Tygers

by Brenna Lyons

  He stared at her in disbelief as Mama Toni patted her arm and walked away to attend to her business. Keith was having trouble thinking straight. “You drink those often?” he asked lightly.

  Katie shook her head as she swallowed another mouthful of the drink. “Almost never. I gave up on drinking in college. I only have one of these every few months.” She met his eyes and smiled crookedly. “Once or twice a year, I indulge in three or four in a single night, but that’s pretty rare.”

  “So, why is Mama Toni so concerned?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Old habits die hard,” she answered cryptically.

  “Wait—You stopped drinking in college? You would have graduated at twenty-one.”

  Katie blushed lightly. “Very astute of you. I stopped drinking at twenty-one.”

  “When did you start?”

  “I had my first drink at fifteen. I got drunk a few times a week when you knew me. I drank daily at about nineteen or twenty, and I gave it up at twenty-one,” she answered matter-of-factly.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I was unhappy. Why else?” Katie furrowed her brow and got a faraway look for a moment then shook it off, as if there was more to it than that—more that she wasn’t going to share.

  “No, I mean why did you stop?”

  “It’s simple, really. Carol rushed me to the hospital with what she thought was a heart attack.”

  “What was it?” he asked gently.

  “I destroyed my stomach lining. Suddenly, my grandfather passed before my eyes, and it didn’t taste so good or feel so good anymore. The stories that I thought were so funny weren’t anymore. My life came into focus, and I didn’t like it. So, I changed it.”

  “That simple?”

  Katie shrugged. “Sort of. I lowered my stress level as much as I could. I stopped hanging out in places that served and with people who would automatically hand me a drink. I never had horrible withdrawl, if that’s what you mean. I was miserable and driven for a while. Wait, I never grew out of that. Guess it’s my normal state.” She looked down at the bar top and raised her glass. “So, now you know.”

  Keith considered it carefully. “Why did you being me here? You knew Mama Toni would make a fuss about you drinking.”

  “I really don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe, I thought it might make a difference to you.”

  His smile widened. “Trying to scare me off? It won’t work, you know.”

  “More like—trying to lower the pedestal you’ve put me on. I can’t live up to that. I never could.”

  “If you had problems, they didn’t show.”

  Katie looked at him in surprise.

  “All I heard were glowing reports from Carol. Your grades were amazing. You worked full time and took up to twenty credits at a time.”

  “And tutoring— I worked too much, pushed too hard, and I was miserable.” She looked miserable just thinking about it.

  He took her hand gently. “Why would any of this matter to me, now? Sounds like you got your shit together a long time ago.”

  “So what’s past is past?” Katie looked at him dubiously.

  Keith nodded in encouragement.

  “Like my felon is history?” she prodded.

  He tried not to react, but the picture of her in Jordan’s arms was like a gut shot. She nodded quietly and started to remove her hand, but he held on and cupped her face back to his own.

  “It is the past, and I have to work on this jealousy thing while you work on your self-image. Maybe I should tell you all the mistakes I’ve made. It might make you feel better.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “You’re actually jealous. I still can’t believe you’re jealous.”

  “Sure. Why not? That loser benefited from my stupidity and your hard-headedness.” He squeezed her hand and curbed the urge to kiss her. “It shouldn’t have happened. None of it should have.”

  Katie smiled at him tentatively. “I’ll give you some free advice, Doc. Don’t waste your jealousy. Regardless of whether or not I’m worth it, Jordan never was.” She stood and dropped a ten on the bar. “Up for an early dinner?” she asked.

  “Fajitas?”

  “No, I’ve got another plan. Let’s go for a ride.”

  He nodded and followed her to the door. He looked back at the almost-full glasses they left behind and smiled. Mama Toni would be very happy. Katie didn’t come here for a drink. She came here to test his resolve and shatter his illusions.

  * * *

  “What is that?” Keith asked.

  Katheryn looked at him in surprise. “It’s a pizza. What does it look like? Oh, don’t you like mushrooms? When you went to the bathroom, you said anything.”

  “No, what is that?” he qualified, as he pointed at the center of the Vinnie Pie.

  She laughed in understanding as she grabbed the first slice. “It’s just a little oil. It will drain off as we take slices out. Just eat over your plate and not your clothes.” She took a bite and closed her eyes in pleasure.

  “A little oil?”

  Katheryn nodded in agreement.

  “What kind? Engine oil?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath for canola. Try some. Vinnie pie is the best in the city. Just don’t think about little things like saturated fats and cholesterol and you’ll be fine.”

  Keith grabbed a slice and eyed it critically. “You eat like this often?”

  “No. Actually, between the gravy fries, the Vinnie pie, and the rest of the evening, I plan on gaining five pounds today. It’s fun, but I admit it’s decadent.”

  He nodded and took a huge bite of the pizza. Katheryn watched his eyes widen.

  “Oh, my God,” he whispered through a mouthful of food.

  She smiled. “You like?”

  “It’s incredible.” His face flushed and he met her eyes before looking back at his plate.

  “What?”

  “Nothing that I should say,” he admitted.

  “Oh. Now you have to tell me. Maybe you don’t know it, but I am incredibly curious. I should have been a cat.”

  Keith swallowed the bite he had been working on and met her eyes. The blatant need in him made Katheryn breathless.

  “I know you didn’t plan it, but— I swear this meal is like an aphrodisiac, like really good foreplay.”

  He waited nervously for her answer, and she realized that he fully expected her to be annoyed with him. For the second time that day, Katheryn found forming a witty response harder than usual.

  Finally, she managed a sweet smile. “Then by all means, eat as much as you want,” she offered.

  Keith sucked in his breath and seemed incapable of answering for a long moment. “Was that an offer or…”

  “For now, that was a tease. If the offer comes, you won’t have to ask if it was an offer.”

  He nodded silently and went back to his pizza. Katheryn watched him eating. The heat had been building all day. She was never going to prove to him that she wasn’t exactly what Scott Wolfe accused her of being if she couldn’t control her hormones better than this. At least she couldn’t be terminally stupid. Katheryn didn’t bring any protection, and that was something she was absolutely sure she could keep in mind. Of course, any supermarket, drugstore, or department store could solve that dilemma. Or, maybe Keith thought ahead. She shook away the thought.

  When they got outside, Keith stopped suddenly and turned to her. He traced his thumb over her lower lip slowly. “Pizza sauce,” he explained in a low, sensuous voice.

  Katheryn let him caress her, though she knew there was no sauce on her lip. He needed to touch her as much as she needed touched.

  Remembering his treatment at the diner, she closed her lips around his thumb and met his eyes as she ran her tongue in lazy circles around the last joint. His eyes closed and a low groan escaped his lips. Katheryn switched to licking torturous lines up the length of his thumb, taking it deeper into her mouth to accomplish the task.
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  Keith muttered a curse as he removed his thumb and sank his mouth to replace it rapidly. His tongue darted between her still-parted lips, and Katheryn rose to meet him, winding her arms around his broad shoulders. He half-lifted, half-guided her back into the wall behind her and continued his thorough exploration of her mouth while his thumb stroked down her cheek and chin to settle over her quickening pulse.

  Katheryn sank into the sensations coursing through her. She was right. His mouth was exquisite. The boy, who pursued her with newly learned passion, was replaced by the man, who was obviously finely tuned to seduction. When his free hand moved from the wall to cup her hip and draw her closer, she moaned against his mouth.

  He pulled back slightly and looked around. “Anywhere else,” he mused. “If we were anywhere else—” Finally, Keith planted a lingering kiss on her tender lips and moved back. “We should go now.”

  She nodded her agreement, though the last thing she wanted was to end what they were doing. Katheryn was stunned into an unnatural silence. Her entire body was in a riot, and her concentration was shattered. She sat, staring at the dashboard of her MDX without starting the car. Keith spoke, and she felt herself pulled forcibly back toward reality.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Katheryn furrowed her brow and shook her head slowly, keeping her focus point on the dash to ground her somewhat. “No, I don’t think I am,” she managed in a thick voice.

  He swore viciously into the hand he placed over his mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” Keith looked at her miserably.

  She met his eyes. “Don’t. I started it. I just hadn’t counted on how—” Katheryn searched for the right descriptor.

  “Earth shattering,” he offered.

  “Mind altering,” she countered. “You’re like a drug. One taste, and—” Katheryn suddenly realized what she was admitting to him and chopped it off painfully.

  But, it wasn’t fast enough. Keith’s smile returned and he leaned to nuzzle her neck up to her chin. He placed a gentle kiss on the tip of her chin and exhaled a hot trail along her face. “You want more?” he asked.

  She moaned an incoherent response, and he captured her lips. At the first sensation of his tongue, she parted her lips again for him. His hand snaked around to cup her head, and the kiss became less a quest and more a demand. She surrendered to him utterly. Her hands moved to his chest, and he groaned and pulled away again.

  His chest muscles shook under her fingers. “Like a drug,” he agreed. “I never want to stop.” Keith met her eyes. “Come home with me,” he implored her.

  A lightning strike of pleasure cut through her. God, she wanted to. Despite her promises to herself, Katheryn wanted him. She always had, but she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t sell herself short, sell what they might have growing between them short. She turned her eyes back to the dash. “I can’t.”

  “You don’t want to? I can’t believe that.”

  “I want to. God knows I want to.”

  “Then, what?”

  “I have morals. Or, I thought I had morals before tonight. I don’t know what happened to them, but they seem to have taken a vacation on me.”

  “The old first date dilemma?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “We’ve known each other for eighteen years. I think we can dispense with the awkward stage, don’t you?”

  “No. I don’t think we should rush this.”

  “All right. Where do we go from here?”

  “Put on your seatbelt.”

  Chapter Nine

  “If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.” Flavia Weeden

  Katie took Ardmore Boulevard back to the parkway, and Keith worried that she might end the date. Despite her assertion that she’d never welsh on a bet, he worried that he might never see her again like this. She certainly seemed upset enough for a move like that.

  He finally let out his breath in relief when she shot past South Side and headed out Route 60. He didn’t ask where they were going. At that point, he didn’t want to rock the boat.

  When the drive-in sign loomed ahead at a little short of dusk, his jaw fell. “How did you find one that’s still open?” he asked in awe.

  “The internet,” she confided. “I would have taken you to the old Greater Pittsburgh, but they closed it down. It was only a few minutes from Vincent’s. But, this is close, close enough.”

  Keith shook his head in amazement and forked over the entrance fee. He looked at her in confusion when she stopped at the concession stand.

  Katie smiled secretively. “Get some popcorn and drinks. I’ll meet you over that direction and a little forward.”

  He looked in the direction she pointing then around at all the open space around them. “Why not park here?”

  “I prefer a little privacy. It’s less crowded over there.”

  If she was headed where he believed she was, it was all but deserted. Keith nodded uncertainly and got out. As she pulled away, he considered what she said. If he started something with her like he did at the restaurant, Keith wasn’t sure he could stop again. It took everything he had to stop the last two times, and like the balcony, Katie showed no signs of slowing either time. It was going to be a very long movie.

  Refreshments in hand, he headed for the isolated area she pointed out. As he came closer to her SUV, he slowed. She pulled it into the space backward. How were they supposed to watch the movie that way? His groin gave it’s own fierce answer to that. They might not be watching anything.

  Katie slipped out of the driver’s side door and closed it behind her. She leaned against the side and smiled at him as he eyed the vehicle’s position. “Problem?” she asked with a coy little look that only intensified his arousal.

  “Am I missing something?” he growled at her. If she was playing cock-tease on him, Katie had gone downhill a lot in the years she had been gone.

  She reached over and opened the rear door for him. The back two rows of seats were gone, folded into the floor in the back while he had been gone, a fact that he missed between the growing darkness and the tinted windows. A blanket was laid out in the cargo area, and Katie crawled onto the far end of it and kicked her shoes off while he watched.

  “Come on,” she invited him. “I don’t bite.”

  “Unless I want you to,” he breathed out under his breath. God, I want you to.

  Keith all but tripped his way to the SUV and handed the drinks in to her. He climbed inside and closed the door before surveying the scene in the fading overhead light. Katie grabbed the popcorn and set it near the back hatch on the other side of a body pillow that was stretched across the far end of the blanket. She dropped onto the pillow and stretched out. Her outfit accented every curve of her calves, thighs, and buttocks.

  He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and willing his body to cease its hormonal assault. When the vehicle shifted, Keith opened his eyes to Katie unbuttoning her shirt, and his body’s response was heart stopping. She whipped off the outer garment to reveal a near-backless halter that was cut deep into her cleavage. She lay back down on the pillow, and his mouth went dry as he considered running his hands over her back while he pressed to enter her— She is driving me crazy. Keith lay down next to her stiffly.

  Katie smiled. “Nice, huh? I bought this model specifically because I didn’t have to remove seats. My old mini-van had tons of room but only if I manhandled the seats out.”

  He nodded and took a long drink from his cup while the ache in his groin nagged at him. At least the conversation was innocuous enough. “Why do you need so much space?”

  “Camping, traveling, moving around. Eventing takes up lots of space. I just never liked small cars anyway, and I have plenty of reasons to have a bigger car.”

  The radio clicked on with the music for the same old ads drive-ins had used for years. They fell into a comfortable silence during the movie. Except for the oc
casional brush of fingers over the popcorn, there was no contact, and Keith felt the tension in his body release as the movie wore on.

  At the break between the movies, they walked over to the restrooms, and Katie smiled widely on the way back.

  “What are you up to?” he asked.

  “Not much. Ready for dessert?”

  He met her eyes as she ducked into the car door he held open for her. “What did you have in mind?” he asked scanning her empty hands.

  She reached over the seat and pulled out the slice of cake she bought at the diner. “It’s big enough for two,” she teased him.

  Keith crawled in next to her and shut the door. “How do we do this? Our hands?”

  Katie laughed. “Well, we could, I suppose.” She pulled a plastic spoon out of her back pocket, no doubt liberated from the concession stand before he got out of the men’s room. “I thought this would work better.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Now you’re talking.”

  The movie was starting up, and he watched her in the glow from the screen. She took a bite, and he reached for the spoon, but she raised it to his lips for him. Keith let her feed him, unsure of whether the warm chocolate cake or her feeding it to him was more of an aphrodisiac. The movie played on unwatched while Katie fed him the cake.

  When it was gone, she set the container and spoon aside and smiled at him. “Stay still,” she instructed him. Katie leaned toward him to wipe chocolate off of his mouth, then she dropped her hand and touched her lips to the spot instead. Her tongue traced his lower lip slowly and she sucked gently at a particularly stubborn smudge.

  Keith groaned and pulled her to him. Her mouth accepted him readily and she wound her arms around his shoulders, pressing her breasts into his chest. His hands left her shoulders and roamed the bare expanse of her back. Katie pressed up on her knees to arch against him and seal her mouth more urgently to his.

  In a daze, he lifted her under her buttocks and moved her against the length of his erection. She groaned in pleasure and threw her legs around his waist, anchoring herself against him. Free of the fear of crushing her legs beneath them, Keith pivoted to lay her back onto the pillow beside him.