I shook my head. More like jittery, with the kind of adrenaline spike I always had while preparing for an undercover operation. I knew the best way to deal with the jitters was to embrace them, channel them, and use them to my advantage.
“If me coming here were a date, what would that mean to you?” I asked.
He quirked an eyebrow, then gave me a slow, easy smile. “It would mean we’d share the leftover Thai food I have and drink some of that wine you brought.” He stepped toward me. “Then you’d snuggle nice and close to me while we watch the movie.” Another step and his body was mere inches from mine. “And at the end of it, I’d kiss you goodnight.”
“You have to understand I travel a lot. This would be temporary.”
“I understand. Actually, I’m not ready for anything serious again. No strings attached. So, is this a date, Kat?”
I nodded slowly. “With one change.”
Channeling the adrenaline, I ran my hands up to his chest and backed him into the door. I tilted my head and slipped my fingers into his thick hair. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close. We pressed our lips together, and I leaned into him. His hold on me tightened as his mouth moved slowly and sensually over mine, teasing and taunting me until I parted my lips and begged him to enter. A minute later, we pulled apart, both panting from the aftershocks of the world’s best first kiss.
I stepped back from him, caught my breath, and composed myself. “Now it’s officially a date.”
CHAPTER 11
GAGE
By the time we’d arrived home with Kat’s Christmas tree, I’d had an emotional hangover from talking about my dad. When I returned to my apartment, I was ready to collapse into bed and sleep for twelve hours. Then I got a text from Kat asking if she and Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants could come over, and all I could think was that I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted a friend. The friend who lived next door.
Then I found her in the hallway, obviously conflicted about something. She came inside and started talking about a date, then planted a heart-stopping kiss on me. Just like that, my hangover was cured. I tried not to think too deeply about that and focused on the part about this being a date, the first step in our short-term fling. The rest of our evening returned to the slow, easy pace I’d envisioned, the one that I still hoped would end in another phenomenal kiss. Or maybe more.
We sat at my counter and split the Thai food, swapping stories of the best meals we’d eaten, along with the when and where. As expected, most of her picks were from exotic locales, and most of mine were from the island we both now called home.
After dinner, I popped popcorn while she opened the bottle of red wine, then entertained Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants with the gift I’d bought earlier in the week to bribe him. It was a toy fishing pole with feathers attached to the end of it. He jumped at it exactly once, then rolled over on his back and purred while she bounced it in his face, and he batted at it.
We settled in on the sofa and connected her phone to my Wi-Fi so we could stream the movie she’d picked, a black-and-white film calledHis Girl Fridaybecause I had TV but no subscriptions to non-sports channels, and she had streaming services but no TV. I tried not to think too hard about how perfect that made us for each other. She threw my grandmother’s quilt over our legs and leaned against me, her arm pressed to mine. We balanced the popcorn on our laps between us until we had to move it to make room for Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants, who propped his head on her lap and his less appealing end on mine.
Flings could have intimacy like this. At least, I was pretty sure they could. Since I’d always been the relationship type, I wasn’t sure of the rules. But I was sick of making up rules. We’d make up new ones together, or maybe just throw them all out the window. She snuggled closer, and I inhaled the fresh citrus scent of her hair and closed my eyes. God, I wanted to kiss her again.
I woke up to the end credits rolling across my big-screen TV. My arm under Kat’s head was asleep, Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants was curled up on his own end of the sofa, and Kat was taking deep, even breaths. Not snoring, exactly, but notnotsnoring, either. God, she was adorable. And warm and sexy. And I wanted to carry her to my bed and wake her up with long, slow kisses.
She stirred in my arms, and I kissed the top of her head. Fling or not, there was no need to rush things. In fact, that was even more reason to take things slowly. I didn’t want us to burn out too quickly. I was in no rush for this to end.
“Hey,” I whispered, “do you want me to carry you to your apartment?”
“Mmm. It’s so warm and cozy here. Just give me fifteen more minutes.”
I closed my eyes to enjoy the additional time, but her body pressed against mine, and I was suddenly too wide awake for my own good. I slid out from under her and laid her down with her head on a throw pillow. I readjusted her legs near Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants.
“Is that who I think it is?” she asked without opening her eyes.
“Unless the building’s been invaded by twenty-pound rats, yes, it is. And I think it means you might be staying here for the night.”
I waited for her to protest, but she smiled and snuggled deeper into the quilt.
The lady wasn’t in any hurry to go, and I wasn’t stupid enough to throw a gorgeous redhead and her fuzzy sidekick out of my apartment. I also didn’t want to crawl into my bed alone while they slept on my sofa. I used the remotes to click off the TV and the lights and settled into the loveseat across from them, which took a bit of pretzeling. I vaguely realized I was going to wake up with one hell of a crick in my neck, but it would totally be worth it.
CHAPTER 12
KAT
Iwoke up in the dead of the night and instantly oriented myself, which was an essential skill I’d honed to a fine point over the past six years. I knew what had woken me, as Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants was kneading relentlessly on the blanket covering my feet. And I knew where I was, safe and sound on Gage’s sofa, with my white knight scrunched onto the loveseat across from me.
Mywhite knight. So that was the way I was thinking about him now. Yeah, that was a problem.
And I should leave, take my foster cat, and go home. Doing anything else would be a poor choice on my part since I still didn’t know why I’d been placed in the apartment next door to him.
