Logan nibbled her ear and she started to giggle. When a blast from the past in the form of Carl came around the corner, Kate looked up and gasped.
Carl scanned the nuts, probably looking for the unsalted ones, Kate guessed. Sure enough, a second later he reached for them. Dry and unsalted, just like him.
It had been nearly a year since she’d seen him and he hadn’t changed a bit. In fact, it looked like he was wearing the same starched, plaid button down shirt and pleated trousers. His thinning hair was meticulously combed and parted on the side. Logan’s wavy blonde hair was styled by the wind. Carl’s shirt buttoned up to the top button while the V-neck shirt beneath Logan’s leather jacket was distressed.
Logan and her ex couldn’t be more opposite.
Carl’s thin lips were set in a grim line as he pondered the nutritional information on the label of a can of store brand peanuts. The guy took everything way too seriously. Even nuts.
Kate didn’t have to look in his cart to know what was there. Rye bread, canned potatoes, wheat crackers… Boring, flavorless and downright depressing.
Kate cleared her throat and ducked away from Logan’s advances. “Carl? Hi!” she said a little too enthusiastically.
Carl turned toward her and surprise flashed briefly in his lifeless eyes. “Hello, Katherine.” He drew out her full name, sounding like an incredibly dull math professor. “It’s good to see you.”
She didn’t want to lie, so she didn’t say the words back. “How are you?” she asked instead.
“I’m doing well.”
Logan made circles on her wrist with his thumb, reminding her of his presence. “Oh, Carl, this is Logan. Logan, this is Carl.” She added under her breath so only Logan could hear, “My ex-husband.”
“Hey, man. Nice to meet ya.” Logan stuck out his hand and Carl shook it stiffly. He was probably itching to reach for the travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer he kept in his pocket at all times.
Carl pursed his thin lips together and nodded. “Logan.”
An awkward silence hung limply between them like the Mylar balloons in the floral department.
“Well, I’m glad you’re doing well, Carl. We’d better get going before our ice cream melts, Logan.”
“Yes,” Carl agreed. “Goodbye, Katherine.”
She nodded. Behind her, she could hear Logan say, “See ya, Carl.”
Kate bit down on her tongue to keep from smirking.
Carl scooted his cart over so they could squeeze past him. On her way by, Kate reached out and grabbed a can of chocolate covered almonds and tossed them into her cart with a smile. They landed right next to the pleasure pack of ultra-thin condoms.
And when she walked away, she just might have flicked her long hair over her shoulder and swished her hips a little more sultry than normal, but definitely not on purpose.
* * *
Later in Kate’s bed, Logan put the can of whipped cream to good use. They’d finally made it to the bedroom and Kate stretched out next to him, feeling lazy and sexy at the same time.
She popped a chocolate covered almond in her mouth and moaned around the scrumptious flavor.
“Was it weird running into your ex?”
Kate chewed and took a moment to think about it. “Yeah. But it was a nice little reminder of why I left him.” Not that she needed one.
Logan nodded. “He looked surprised. Not surprised to see you, but surprised like he almost didn’t recognize you.”
“That’s because I wasn’t dressed like a nun.”
“You used to be a nun?” he asked, licking whipped cream from her nipple.
“No.” She sucked in a breath as his tongue did amazing things to her breasts. “He just preferred I dress…matronly.”
“And hide all these beautiful curves?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a shame. Why were you married to him again?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I thought it was what I was supposed to do. My parents seemed to like him well enough.” A lot of good that did her. Her parents never seemed to give a damn about the things that really mattered.
“Well, when I get married,” Logan sighed, “it’ll be for love and not obligation.” Right away he couldn’t believe he’d said the M word out loud and promptly clamped his mouth shut. Luckily, Kate didn’t seem to notice the slipup.
“I should have introduced you as my boyfriend, but I didn’t know what to say.” She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on an elbow. “Is that what we are? Boyfriend and girlfriend?” It sounded slightly juvenile to call someone that after college. But that was the appropriate title, wasn’t it?
“I think so,” he said confidently. “We are dating, aren’t we?”
“Is that what you call this?” she asked, gesturing to the bed. “Technically we’ve never even been on a date.”
“You wanna go on a date?” Logan’s eyes lit up at the challenge. “I’ll take you on one. Dinner, dancing, the movies. The whole nine yards. Just keep in mind that I can’t do this…,” his tongue darted out and swiped across her nipple, “…at a fancy restaurant.”
“Forget the restaurant,” she said with a laugh and rolled over on top of him.
He grabbed the can of whipped cream and gave it a good shake. “Did Carl ever bring food into the bedroom?”
She laughed out loud. “Carl didn’t even allow a glass of water into the bedroom.”
“He sounds like a real piece of work.”
“He liked my hair short, too. ‘Practical and sensible.’”
“I like it long. ‘Cause it means I can do this…” He wrapped her hair around his fist and gently tugged her toward him for a kiss.
Sensations in her scalp skittered down her spine, awakening every nerve. His mouth claimed hers and she decided this was the absolute perfect way to spend the afternoon.
“I thought he was going to have a stroke when he saw you kiss my neck,” Kate admitted when Logan let her come up for air.
“Carl’s not into public displays of affection?”
“Carl doesn’t approve of private displays of affection.”
Logan flipped her over onto her back and straddled her hips. “Well, I don’t know about Carl, but if I had you in my bed every night, you’d be dripping with whip cream and tangled in the sheets on a regular basis.”
Before she could say, “Promise?” he aimed the nozzle between her legs and squirted.
“Ohh! That’s cold,” she panted.
“Here, let me warm that up for you.”
“Don’t do that if you don’t intend on doing it a lot more than once.”
He silenced her with a lot more than one swipe of his tongue.
She threw her head back in ecstasy as he lapped up every last drop.
Chapter Eleven
Jitters
“Kate Kapowski is approaching the front door,” VINCE announced from the living room the next day.
Julia went to answer the door and Kate sailed past her carrying noisy plastic grocery bags.
In the kitchen, Kate pulled everything out of the bags and informed Julia of what she bought and where she was putting each item. “Orange juice in the door of the fridge,” she called out, swinging open the door of the fridge.
“Can you put it inside in the back?” Julia requested. “I heard it’s supposed to stay colder on the shelf than in the door.”
“Righto. OJ on the top shelf. Lunch meat and cheese in the little drawer on the left. And I got you some of that ice cream you like. You know, the kind with the little mint cups.” Kate scanned the freezer. “Ice cream on the right, next to the ice maker.”
Suddenly Julia was standing in the kitchen doorway, her nose scrunched up. It was the same look she’d been using for years whenever she thought her sister was infringing on her independence. “I can get my own groceries, you know. You don’t have to go to the store for me.”
“I know,” Kate answered, putting the last of the groceries away. “Food for Shamus is on th
e bottom shelf. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I needed a few things of my own anyway and I know you were getting low on bread. Middle shelf in the pantry,” she added. Even though she’d been to the store with Logan the day before, she’d skipped some of the items on her list so they could get home faster. Which had been completely worth it.
Julia let out a huff and let her hands fall limply to her sides. There was no getting through to Kate when she was like this. It was better to just nod, say thank you, and try not to hate her for treating you like a five-year-old.
Julia allowed Kate to stock the pantry because she knew Kate’s underlying motivation for it. Her sister felt guilty and helpless about not being able to cure Julia’s blindness, so she tried to make up for it by filling her freezer with her favorite ice cream.
Kate closed the pantry and let out a huff of her own. “What?” she asked, turning to face Julia.
“Where is all this nervous energy coming from?” Julia knew Kate’s moods as well as she knew her own. And something was up.
“Nothing. I bring you peace offerings in the form of minty ice cream goodness and deli meat and I get the third degree.”
Julia cocked her hip and her head to one side. It was the same look she’d given Kate when they were in elementary school and Kate had denied kissing Eric Strathers at the back of the school bus. Julia had seen that kiss with her own two eyes.
Kate stabbed her hands onto her hips and blew her bangs out of her face. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with Logan.”
Julia threw her head back and groaned in relief. “So, that’s what’s got you all tied up in knots. The hot hockey player.” She went to the fridge and started making herself a sandwich. All this talk about lunch meat reminded her she’d skipped lunch to finish the third movement of her sonata. It was coming along nicely, but she didn’t say anything to Kate about it for fear of jinxing her progress. “Talk to me, Katie. And stop chewing all your lipstick off.”
Kate puffed out a breath and dropped down into a nearby chair. “We can’t keep our hands off each other.”
Julia slapped cheese and oven-roasted turkey onto a slice of fresh bread and wondered what the problem was. Physical intimacy was a good thing, wasn’t it?
“We talk, though too,” Kate went on. “Long conversations about stuff I’ve never talked to a man about before.”
Julia put away the sandwich fixings and sat in the chair across from her sister. “He’s interested in you,” she said simply. It wasn’t a bad thing. But sometimes Kate forgot that not all men were like What’s His Name. Some actually cared about people besides themselves.
Like Gabe.
Gabe was a prime example of the kind of man Julia liked to hope her sister would meet. He actually listened to what she had to say and didn’t cut her off to get to the stuff about him. It was nice having someone to talk to besides Kate. And Gabe was an excellent listener. He asked a lot of questions, too. Some of his recent questions even make her cheeks flush. Like when he asked her—
“Julia!” Kate had been in the middle of relaying her non-crisis and Julia had gone and let Gabe commandeer her thoughts.
“Sorry,” she mumbled around a bite of her sandwich. “I just don’t know what the problem is. This guy obviously cares about you. Why can’t you just have some fun with him?”
“I can. It’s just so…so intense. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I can’t seem to get enough.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, Katie. It’s okay to have fun with a man.”
Kate sat back and the pessimist in her wondered when that fun would come to an inevitable end.
* * *
“Did you see that chick who left the game with Lucas?” Trik asked. “I almost took a bite out of my stick she was so hot.”
Logan shook his head. Lately he hadn’t been paying much attention to his teammates’ love lives as much as he was his own. When he wasn’t at practice or the gym, he was over at Kate’s flipping through her recipe book—literally and metaphorically.
Trik took that as his cue to describe every last detail of the woman, right down to the color of the lace on the thong that had been sticking out of her low-rise jeans.
“Don’t you worry,” Trik said, slapping Logan on the back. “The chick I’ve got lined up for you tonight could be her twin sister.”
“No thanks. I’ve already got plans for tonight.”
Trik shrugged. “I’ll just pass the love onto someone else. Seb’s been on me about hookin’ him up with a redhead anyway.”
Logan knew the goalie would appreciate the gesture more than he would. There was something about the Russian that had all the girls lining up to drop their panties for him.
“You sure you’re feelin’ all right?” Trik asked, slapping Logan hard on the back again.
“Yeah,” Logan reassured him. “Things are good.”
“Can’t argue with that. Let me know if you change your mind.”
Before Logan could reply, Trik was out the door and revving the engine in his McLaren 12C.
Logan waited until he was sure Trik was long gone and went out to his car. Suddenly he had a craving for extra buttered popcorn.
* * *
On the night of Kate’s big date with Logan, Kate stopped by Julia’s apartment before Logan was scheduled to pick her up. She was greeted by the smell of Cassidy’s tuna fish dinner and the sound of a celebrity on a TV infomercial explaining the benefits of a newly formulated acne cream.
“Katie!” Julia exclaimed from the couch. “What are you doing here? Tonight’s the big date, right?”
“It’s just a regular date,” Kate clarified.
No need to blow it all out of proportion. No need to jinx this crazy, wonderful thing she had going with Logan.
“You look beautiful.” Julia knew Kate was giving her a “And how would you know” look, so she added, “I can tell from your voice. You sound confident and that automatically makes you beautiful no matter what you are wearing. You smell good, too. Just the right amount of fragrance, not overdone.”
“Thanks, Miss Bloodhound.”
“I’d ask you to have a seat, but I can tell you’d rather pace.”
“Thanks.” Kate smoothed her hands over the silky fabric of her dress. “I’m wearing the dress I found at Chloe’s Boutique.”
“The red one?”
“Yes.” It was a great excuse to wear her new stilettos and they complimented the red dress perfectly.
“He’s going to love it,” Julia reassured her. “Why do you sound so nervous?”
Kate sighed. She couldn’t hide anything from her sister, could she? There was no use in denying it. “I just really like him and things are moving very fast and….”
“You’re afraid he’s going to yank off his Mission: Impossible face mask and reveal he’s been Carl underneath all along?”
Kate sputtered out a laugh at the ridiculous notion and the even more ridiculous mental picture it left behind. “I sure hope not.”
“Just go with it, Katie. If he’s awesome and being with him feels right, than there’s no rule that says you have to take things slow. Do what feels right for you.”
“You’re right. And don’t let your head swell up because I said that either.”
“When am I going to get to meet Mr. Right anyway?”
“Soon, JuJu. I don’t want to jump the gun on anything yet.”
“Fair enough. He’s wining and dining you, Kate,” she said on a wistful sigh. “And no one deserves it more than you.”
“I don’t need him to,” Kate replied with a shrug of her shoulders.
Julia shook her head. “But don’t tell him that,” she laughed. “C’mon, Katie,” Julia pleaded, “isn’t it fun having a man fawn all over you and give you romance?”
“Yes.” Kate thought about the dinners and the flowers and the incredible horizontal tango they’d been indulging in lately. “Yes it is.”
* * *
Looking hand
some and sexy in a crisp button-down shirt and slacks, Logan escorted Kate into The Rio Restaurant overlooking the magnificent Red River.
God, her date looked amazing. Those pants did wonders for his backside and Kate had to tear her eyes away from him when the hostess showed them to their table by the window.
“This is a lovely restaurant,” Kate remarked as she settled in across from him and admired the fantastic view off the patio.
Logan nodded in agreement and pretended to study the menu. “One of my old teammates proposed here.”
Kate had little control over the sigh that escaped her lips. “How romantic.” It was easy to imagine a strapping young hockey player getting down on one knee and proposing in a beautiful setting such as this.
Logan gaged her reaction while pretending to peruse the wine selection. She would need to be romanced, he decided, and chose a silky Chardonnay to compliment the rich meal he had planned for them. And she deserved to be. After enduring years with a man who obviously disparaged her, she should be showered with fancy flowers, exquisite food, and the best wine money could buy. The food here was good, but probably not nearly as tasty as anything Kate could whip up herself. But she deserved the experience of dining out at a five star restaurant and he was glad to be the one to accompany her.
When the waiter arrived, Logan was ready to order. “We’ll start with the seafood antipasto...”
* * *
Kate woke up the next morning in bed to find Logan sprawled out next to her.
He opened one eye and looked at her beautiful makeup-free, post-sleep face. She had that surprised look on her face and he knew he was responsible for putting it there.
“Why do you look so surprised?” His voice was gravely from sleep and he cleared his throat.
“I guess I didn’t expect you to still be here this morning,” she said softly.
“I can go if you want.”
She pulled him close when he started to get up. “Please stay.” She ran her hand over his back. It made her heart ache to see scars—even small ones—mar his beautiful body. But he wore them with confidence, proud of the sport that had given them to him.
Blind Ice (Razors Ice Book 5) Page 10
