Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Rachel
It was amazing how fast perspiration flowed inside polyester fur. Rachel’s spine, underarms, and thighs were rivers.
Lemurs love water, so maybe she really was becoming one with the endangered animal.
But the sweat turned clammy when Kell stood, clearly annoyed with them all for teasing him, and left.
“Congrats, Rachel. You did it. Pissed Kell off enough to make him leave,” John declared, earning a nod from Jonas. The two of them always backed each other up.
“I didn’t say anything worse than anyone else said!”
John shot her a derisive look. “You directly bashed his hometown and said it was environmentally unfriendly. Low blow.”
Rachel looked at Lila, who just shrugged, as if she kinda-sorta-maybe agreed with John but wasn’t going to say it aloud.
And Alissa was a lost cause. She was Kell’s girlfriend, for goodness’ sake.
Standing quickly, the slick coating on her skin inside the costume making her feel like she was moving through warm slime, Rachel headed over to the crosswalk where Kell stood waiting for the light to change.
Dressed in khakis and a light sport jacket, he cut a fine figure.
Tall and strong, with thick, dark hair and gray eyes, he was built differently from most of the guys she knew, who tended to be more lean.
And he was totally different from the other men in the environmental policy community, genuine and kind, less focused on being cutthroat and more focused on how decisions affected real people.
He was also completely, utterly, and unmistakably off limits, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. And when you hurt a friend’s feelings, you apologize.
“Kell! Hey!” Rachel shouted as the light changed and he began to cross. She picked up her pace on an impulse, chasing after him, her actions making no sense as she crossed with the crowd. People passed her quickly, unencumbered by bulky lemur costumes with weighted tails and furry shoe covers.
And then, inexplicably, her body slammed forward but couldn't move. She couldn’t walk. The costume’s head pitched forward, covering her eyes and nose. Her throat pinched, a cry of pain escaping.
She was stuck.
Panic filled her as she realized she was trapped in the middle of the street. The people in front of her were safe, but Rachel was most assuredly not. Something was pulling her but she couldn’t see what, or how. She had to lean in the other direction to keep from falling.
“HEY, YOU! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY WHEEL? WHAT THE HELL?”
She turned to her left, but she was barely able to move her head. She managed to reach up and lift the lemur head enough to see a pedicab driver screaming at her. Rachel found the zipper at her throat and lowered it a few inches. She felt wetness, either sweat or blood.
“RACHEL!” She heard Kell’s booming voice. He sprinted back into the street, holding his arms up to stop traffic as the light changed and the cross-street cars lurched forward. Rachel was certain she was about to become lemur roadkill.
“What’s happening?” she called out to him, confused and in pain.
“Your tail. It’s caught in the guy’s wheel,” he said, the words not making sense.
Tail? Wheel?
Cacophony ensued as drivers honked at them, enraged that they were blocking the whole lane. The pedicab driver was balanced on the ball of one foot, trying to pedal away and screaming at her to let him go. Now she saw her tail entwined in the spokes of one of his wheels.
“Stop pedaling!” Kell yelled at the guy, who flipped him the bird. Rachel heard the driver scream the words electric assist, followed by a string of curse words.
Electric assist?
Kell stepped behind her, inserting himself between her and the pedicab. His hands went to her shoulders as he leaned in and said loudly in her right ear, “You have to get out of this costume!”
“NO!” she gasped.
“Now, Rachel! Now! He’s pulling hard. You’re already bleeding at the neck.”
Before she could make the choice, Kell made it for her.
Zip! His knuckle traced the long line of her body, sliding down between her breasts, fingertips brushing her navel, the zipper ending right at her pubic bone.
Air. Breath. Pain.
Catcalls.
Loud, shrill whistles joined the blaring horns as Rachel Hart stood in a city crosswalk, blocking traffic, wearing nothing but a bra, panties, shoes… and a ring-tailed lemur costume pooled at her ankles.
A RRRRIIIIPPPP filled the air, Leo the Lemur’s tail torn clean off by the pedicab. The rest of him was wrapped around her lower legs like a fur stole in the wrong place. Kell bent down to pick something up off the ground, stuffing it inside his jacket.
“Rachel, get out of the street!” Kell rapidly stripped off his jacket, throwing it over her shoulders and blocking the crowd’s view of her half-naked body.
But instead, she froze.
The world stopped, all sound disappearing, as she wished for a giant meteor to strike right now and end everything.
It worked for the dinosaurs, right?
And then she was staring at the sky, at the long lines of the buildings going up.
Her nose filled with the deliciously comforting scent of woodsmoke, lime, and spices.
In Kell’s arms, her face was pressed against his shirt, cheers and raucous laughter fading as he headed for a bus-stop shelter.
Its seats were empty, and he set her down on the bench, the warm metal a surprise against her bare thighs.
Tenderly, he tucked one of her arms, then the other, into his jacket sleeves, closing the lapels and eyeing her up and down.
“Bad cut?” he asked, pointing to the base of her throat.
Fluttering fingers that didn’t feel like hers reached up, finding slickness, the blood starting to congeal.
“It’s not bad,” she whispered, meeting his eyes. “Did that really just happen? I was naked in the middle of the street?”
“Yeah.”
“The lemur suit?”
“You’re worried about the damn suit?”
“Yes. I’m probably going to have to pay for it.” Money wasn’t an actual concern for Rachel, who’d been raised by Hollywood elite, but the random thought was easier to focus on than her own humiliation.
And state of being barely dressed in public.
Kell pointed to the pedicab in the distance, dragging poor Leo’s tail.
“Oh, no. I killed Leo! I was naked in public, and I killed an endangered animal beloved by thousands of children!” she moaned. An older woman carrying two shopping bags started to enter the bus shelter, halted, and turned abruptly to leave.
“You need to go home, Rachel. Take a bath, clean that cut, put some antibiotic cream on it, and–”
“How? I’m naked!”
He looked at her. “You have your shoes, and my jacket, and most of the costume. Can you stand up? Can you pull the suit up at all?”
On shaking legs, she slowly did as he suggested. Kell was so much taller than she was, his jacket came to a spot above her knees.
“Good enough,” he muttered. “I’ll take you home.”
“My keys! My wallet, my phone!”
Another wave of horror washed over her.
“Got ’em. They fell out of the suit when you unzipped. Check my inside jacket pocket.”
She reached in, relieved to find everything there, though the phone screen was cracked.
“How did you have the presence of mind to pick them up?”
He shrugged. “I stay calm in a crisis.”
“I clearly don’t.”
“I wasn’t the one being choked to death by a pedicab trying to drag me off, then being stripped half-naked to red lace panties and bra in public.”
Red lace. He said red lace.
The man had noticed.
If Rachel was going to be naked in public, thank goodness it happened on the one rare day when she’d worn a bra and panties that matched.
The thought made her laugh. Then the laugh turned into bubbling hysteria, the seconds ticking by with a surreal quality that made her wonder if she’d gone out of her mind.
When she’d proudly informed her parents back in L.A.
that she’d be working at the federal level to help write policy and bills that could save the planet, this was definitely not what she’d had in mind.
Rachel bent down and pulled up the torn and dirty suit, cinching the loose material at her waist in a belt-like fashion. She had to hold it up, but it covered her bottom half. Kell’s jacket was big enough that she could button it and cover up her top half.
“Ready?” he asked, on his phone, typing something.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call an Uber.”
“I live three blocks away. Can we just walk? There’s a back way through some alleys where I won’t be the worst-dressed person there.”
He gave her a skeptical look, eyes roaming over her. “You sure about that?”
She punched him. Hard. Kell wore only a business shirt, top button undone, and her punch hit steel.
“Geez. You’re a wall of muscle,” she said, shaking out her hand. “What’s under that shirt? A big red S?”
“You want me to take my shirt off now?” he teased as they began walking.
“Technically, it would make us even. You just saw me in my red lace bra and panties.” Her emphasis was intentional, meant to test him.
It worked.
His breath hitched a little, which made her heart race. What was she doing? Kell and Alissa were a thing. Everyone knew they were a thing. They’d been together four months and two weeks.
Not that Rachel had been counting or anything.
“I don’t think we need to worry about parity in that arena,” he said diplomatically as Rachel picked up the pace and made a sharp right turn down an alley. The scent of sour garbage from a bar’s dumpster hit her full on, diffusing the weird flirty tension between them.
Alissa and Kell had always been an odd match. Alissa liked to say that Kell was from hillbilly New England, a term he hated. Maple redneck wasn’t any better, and Rachel had almost witnessed their first argument when she pulled out the term swamp Yankee.
Rachel relentlessly approved of their relationship, though, because there was no way she was ever going to admit to her crush on him. Alissa had no idea.