Thigh High (16 page)

Instead of just hot for him.

The SUV veered out of the exit, rocking wildly as Taye burned rubber again. The whole incident burned a hole in her pride.

T
aye rolled his SUV to a stop in his garage. The sound of quiet sniffs and the rustling of cloth came from the backseat. Harry's was only five minutes away and he'd made it back to their complex in two. Between the squealing tires and the rolling swerves around corners, Kat hadn't had enough time to get her clothes in order. “You okay back there?”

Her voice came out of the dark, soft and low. “I'm fine, just embarrassed by my behavior.”

“I'm not.” He turned and leaned around the headrest to see her. The overhead garage light produced slashes of gray, black and shadowy light in the backseat. Her eyes gleamed and her beautiful kiss-reddened mouth turned down. “I loved your behavior. I heartily approved of your behavior,” he said with a grin designed to coax her lips upward.

He saw a flash of teeth as she tried not to smile. “You're being sweet. Thank you.”

“Sweet nothing. All I want is to get you into the house so we can have more.” He jumped out of the car and opened her door for her. She stood and looked up at him, doubt filling her eyes.

“I should go back. I never should have left Celia there alone.”

“I saw her give you a thumbs-up and she knows where you are and who you're with.” He opened the side door that opened onto his front walk and followed her outside. “We can call the bar to ask the bartender to keep an eye on her.”

“He did say she'd be fine.” Her comment proved her indecision. She wanted to stay with him, in spite of his lousy behavior earlier.

“He seemed to know his own customers.” He unlocked and opened his front door, then held it open. He couldn't believe he'd shut it on her earlier.

“She'll be disappointed that I abandoned her,” Kat fussed. “I'm not being much of a friend.”

“I could point out that she left you sitting alone at the bar, an easy target for any guy who wanted to hit on you.”

She giggled. “But to Celia that's the point of going to a bar in the first place, so she wouldn't see anything wrong with hitting the dance floor with half the men in the place.”

“The only thing she's disappointed in is that you won your bet.”

Still, she hesitated. “This is where I tell you that the whole bet thing happened because Celia wanted to get me to go clubbing with her. She challenged me and I stupidly agreed that if I didn't see you naked, then I'd go party with her.”

“So you both won?”

She grinned. “For sure I won.” She placed her palm on his cheek. “Wow, did I win.”

“So, this was just between the two of you?”

“Of course. I was saying how gorgeous you were and admiring your butt, and—”

“My butt?” He interrupted with a bark of laughter. He laughed partly because of the idea two women liked what they saw enough to comment and partly from relief that he wasn't the laughingstock of the whole complex. He liked his life private. He'd suffered enough gossip and innuendo from neighbors when he was a kid.

“Spend the night, Kat. Spend the whole weekend with me.” He wanted more but figured he should go slow.

Her smile lit her face and his too. “I'd like that.”

He held out his hand and she took it. He tugged and she hopped into the house, face split in a grin that took his breath.

“You're all dressed up,” he said, deciding the best thing to do was not rush her into bed. They'd already proven they were good there. What he wanted to show her now was that they were good outside of bed too. “Let's go out for a late dinner.”

“Good idea; I didn't eat much earlier,” she said on a soft breath.

There she was again, the shy young woman she first seemed. “You look so pretty and fresh,” he said, sliding a tendril of hair behind her ear.

“That's hard to believe after making your SUV rock, but sweet of you to say.” Her cheeks went pink and she nodded. He was way past being tongue-tied and awkward. Tonight he would finally unravel the mystery of the sexy girl next door.

 

Gulls squawked overhead and put on a fine show of dive-bombing some hapless tourists who'd made the mistake of offering a sleeve of take-out fries. After scattering the remaining fries as a distraction, they ran for their car, ducking and waving their hands overhead.

“Looks like a scene from that old thriller by Hitchcock,” he said.

Kat chuckled and dipped a fry into a splotch of ketchup. “I love his movies. So tense, such great suspense.”

“He was a master.” He did another check mark in the air with his finger. “Check, she likes the same movies I do.”

“So, how about Bette Davis movies?”

“Some, especially the horror thrillers she did when she got older.”

“She was fearless in her roles, even when she was young and beautiful.” She grinned. “Check! Remember to drag him through the classic movie section of the video store.”

“You don't have to drag me anywhere. I can't think of anything better than snuggling in with you on a rainy night, with a cold beer and hot pizza watching any old movie you want to see. I'll be looking at you anyway.”

She went pink in the cheeks. Her unique shade of pink. A color he grew more and more fond of seeing.

“When you blush, the color of your skin is unlike any blush I've ever seen. Instead of blotches of red, the pink is evenly distributed and makes you glow.” It was the most beautiful thing about her, he decided. Keeping that glow on her face was a new desire and stacked up strongly against all the other desire she created.

“I'm glad we came here,” she said, leaning her shoulder against his for a brief touch. “It's good to talk with you.”

I like you
was what he heard. “It's good to talk with
you
.” They almost hadn't made it in time to order. The cook was about to close up when they'd arrived breathless after running along the pier in a race he let her win.

“I thought at first I should take you somewhere fancy. The kind of restaurant with prices on my menu and not yours.”

She shook her head. “That's not my kind of restaurant.”

“Then I thought at least a steakhouse. She deserves a sit-down meal with a good waiter and better wine.”

“Then how did we end up at a fish shack on the end of a pier?” She grinned around a ketchup-covered fry.

“I've been less than my usual suave and debonair self around you.”

She chuckled. “Suave?”

He looked at his feet, then speared another piece of beer-battered fish. “You make me lose my ability to walk and think at the same time. So, I figured it was time you see the real me instead of the nerd I probably look like.” He chewed the fish. Swallowed. “I'm happy eating at a fish shack on a late night.”

“So am I.”

Relief. If she hadn't liked the real Taye, he'd have gotten out before he got in any deeper. “I'll take you out for a real meal next time. I'll get reservations and we'll have a great night. Dancing, the whole deal.”

“A date? That'll be new.” She dropped her plastic fork and picked another fry out of her paper sleeve with her fingers. “Dating's a foreign concept for me. I've never been on one. Not a ‘pick you up at eight' date.”

Hard as it was to believe that a woman who looked like Kat wasn't dating, he knew it was true. He'd been tuned to every sound from her side of their common wall for months. He apologized again for his bizarre behavior at his front door. “I don't know what I was thinking. But you just might be the scariest woman I've ever run across.”

“
I
scare
you
?”

“In a way. I got tongue-tied around you for months; I still trip, fall, drop stuff. You saw me yesterday with that package and my briefcase and travel mug. I felt like a juggler on crack.”

She chuckled at his description.

But he had to finish. “When I talk to you every pint of blood in my body goes south, leaving me floundering. It's the weirdest sensation.” He couldn't explain it any better than that.

She patted his knee and he felt the same rush of blood he always felt at her touch. “I've only ever seen you as sweet and kind. I like that you deadhead flowers, that you still get care packages from your mom and that you teach school. A good education is the foundation for a satisfying career.”

A sentiment he more than agreed with. He lived it.

Here was the last piece of the puzzle. He had the complete picture now. Kat Hardee was everything he wanted. It was even more important now that he move carefully.

“So if you didn't go on dates with your ex, what kind of time did you spend with him?”

“I was a high school bride. Mostly we roamed the streets of Bellevue looking for a party or someplace to park. Sex in the backseat of his dad's Mercury was about as close to a date as we got. And the sex wasn't even all that hot,” she said, plopping her chin into her hand. “Mostly it was over way too quickly.”

“Oh,” he said. “Check! No more sex in the car.”

She leaned her shoulder against his again and nudged him hard. “Not that
our
backseat sex wasn't hot. It was.” She patted his hand.

“You don't sound bitter about your marriage or your ex.” Which as a very good thing. He wasn't a guy who liked dissecting old business. Once this was out of the way, he wouldn't ask again. “What happened?”

“My husband went to college, while I worked to pay for it. He promised that when he landed a good job, it would be my turn. But by then, he was tired of being broke and didn't want to pay for me. And I wanted an education more than anything.”

“He dumped you rather than give you time for college?”

“Quick as he could. We had no assets and no property to divide, so a divorce was easy. I just wanted to be free to finally go to school.”

His old man went from one wife to the next, so infidelity was the first thing he thought of when it came to divorce; this was a new twist. One he'd never considered; get a good woman to pay your way then dump her. A guy like that had real class. He snorted. What a loser. “You're in college now, though.”

“Thanks to sex toys!”

He laughed with her. “A lot of women would be bitter after getting the shaft like that.” He was proud of her for hanging in on her own.

She was proud too. He saw it in her gaze. “Bitterness is a wasted emotion. Besides, I pushed for marriage when we were too young, convinced that sex was only supposed to happen in a committed relationship. He was too young, I was pushy. Needy, I guess.” She shrugged.

“And now what do you think about sex?” The question was lighthearted until he saw her expression.

She eyed him appraisingly and he caught a glimpse of Celia lurking in her thoughts. Heaven help him! “I've had the best sex of my life with you and we're not committed to anything but this moment.”

Shit.

Kat held her breath, letting the comment hang between them, foolish in her need to hear that maybe she'd guessed correctly for once in her life. Maybe Taye wanted more than some good times between them. The silence stretched while she waited, then let the hope die. She'd left herself wide open. It was her own fault if she took a hit. Again.

He glanced away, across the pier, then tossed a fry out to a scavenging gull. The bird snatched it and skittered away, gulping the fry whole.

No wonder she didn't date much. She was so rusty she creaked. She pulled her thoughts to order and gave him the out he seemed to want. “With a full load of classes and a job that keeps me out more nights than not, a steady man would be an inconvenience.”

“Why are you available tonight?” His voice was definitely more cool than it had been earlier.

“Fridays aren't a good night for my kind of party. Seems as if it should be, but most people have other plans. Married women are busy with their families. Single women are on dates or out clubbing.”

“You must have lean times in the year.”

“January's tough. All the big parties happen before the holidays, but since it's just me, I manage.”

“Tell me about the bet you made with Celia.”

“It was stupid.”

“Telling me about it was stupid.” He must have felt betrayed knowing he was the subject of a bet.

Time to clear the air. “I never should have mentioned you to Celia in the first place. Once she saw I was interested in you she wouldn't let up. Made me think you were hers for the picking.” And that had forced her hand.

He snorted. “Not likely. I'll never be attracted to Celia. She's not my kind of woman.”

“I'm glad.” She popped her last fry into her mouth while he chewed his last piece of fish. “So what kind of woman do you like?”

“Faithful ones. I want a woman who sees life the same way I do. My old man was a son of a bitch and flaunted his affairs. Took my mom too long to walk away.”