Most of the time, reality TV was fascinating.
Sometimes her consumption habits reminded her that perhaps she needed to throw in a documentary every once in a while, in order to balance out the brain-melting. Still, it was a guilty pleasure, and one she couldn’t feel too guilty for, given that Kate was in advertising. She found people and their habits fascinating.
What she didn’t find fascinating was the amount of nerves currently swirling around her stomach.
She should call it off.
But then she’d miss out on spending the night with Jaime, miss out on his sweet, miss out on the way he’d held her hand, and how he’d kissed her until she thought that her clothes might just melt off into a puddle, not giving one damn that they were on a public street and anyone might see them.
Public indecency charge? Meh.
She’d had Jaime the Vet’s lips on hers, his body pressed against hers, his fingers on her jaw, his tongue in her mouth.
Yeah. Indecency charges would have been worth it.
But eventually he’d released her mouth, had cuddled her close to his side, and had walked her to her car. She’d been enshrouded in a haze of desire, one she’d wanted to hold on to tightly because it was so potent, but one she’d been forced to pull herself out of because she needed to identify her car.
He’d made it easier by telling her about Barry the Chicken.
Who was apparently a rooster, but his original owner hadn’t known that until she’d ended up with a series of very loud, very abrupt early mornings.
Barry had been rehomed and his current owner lived on a small patch of land with much more understanding neighbors and a love for being up when the sun rose. She’d trained Barry to walk on a leash, and her feisty, feathered companion had become a regular at the clinic.
A rooster named Barry who walked on a leash.
“The man is kryptonite.”
Shaking her head, she gave herself one final glance in the mirror she kept inside her hall closet for just this case—a last-minute outfit check—smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle out of her pretty emerald green fit-and-flare dress, slipped on her flats, and then slicked on one more coat of her Firecrotch.
Heh.
Never got old.
Eyes flicking to the clock and seeing it was a minute until six, she grabbed her coat but didn’t put it on because she wanted Jaime to see her in the dress. Smiling and hoping he’d like it as much as the black one from the night before, she closed the closet door.
Ding. Dong.
Her pulse skittered, speeding up, butterflies emerging from their cocoons to fly in circles in her stomach, her lips and fingertips tingling in anticipation.
“Okay,” she murmured. “It’ll be okay.”
She strode to the door and pulled it open.
Then blinked and felt her jaw drop open.
“Oh my God, your hair,” she moaned, reaching up before stopping herself. Because the man bun was gone.
Why was the man bun gone?
He smiled, and she saw he’d shaved off the stubble, too, revealing a strong, clean line that she wanted to run her lips across. “You don’t like it?” he asked, rubbing a hand over the shorn locks on the side of his head.
Oh, she liked it.
She liked it a hell of a lot.
But the man bun was gone, and she hadn’t even really gotten to run her fingers through it or learned how he made his messy bun look so much better than hers.
“I figured I’d better clean up for your parents,” he said. “They seem a bit traditional, and I was more than tired of it, just had been too lazy to get a haircut.” A blip of uncertainty flittered across his face. “Did I mess up?”
Her heart squeezed, and she closed the distance between them, running her fingers lightly through the brown locks, not messing them up, but rather giving in to her urge to touch the silky softness.
“No,” she murmured. “You look too handsome by half.”
His lips turned up. “You trying to charm me?”
A shrug, her tone bordering on grandiose. “I speak but the truth.”
Jaime tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Are you going Shakespeare on me?”
“Well,” she said. “You are looking at the famous Lady Macbeth from Sierra High School’s production of Macbeth in 2004. I’ll have you know that I got not one but two standing ovations for my performance.”
“I’m thoroughly impressed.”
She giggled and started to shrug into her coat, breath catching when he grabbed it from her and helped her slide it on. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” she murmured, heart pounding when he gathered her hair at her nape and freed it from the collar of her coat. “For lunch. That was very sweet of you.”
A brush of his lips across the back of her neck before he released her hair. “You have time to eat it?”
“Food from Molly’s?” she said. “I made time.” Spinning around, she decided that she would spend the night not second-guessing and hoping that things between them were different, but instead she’d just enjoy being with this man who was nice and sweet and seemed to like her.
Rising on tiptoe, she pressed a kiss to his lips.
And just like last night, pleasure exploded through her, shutting off her brain so she wasn’t thinking or worrying or riddled with guilt. Rather, for the first time in a long time, Kate was able to just be in the present.
His lips moving on hers, his hand cupping her cheek. The spicy male scent of him surrounding her and going to her head more than a glass of wine.
They kissed until her lungs threatened to explode, and then she dropped back down onto her feet, pulling her mouth from his, her heart beating out of control. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and her lipstick was all over his mouth.
“Shit,” she muttered. “I Firecrotched you.”
He’d started to smile, to say something, but then it seemed that her words processed because his mouth dropped open. “What?”
Which was the moment she realized that this man wasn’t privy to the color of her lipstick. Because his gaze dropped down, scorching a path to . . . well, her fire—
Yeah, no.
“It’s the name of my lipstick,” she rushed to say, lifting a hand and rubbing it over his mouth. “I’m sorry. I got it all over you.”
A wicked gleam in his eyes, a warm palm on her back, trailing up and down, up and down. “You’re apologizing because you Firecrotched me.” Laughter bubbling in his chest, his fingers wrapping around her hip.
“Fine,” she said, stepping back and mock-frowning. “I won’t apologize.” She reached for her purse, snagging it from the small table she kept near the door, where she’d set it when she started putting on her coat, and caught a glimpse of the time. “Crap.” They’d been making out in her hall for almost ten minutes. “We need to get moving.” She made a pitstop to touch up her lipstick, opening the closet door and using the mirror to slick on a fresh coat, then turned and glared. “No more kissing with that non-scruffy mouth of yours. It’s too distracting.”
He grinned. “So, you like the haircut and the shave?”
She just kept her narrowed gaze on him. “It’s unfair that you’re so pretty.” A sniff. “And that you had better hair than me when it was long.”