About That Kiss: A Heartbreaker Bay Novel Read online

  “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 sof