About That Kiss Read online

  Perfect, since her goal was the bulge between them. When she rocked into it, he groaned again and tightened his grip on her with a low laugh. “I’ve got the muscle,” he said. “But you’ve got all the power. I can never seem to resist you, Kylie. Even when I know I should.”

  “Maybe you should stop trying.”

  This got her another low laugh. “Already have.” He took her mouth with his and the night caught fire. Mouths, teeth, tongues, hands, bodies, all strained to get even closer. Joe appeared to try to devour her, which was fair game since she was currently attempting to consume him right back. Both of them together made the air heat and close around them like a dark vacuum, sucking away all thought except this, him, now. “Joe.”

  He lightly bit down on her lower lip. “Changing your mind?”

  Hell no she wasn’t changing her mind. She’d be crazy to. He was watching her think, his eyes burning dark with heat. It had her legs turning to jelly and she wobbled before somehow managing to lock her knees. “I’m not changing my mind,” she murmured.

  “Good. Because I have plans for you.” And then he kissed her slow and deep.

  With a moan, she rocked into him until he lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist, her nails digging grooves into his shoulders to hold on. He braced one hand on the door frame and the other had a firm grip on her ass as they kissed and ground into each other until they were both half-gone.

  “Now,” she gasped. “Oh, please, Joe. Now.”

  Equally breathless, he jerked her closer. “You’re not ready yet.”

  “If I was any more ready, I’d be in flames!”

  At that, he flashed a wicked, bad boy grin just before lowering his head and kissing her again. In the next beat her shirt was gone and then so was her bra. And then that hot, talented tongue of his rasped over first one nipple and then the other before he dropped to his knees in front of her and stripped her out of her boots and jeans. “Nice,” he said of her lacy panties and then slowly slid them down her thighs, leaving her bare-ass naked except for her boots, which he left on. “Oh, Kylie,” he whispered, voice gruff, his heated gaze taking her in. “Open for me.” Before she could move, he lent his hands to the cause, his big palms nudging her legs apart, his calloused thumbs slowly teasing her damp flesh.

  By the time he finally leaned in and put his mouth on her, she was already trembling, her toes curling. Then, hands on her hips to hold her upright, he took her to a whole new place, showing her things she’d never known she could feel.

  Twice.

  When she was still gasping, still shuddering, he rose to his full height, bared his essentials—and oh my goodness she did love his essentials.

  He pulled a condom from somewhere and she once again wrapped herself around him, crying out when he slid home. The sound seemed to finally unleash the beast within him. He was still holding her face in his hands and she could feel his fingers curling into loose fists in her hair as she moved with him, meeting every thrust, spurring him on as the deep sensations pulsed and spread through her until she couldn’t contain herself.

  As she came, crying out, clutching at him, he roughly groaned her name and buried his face in the crook of her neck, following her over and into the abyss.

  Chapter 18

  #NotInKansasAnymore

  They ended up on their backs, boneless and sated on the hardwood floor. At least, Joe was boneless and sated. He hoped like hell that Kylie was too. As soon as he could find his limbs, he’d make sure of it.

  After what might have been five minutes or maybe even a year, he felt her shift, throwing an arm over her eyes. A little sigh escaped her and at that tiny sound, he managed to stir. He rolled to his side and brushed a kiss over her shoulder, his lips curved in a smile because she was still wearing the wig. “Hey, Red.”

  She stared up at him, going still. “Oh my God, don’t tell me I’m still wearing the wig.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.”

  She touched her head. “Dammit.”

  He smiled. “Your boots too. Love those boots, Kylie.”

  She moaned and he laughed. Laughed, while naked on the floor with a woman. Shaking his head at that, he had to laugh again. “Didn’t see you coming, Kylie.”

  “Hmm,” she murmured, which he hoped meant she knew the feeling.

  He came up on one arm, using the other to tug her into him. “‘Hmm’ good, right?”

  She let out a rough, mirthless laugh. “Fishing for compliments?”

  He stroked a finger along her jaw, his mouth curved. “Yeah, well, you’re a hard woman to read.”

  She met his gaze. “All you have to do is look in the mirror at the ten nail indentions in your back.”

  He chuckled and rubbed his finger over the brow she’d furrowed. “But something’s bothering you.”

  “But . . .” She paused with a rueful smile. “I have to admit . . .” She looked around them. “I feel a little bit like I just turned into my mother, boinking against the wall to scratch an itch. I mean, what the hell was that?”

  “Adrenaline,” he said. “Sometimes after a mission’s over, it all builds up and you need to release it somehow. A good fight works, but sex works better.”

  She just stared up at him.

  “It’s totally normal,” he said, meaning to soothe and comfort. “It happens.”

  “Oh really. It happens,” she said.

  He hesitated at her suddenly overly careful tone, replaying what he’d just said and wondering how he’d screwed up so that she’d misconstrued his statement.

  “Not to me, this doesn’t happen,” she said and sat up.

  “Kylie—”

  “No. I get it. Please don’t explain it again.” She got to her wobbly feet, moving around, picking up pieces of clothing and pulling it all back on.

  “Kylie. Wait.” He got up as well, reaching out for her, but she pushed his hands away.

  “I’ve got it,” she said.

  His phone buzzed an incoming text. He glanced at it and grimaced. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s my dad. I have to look at it.”

  She nodded and he assessed the text.

  I’ve been followed.

  Oh, shit. His dad was going off the rails again. He hit his dad’s number. “What’s wrong?” he asked, relieved his dad picked up. He didn’t always because cell phones could be traced and he was paranoid.

  “They’re tracking me,” his dad said. “Through the walls. They’re banging on the damn walls.”

  Joe looked at the common wall between his place and his dad’s. The wall he’d just taken Kylie against. He closed his eyes. “Dad, no one’s tracking you. It was . . .” Hell. “The wind.”

  “There’s no wind tonight.”

  “Okay, then it was me.” Joe grimaced. “I was . . . hanging up some pictures.”

  Kylie stopped straightening out her clothing, pivoted and gave him a brows up.

  “You don’t have any pictures,” his dad said in his ear. “And it’s almost midnight. I’m telling you, someone’s coming to get me.”

  “Dad, listen to me,” Joe said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No one’s coming to get you. I’ll be over in a minute. Do not do anything until I get there.” He shoved the phone into his pocket and turned around to find Kylie standing in front of his living room window, hugging herself, looking out into the night.

  “Hey,” he said, coming up behind her, enveloping her in his arms. “I’ve got to—”

  “I know.” She stepped away. “I’ve got to go too. I’ve got an Uber coming.”

  She started to walk out the door, but he caught her by the wrist and reeled her back in. “What’s going on, Kylie?”

  She tried giving him an innocent look. “What’s going on is that you’ve got to go.”

  He pulled her around to face him and bent his knees a little to look into her eyes. “It seems like maybe it’s you who has to go.”

  She turned her head away and he gently turned it back.
“My dad lives right next door,” he said, “on the other side of this duplex. Unfortunately, he needs me to stop by right now, but I thought I could make us a late dinner. Us, as in you and me and him.”

  “It’s nearly midnight,” she said.

  “So everyone keeps saying, but my stomach doesn’t tell time. It just tells me when it’s hungry. My dad and I often eat really late. You in?”

  “You cook?” she asked in surprise.

  “I’m an awesome cook,” he said, not above wanting to impress her with his skills. He’d learned young that if he didn’t want to eat out of a can, he had to make his own food. He’d gotten good at it, and then even better once he’d hit puberty and realized how much girls loved the fact that he could cook for them. He’d gone on to use that knowledge ruthlessly to his advantage with women for a lot of years, but this would be the first time he’d ever cooked for one and his dad at the same time. Which meant that Kylie was different, a fact he already knew.

  She was looking at him now, studying him with a slight furrow to her brow.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You’re like this really big puzzle. One of those with a thousand-plus pieces, and I’m not only missing a bunch of those pieces, I don’t even have all four of the corners.”

  He had to laugh. “Yeah. And I don’t fit into a box very well either.”

  At his smartass comment, the corners of her mouth curved in a very small smile that said not only did she have his number, but she also got him, as in all the way to the heart and soul got him, and it made his breath catch. He pulled her in for a hug, needing the contact in a way he couldn’t have articulated if he’d tried. But luckily he didn’t need to. She willingly snuggled into him as well, as if maybe she had the same need. Brushing a kiss to her temple, he closed his eyes and held on. He had no idea what he was doing, which was a hard thing to swallow since he made sure to always know what he was doing. But one thing he did know—he wasn’t sorry. And something else—he wasn’t ready to let her go yet.

  She dropped her head to his chest. “I’m worried,” she murmured and his heart stopped. Because this was probably where she told him what he could give her wasn’t enough for her and then she was going to dump him—

  “We’re getting nowhere,” she said, “and I have less than a week left before I’ve got to authenticate those pieces or lose the penguin forever.”

  He let out a breath of relief. She was giving him a stay, a reprieve. She wasn’t dumping him.

  Yet.

  “You’re not going to have to do that,” he promised. “We’ll find the penguin.”

  “I want that to be true,” she said.

  “It is true.”

  Kylie nodded and held on to him for another minute. She was fierce, she was strong, she wasn’t easy, and she always had something to say. She had flaws and he loved that. But he thought maybe his favorite thing about her was that when she got knocked down, she got right back up again. Something he could relate to, not that he’d planned on relating to her at all.

  Chapter 19

  #ShakenNotStirred

  Kylie waited as Joe pulled some things from his fridge. Then he took her by the hand and walked her outside and around to the other side of the duplex. Not ten minutes ago, she’d been naked on his floor with him, a big deal for her. Normally right about now she’d be running for the hills, needing some time alone to process and assimilate. And to distance herself.

  So the fact that she was actually still here and preparing to meet Joe’s dad staggered her. “Won’t he think it’s odd that I’m with you at this time of night?” she asked.

  “My dad doesn’t keep track of time unless I’m late or he needs something,” he said. And then he paused. “But there’s something you need to know about him. He’s . . . different.”

  Kylie smiled. “And you’re not?”

  “Smartass,” he said with an answering smile, but then he hesitated again. “Listen, if he says any weird stuff, just ignore it, okay? He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “What kind of weird stuff?”

  “He’s not always 100 percent present,” he said. “He came home from the Gulf War with some injuries, not all of them physical.”

  Her heart softened and she met his gaze. “And you and Molly take care of him.”

  “Yeah. And he doesn’t like anyone else, ever, so don’t be insulted if he ignores you.” Joe knocked on the front door, four hard raps, then a pause, and then one more. “Dad?” he called out. “It’s me.” He unlocked three dead bolts and then knocked again in the same pattern as before as he opened the door. “Dad? You hear me?”

  “Of course I do,” came an irritated male voice. “I’m not deaf.”

  Joe didn’t step over the threshold. “And you’re also not armed, right?”

  Kylie shot Joe a worried look. Armed?

  Joe smiled reassuringly at her. “Don’t worry. He doesn’t have any bullets right now.”

  Oh good. That made her feel all better.

  “But he likes to hold his gun,” Joe warned her softly. “Just ignore that too.”

  Kylie nodded, thinking she was doing a most excellent job of hiding her nerves until Joe squeezed her hand and smiled reassuringly.

  “What’s taking you so damned long?” his dad yelled.

  Joe stepped inside first, making sure Kylie was behind him. He took a quick look into the dark room and apparently saw something she couldn’t, because he sighed. “Dad, where are your pants?” He shifted, and then there was a click and a light came on.

  The place was small and extremely neat, not a thing out of place. Well, except the man in the wheelchair in the doorway wearing only a wifebeater and boxer shorts.

  Oh, and a rifle, which was lying across his knees.

  In spite of his dark hair liberally streaked with gray and his equally dark eyes surrounded by a web of weathered wrinkles, Joe’s dad looked very much like Joe, and far younger than Kylie expected. The Gulf War had been nearly thirty years ago. She tried to do the math in her head, guessing that he had to be fiftyish.

  “Pants are stupid,” he said.

  “Yes,” Joe said. “And so is greeting visitors with a shotgun and no clothes and yet you do it. Put your gun away.”

  Joe’s dad looked beyond Joe to Kylie. “Who’s that?”

  Joe turned to Kylie. “This is—”

  “Not you,” his dad said. “Her. I asked her.”

  Kylie smiled at him. “My name’s Kylie Masters.”

  “Huh,” he said. “I had a Masters in my platoon. Jeremy Masters. He was a class-A asshole. Is he your father?”

  Joe shook his head. “Jesus, Dad—”

  “No, it’s okay,” Kylie said to Joe, but kept looking at his dad. “My dad is a class-A asshole, Mr. Malone, but he wasn’t in the military. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t know for sure? How come?”

  “Because he walked away when I was young and hasn’t always kept in touch.”

  Joe’s dad stared at her and then nodded. “You can stay.” He turned to Joe. “What’s for dinner?”