’d been trying to avoid. “We still need to do the dance.” They’d taken a few lessons in salsa dancing from a local dance instructor. And although they weren’t completely hopeless, they still needed a lot of practice before they performed in any way.
“I didn’t think you had to do the items in order.” Andy returned to the stovetop to flip the quesadilla he was cooking. “You don’t really have much left now, do you?”
She didn’t. Not technically.
Her painting was coming along nicely and more than that, she’d found a new hobby because she was actually enjoying the painting more than she thought she would. Learning Spanish was going to be an ongoing endeavor, for sure. But any language would be. That one would be up to Steven’s discretion, whether he felt she learned enough or not. Either way, she was having a lot more fun learning Spanish than she expected. But that probably had a lot more to do with her partner in learning than anything else.
She shrugged. “I guess not.” Kat grabbed a stuff sack and started to jam the sleeping bag into it. Kane had assured her that it would not only fit in the tiny bag but that she’d be able to squish it down to make it even smaller.
It was doubtful. Still, it was a good distraction from thinking about the actual hike.
“Would you like me to go on a trial trip with you before you do the solo trip?”
She looked up to see Andy standing at the stove with a flipper in his hand, watching her.
“It could be fun,” he continued. “You and me, cozy in a tent? I mean, I think we’d be able to think of a few ways to stay warm.”
Kat couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sure we could.”
The idea of a trial run was tempting, but that would mean she’d have to go out into the woods twice. Besides, there was something about this last thing on her list that felt different from the others. She had to do it all on her own. From start to finish.
“But I think it’s best if I just rip off the Band-Aid on this one.” Kat finished stuffing the sleeping bag in the tiny bag, rolled the top of it and clipped the sides up the way Kane had shown her. And to her complete astonishment, the bag sucked down to an impossibly small size. She held it up triumphantly. “Look! ”
Andy laughed at her before leaving the stove to kiss her on the forehead. “You’re very cute, you know?”
She brushed him away and stood, leaving the pile of items on the floor to deal with later. “Remember, you can’t tell anyone about the hike. I don’t want to tell them until after.”
“After…”
“After I get back,” she said. “Or maybe after the whole will thing is done. I don’t know.” She shrugged. It was impossible to explain how she really felt about everything, and she was too exhausted to even try. “Just don’t tell, okay?”
Andy made the sign of zippering his lips shut, locking them and throwing away the key. “I’ll add it to the things I can’t tell anyone about.”
Before Kat could look at his expression and see whether he was kidding or not, Andy turned back to the stovetop and flipped the quesadilla out of the pan and onto a plate. “Dinner is served.”
She grabbed a few napkins along with the cutlery and set it up quickly on the table while Andy brought the plates over.
She waited until after they’d had a few bites before she said anything. “You know why we can’t say anything about…” She waved her fork between them. “Craig will lose his mind and?—”
“I know, Kat.” He sounded sad, but he stuffed another bite in his mouth and chewed before speaking again. When he did, there was a lightness in his voice. “He’ll unalive me. And I like being alive.”
With a little smile on her lips, Kat slipped from her chair and straddled Andy’s lap. She kissed him and his body responded almost immediately, despite their earlier bedroom session.
“So, we won’t say anything.” Kat pulled back, catching his bottom lip between her teeth. “Because I like you alive, too.”