She ducked her head again and barreled for the door. The cat let out one last whimpery yowl.
Lance was right on her heels. “Kaci, you can’t drive and hold a cat. Let me take you.”
“You’re not dressed.” She banged on the door across the way. “Mrs. Hamm? Mr. Hamm?”
The door flew open, and a kindly older gentleman swept one gaze over Kaci before springing into action. “Wanda, hon, I’m runnin’ Kaci and Miss Higgs to the vet,” he called.
“Door locks on its own,” Kaci said to Lance.
And then she was gone with her neighbor, leaving him with a half-mast erection and the growing suspicion that his little post-being-left-at-the-altar, pre-deployment fling was doomed.
* * *
Four hours later, after racking up an emergency vet bill Kaci didn’t want to think about, Miss Higgs was resting comfortably.
Given her age, there wasn’t much the vet could do for her, but she’d stopped having seizures and was drinking water, so that was something.
She wasn’t gone.
Yet.
Kaci would’ve stayed all night with her cat, but the vet ordered her to go home. If Miss Higgs was supposed to go tonight, she’d be gone already, the vet had said. Kaci needed sleep so she could take care of Miss Higgs when she came home tomorrow.
So once Miss Higgs was comfortably asleep, Kaci left the vet and climbed into her Jeep.
Mrs. Hamm had picked up Mr. Hamm after Kaci had assured him that Miss Higgs would be fine and then threatened to call a cab for him. So it was just her.
Going home would be the easy thing to do.
It would also be the chicken thing to do.
Tara wasn’t there. If she wanted to crawl into bed and cry herself to sleep, no one would ever know.
But she wanted a friend more than she needed her pride. A friend who apparently understood more about her than she would’ve thought possible.
She fired up her engine and headed to Lance’s house.
He’d been sweet to offer to go with her. She wasn’t used to accepting help. She wasn’t used to having help available. Even when she’d been married, she’d been independent.
She wouldn’t have asked the Hamms for help tonight, except Lance had been right. She shouldn’t have driven herself.
And she hadn’t wanted him to go with her. She hadn’t wanted him to see her if Miss Higgs didn’t make it.
So who was she doing the greater disservice? Herself, in denying herself a friend?
Or Lance, in denying him her trust?
It was approaching midnight when she reached his house. Lights glowed in his windows, so she climbed out and knocked.
But it wasn’t Lance who stared back at her from the other side of the doorway.
It was one of his little flyer buddies.
His roommate, apparently, who still couldn’t stop his eager-beaver eyes from drifting toward her chest. “Looking for round two with Thumper?”
“You old enough to shave on your own? Or does your momma still do that for you?” She squeezed her eyes shut. Probably not the fastest way to get to Lance, but she couldn’t help herself. Her mouth did most of its own thinking when she wasn’t in a classroom. “Is he here?”
“Nah. But I’m starting to wonder about his taste in women,” the kid said.
That got her attention. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t turn you down either. But then, I didn’t just get rid of a crazy ex-fiancée.”
A cold jolt shot through her stomach. She’d been showing her own crazy lately. Waving it like a flag. Might as well have tattooed it to her forehead.
But she and Lance—they weren’t serious.
This was about lust.
Lust and flying and catapults.
With a side of quasi-friendship.
Right?
Still, if he was into crazy, that explained why he kept coming around.
“You wanna come in?” the kid said.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she marched herself back to her Jeep.
She had a friend to track down.
Chapter 11
Kaci found Lance in the last place she would’ve thought to look, but in retrospect, it made perfect sense.
He’d stayed at her apartment.
Waiting for her.
He’d been snoozing on her blue-checkered couch, as evidenced by the heavy eyes and sudden bolting when she walked through her door. He scrubbed a hand over his stubble. “How’s your cat?”
“Fine.”
Lordy, she was a mess. She opened her mouth to say more, but before she could get it out, he grinned.
“Good. Wanna get back to making out?”
She sucked in a gasp as realization settled in.
The man wanted her to give him a good what for.
Still, heat flooded her cheeks, and it took effort not to fly off on her broomstick. She turned her back on him and stalked to the kitchen. “It’s getting real clear why your ex-fiancée’s crazy. Was she your ex before or after the night we met?”
She grabbed three bottles from the cabinet over her sink.
Lance was eyeballing her as though he couldn’t decide the right answer.
She cocked a hip. “Well?”
“Before.” He visibly swallowed. “And she wasn’t crazy.”
“Huh.”
He stood and stretched, pulling his polo tight over his hard abs “Just wanted to make sure your cat was okay. More flight prep tomorrow?”
“Sit on down.” She snagged a stack of shot glasses, then carried the lot to her coffee table. “Pick your poison. You’ve been so nice helping me get over my little phobia, least I can do is fix your girl troubles.”
He grimaced and stepped around her.
“Sit,” she said again, gentler this time. “Don’t have to say a word. I’ll do all the talking. You grunt once for yes, twice for no, and I’ll keep the Jack coming as long as you need it.”
He stopped.
“Don’t bother me a bit to be your rebound.” Bold, even for her, but he kept coming back. Touching her. Kissing her. Even talking to her. Until this exact minute, anyway. “You’re forgetting I’ve been there. But I wasn’t so lucky as you—I actually married him.”
His gaze shifted to the table, where she’d laid out her tequila, a fifth of Jack Daniels, and a bottle of cheap vodka she’d confiscated from an underage student.
“Don’t leave me hanging. My cat’s holding on by a thread and I’m still facing too many hours on an airplane in less than two months.” She poured herself a shot of tequila and tossed it back.
Lance threw himself onto the couch beside her, arms crossed, still silent.
She took a guess and poured him a shot of the whiskey. “She break up with you that day we met?”
He grunted twice, then downed his whiskey.
“Was she the reason you were in the bar?”
One grunt, and he held his glass out for a refill.
Kaci topped them both off.
She didn’t remember much about him clearly from the night they’d met. He’d been handsome. Sexy in a broody kind of way, surprisingly so. Something to take her mind off that phone call about going to Germany.
What would’ve put Lance in the bar that night?
“Oh,” she whispered. “Did she leave you at the altar?”
He didn’t answer, but instead tipped his glass back and swallowed his whiskey in one gulp. His throat worked, and she was suddenly struck by how rugged he looked when he didn’t have to shave.
Weekends looked damn fine on Lance Wheeler.
She patted his thigh, which was a mistake, because his muscles were solid beneath the warm denim, and she knew firsthand that he was capable of being solid elsewhere in a matter of moments.
Not that she’d yet learned if he was proficient with his equipment, but hope sprang eternal.
She cleared her throat, and her voice came out softer than she meant it to. “Sugar, you don’t kn
ow it yet, but meeting me is the best dang thing you’ve ever done for yourself.”
He held his glass out for another refill. “Your humility is so inspiring.”
“Gotta toot my own horn. Nobody else is gonna do it. Especially in academia. But the important part is, I know exactly how to get a woman out of your life.”
“This isn’t where we light a bonfire and set her pictures on fire, is it?”
“Bless your heart. That what that little kid at your house told you to do?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Juice Box.”
“You need a juice box?” Weird, but okay. “I got some orange—”
“The kid. Juice Box. He told you about Allison.”
Military men and their nicknames. “So that’s her name.”
“You went to my house.”
“I—”
“You went to my house, and you’re being nice to me,” he accused.
“Most folks would take that as an honor.”
“I’m not most folks.”
“And I’m starting to believe that part about her not being the crazy one in your relationship.”
“Not here looking for sympathy,” he growled.
“Pish. If I was giving you sympathy, I’d be spoon-feeding you ice cream and complimenting your manhood. No, this here’s me offering to help you move on with your life for real when you’re done rebounding with me.”
He scratched his chin and regarded her with a healthy mix of distrust, suspicion, and curiosity.
“You still got anything of hers?” she prompted.
“Got the rings.” His lip curled.
“Good. After we torture me with your video game tomorrow, we’ll go blow ’em up.”
His lips parted.
“That Juice Box kid gonna be at your house tomorrow?”
“The United States government trusts that kid to fly multimillion-dollar airplanes.”
“Shoot, three universities have trusted me to cause molecular explosions. Don’t mean the whole world wants to spend time with me.” She grinned at him. “But I’m right honored that you do.”
He grunted twice and reached for the Jack.
Kaci stood and stretched, and she didn’t miss the way his sleepy eyes lifted to roam her body.
But the man was headed toward a hangover, and she wasn’t as steady on her feet as she should’ve been.
Dang tequila.
She bent over, leaning into his space, her head in a swirl-a-whirl. His eyes went dark as night, inviting her in, commanding her to come closer. “Glad you stayed, sugar,” she whispered. She touched her lips to his and let her fingers drift down the hard planes of his chest. His capable hands cupped her breasts, and he suckled her lower lip into his mouth. Even with her head starting its swim in the drunk tank, a jolt of electric need shot through her bones.
When she found his jeans, she tucked her fingers into the pockets, drawing circles with her thumbs over his shirt while she went fishing.
She could’ve found what she wanted in seconds, but sweet holy jumping jacks, the man’s mouth and his hands and his very essence were more intoxicating than any tequila she’d ever met. So she let him kiss her, indulging in the feeling of being wanted. Of being desired. Of being womanly and powerful and seductive, and in womanly, powerful, and seductive being good things.
But while this magnetic attraction to Lance might make her nipples ache and her inner core throb, she knew she wasn’t the woman he really wanted. Whether his ex was that woman or not, Kaci would never be.
So why couldn’t she let herself sink into him, to straddle him on her couch, unzip his jeans, and enjoy a night of drunken, no-strings sex that neither of them would have to regret in the morning?
Her left fingers connected with a metal ring. She tugged his keys out of his pocket, then slowly pulled out of his kiss. “Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.”
And even though her swollen breasts and her needy core groaned and protested, she tossed him an Ole Miss blanket and retreated to her bedroom.
* * *
Lance banged around Kaci’s kitchen, his skull pounding almost as hard as his nutsack.
He shouldn’t have stayed.
He shouldn’t have taken that sixth shot of Jack.
And he shouldn’t be clanging metal pots together if he didn’t want his head to split open.
But his head splitting open was preferable to the sinking knowledge that he couldn’t shake Kaci Boudreaux from his life.
He’d had his chance to score with her three times in the past twenty-four hours, and every last time she’d walked away.
She was out. Three strikes. So it wasn’t anyone’s fault her cat almost died the second time, but as far as he was concerned, that was a foul ball. Still counted as a strike.
So why, instead of banging down her door and reclaiming his keys, was he toasting bagels, fixing a fucking fruit salad, and looking for a pan to fry eggs, hoping she’d get up before he couldn’t make any more excuses to stay here?
He slammed the door shut on her pots and pans.
Eggs were too much work, especially with the racket threatening to slice his brain open. If she’d had bacon in her fridge, that would’ve been one thing. Or if the noise of him thinking about making eggs would’ve gotten her out of bed.
But no.
She was in her room, probably on her back with her hair all spread out, her chest rising and falling, her covers pristine over her body as though she were Sleeping fucking Beauty.
And now he had a hard-on.
Again.
“Dammit.”
A burnt bagel popped out of the toaster.
Lance grabbed it and ate the damn thing anyway. He poured himself a second cup of coffee and nearly burned himself on his first gulp.
“Morning,” Kaci chirped.
He spun, sloshing coffee onto his hand. He slammed the mug down and grabbed a towel.
“Hope you slept well and dreamed of Bama getting their rumps whomped by my Rebels,” she said cheerfully. “Thanks for the coffee, sugar.”
She helped herself to the mug he’d just set down, then took the second half of the burnt bagel and carried it into the living room. “Love me some charcoal in the morning.”
Her hair was in a messy knot, her face scrubbed clean of makeup. Her baggy pajama pants and oversized Ole Miss T-shirt shouldn’t have been sexy, but Lance was beginning to suspect the woman could make a garbage sack sexy.
He had a problem.
And it was called Kaci Boudreaux.
“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.
Her Rebel Heart Page 12
