A RUT is a grave with both ends kicked out.
The quote flashed through Blake’s head as he rang Molly’s doorbell. Holding the pet crate in one hand, he’d shoved his other one into the pocket of his leather jacket, discovering the still wrapped sucker he’d picked up at the clinic two days ago. He closed his fist around it.
What the hell was he doing here? He’d climbed out of one deep rut, was he really stupid enough to start digging another one? He hadn’t seen or heard from Mark since that day at Jed’s house—when he’d asked Molly out—so he had no idea how their date had gone.
Neither did he care.
His own failed marriage and Wayne’s tale of woe had convinced him it took a man with nerves of steel to be both a bush pilot and a husband. Something he evidently didn’t have. Which brought him back to the question of what he was doing here. He could have dropped the cat crate off at the clinic this afternoon and let Molly carry it home herself. But he’d been curious about how things were going with her new place. There’d been no real medical emergencies since he’d been back, nothing to keep his mind off things. So here he was. But as soon as she opened the door, he’d hand her the crate and leave.
And he would leave.
He might have to work with Molly on medevacs, but following her around the island hadn’t been part of that package.
The door opened, and there she stood in a black stretchy top, a hand towel looped over one shoulder. Music with some kind of thumping beat washed through the opening, making him blink, as did the sight of Molly’s teeth coming down on her soft lower lip. She glanced back inside the house, the gap in the doorway narrowing.
Was that guilt?
“Um, hi, I wasn’t expecting you.”
He frowned. Was Mark here or something?
“Sorry for not calling first. Sammi said you’d already left for the day.” Actually, he’d been convinced he could talk himself out of coming over here in person, so he hadn’t bothered. But here he was…on her doorstep. “Is this a bad time?”
“No. Come on in. My things arrived from the mainland this morning, but I had to leave for work as soon as they unloaded the truck. The place is a wreck.”
“That’s okay. I can’t stay long.” He lifted the crate. “I told you I’d bring her by once you moved in.”
As if she’d just noticed what he held, Molly knelt and peered inside the box. “Hey, sweetie. You ready to come home?” She glanced back up. “I asked the landlord about the previous renters, but he said they moved off the island and didn’t leave a forwarding address. One of the neighbors felt sorry for her, and had been leaving food out, so I guess she’s officially mine.” She stood aside to let him come in.
The music grew louder and chaos met him as soon as he reached the living room. Half-opened boxes were scattered around the periphery of the space, with similar items grouped together. A laptop computer, perched on top of one of the boxes belted out a tune from a dance movie, the screen swirling with patterns that kept time with the beat. The center of the room was completely clear, as if a centrifuge had gone on the fritz and blown everything backward.
It was then he noticed Molly’s snug, stretchy top was joined by a matching pair of Lycra pants. Exercise gear. And the towel…
She was dancing.
He swallowed. It made sense. The type of music. The light sheen of perspiration dotting her upper lip…the deep scoop of her neckline, which had slid off her left shoulder, revealing a black bra strap.
Realizing he might be staring—was staring—and that his lower jaw was probably located somewhere on the carpet beneath his feet, he cleared his throat. Molly hiked the renegade sleeve back over her shoulder and turned the volume down on the music, blushing a deep pink. “I was just…”
“It’s okay. No explanation needed.” His imagination had filled in every possible blank.
“I—I have coffee made. Do you want some?”
Hell, he wanted something, but it wasn’t coffee. “Um, what do you want me to do with…?” He nodded down at the cat crate.
“Oh, right. Poor thing. I’m a little frazzled.”
She wasn’t the only one. And the more he pictured her writhing in time to that wild rhythm she had going, the warmer he got.
Kneeling in front of him to open the cage, she spoke in soft tones to the cat, coaxing her from the dark recesses of the container. She soon had her in her arms. The feline’s head pushed against her chin in greeting. “I’ve already got some food and litter for her.” She laughed at the way the cat snuggled against her, front legs dangling over Molly’s forearm as if perched on a familiar ledge.
Blake tried not to picture that cat’s white fur sticking to Molly’s black top, or how she might roll a lint brush over those soft curves later. “There are a couple of toys in the crate.”
“You bought her toys?”
The throaty whisper transformed the growing heat in his chest into a small blaze. He shrugged, trying to firm his resolve to clear out at the first opportunity. “Just a few. They were on sale.”
There, that should sound tough enough.
She smiled. “Blake Taylor, could you have a soft spot for animals?”
Absolutely not.
Even as the protest bounced through his head, he knew it was a lie. The cat had exited the crate at his house, rubbing against his leg and purring up a storm. The animal had looked up at him. And those eyes…
Luminous green. Changing with her moods. Just like Molly’s.
“Come and have some coffee while I show her where her litter box is.”
The smart thing to do would be to back out of the room and say a quick goodbye. He followed her instead, watching as Molly set the animal next to a litter box she’d stowed in the laundry area. The cat took one look then turned around and stalked off.
“Pets are kind of permanent. Does this mean you’re thinking of staying longer than a year?”
“I don’t know. Do you think they’ll ever build a bridge from the mainland?”
The smile told him it was a joke, but his chest felt tight and strange. “I think you’re stuck with flying. You’ll get used to it.”
Standing, she went to the sink and washed her hands, then took two mugs from a nearby box and rinsed them. “Hmm…maybe. I don’t think I’ll ever really like flying, but I’ve proved to myself I can do it. That’s all that matters, right?”
The words were like a boot to the chest, knocking the wind from him.
How could something that was so exhilarating to him—something that gave him a huge jolt of satisfaction every time his plane left the ground—produce the exact opposite reaction in someone else?
Oblivious to his thoughts, she said, “Thank you, Blake. It—it means a lot to me that you watched her and that you cared enough to play with her.”
Her gaze met his, and he had to force himself not to look away as thoughts of escape crowded in around him. “She wasn’t any trouble.”
His hand went back to the sucker, gripping tight. Maybe he’d frame the thing as a reminder: the digging stopped right here. Right now.
Regardless of how his gut twisted at having to keep standing there, he stayed put, even when she took a step closer and touched his arm. He swore he could feel the warmth of her palm, even through his thick leather jacket. “You’ll stay and have some coffee? As a small token of my thanks?”
“Yes.” The word came out as a croak.
He gulped when her fingers tightened slightly. Pinpoints of heat and cold danced across his body, as if some cosmic disco ball was releasing short bursts of energy as it spun round and round. It blinded him to everything but her touch. “You don’t need to thank me. You’d do the same for me.”
“Maybe. It depends on what I had to do. Fly a plane, for example? Not much chance of that.” Her hand slid a little higher, her thumb sweeping a path across his upper arm.
He sucked down a breath, all thoughts of escape evaporating. Was she aware of what her touch was doing to him?
Talk. Don’t think.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’d do it, if you had to.” His voice came out all scratchy and his throat grew tight, along with other key areas of his body.
“As much as I want to believe that, there’s not much chance of me ever attempting it. Not unless you passed out in midflight, and even the thought of that happening makes me break out in a cold sweat.”
Something niggled at the back of his mind, something other than the wave of lust rushing up his spine demanding to be heard. Even as he fought the urge, he reached toward her, unable to resist touching a lock of that glossy brown hair.
Soft. Silky.
Just as he’d imagined it would be.
When she released a sigh instead of stepping back, he slid his fingers deeper into the shiny strands, letting them sift through his fingertips. No hairspray. Nothing that screamed, Don’t touch. Just thick, velvety tresses that whispered against his skin.
“I like your hair short like this.” Where the words had come from, he had no idea.
“You do?”
His eyes shifted to her lips. Were they as moist and inviting as they looked? He could just lean down and…
Almost before he knew what he was doing, his mouth touched hers. Just for a second. He meant to pull away. He was certain of it. Then she tilted her head, her hands going to his shoulders as she pressed closer. She had to be on tiptoe to reach him like that.
She wanted his kiss. Liked it.
Damn. His heart and his mind tussled for a second or two before the primal side kicked the rational to the curb, flipping it a bird and sending it scurrying to some dark corner of his mind.
There. That was better.
Molly swayed for a second. To stabilize her— yeah, that was the reason—he wrapped one arm around her waist, while the fingers of his other 160 hand remained in her hair, molding themselves to the delicate bones of her skull.
What was he doing?
Something he’d wanted to do from the moment he saw her in the emergency room last year. The day he’d discovered she was Wayne McKinna’s daughter. And when he’d juggled his schedule to fly her to the islands.
This moment seemed predestined.
It would have been perfect if not for the flight that exposed the one thing he swore he’d never accept in a woman.
But that didn’t stop him from licking his way across those luscious lips with tiny swipes of his tongue, his body flaming when her mouth opened, inviting him inside.
He slid home, the wet heat he found there setting off an explosion that burned away the line he’d drawn in the sand after his divorce—one he’d never cross if he was in his right mind.
But he wasn’t, and he had no intention of retreating from this agonizing pleasure any time soon. The luscious friction against his tongue ratcheted up his need, hardening him beyond belief.
She made a tiny sound. Something that straddled the line between a complaint and a contented purr.
Her hands went to the back of his neck, pressing even closer.
Definitely not a complaint, then.
The sound came again.
Molly sucked down an audible breath and stiffened, causing Blake to freeze as well, his tongue still deeply embedded in her warmth.
He pieced together that the noise wasn’t coming from her but from somewhere down…
She eased away, her lips sliding slowly over the length of his tongue as they both withdrew. The separation was painful, not only for his mind, but for the area still pressed hard against her belly.
Ah, hell.
“The cat.” The low huskiness of her voice scraped along nerve endings that were stretched to breaking point. He wanted nothing more than to lift her onto one of the kitchen counters and see if he could give that Scents of Pleasure sign outside a whole new meaning.
Her hands slid down to his shoulders and pushed slightly, her voice coming again. “The cat wants something.”
To hell with the cat.
Then he smiled. Thoughts like that wouldn’t endear him to her.
Neither would they solve the problem he was now facing.
He swallowed. What had he just allowed to happen? He was an even bigger idiot than he’d thought. He didn’t want to fly her across the ocean, but he sure as hell would let himself get it on with her. And she’d just been out on a date with his best friend two days ago. The fact that Mark didn’t play for keeps meant nothing at all.
Releasing her, he stepped back, hoping she wouldn’t glance down for a couple of minutes.
Ha! Seeing as the cat was on the floor, there wasn’t much chance of her not looking at it.
The floor, that was. Or noticing how she’d affected him in the process.
His eyes went to the source of the noise. Sure enough, the cat—body curved in a half-moon—had wrapped herself around one of Molly’s legs. Its tail twitched back and forth as it craned its head up to look at her, the wide-eyed glance both innocent and cunning, the fur beneath its chin as white as newly fallen snow.
“Meooow.”
The long drawn-out plea tugged at his heart, despite the lingering irritation at having his prize yanked from his grasp.
Molly gave him a shaky smile. “Well, she’s definitely not feral, that’s for sure.”
The cat might not be, but he was starting to wonder about himself.
Since when had he allowed himself to be ruled by animal instinct?
How about every time he climbed in that cockpit to fly? Or whenever he got within ten feet of Molly McKinna.
How on earth was she able to gather her wits so quickly? He was still trying to figure out how to pull his knuckles off the floor and return to being a biped.
Crouching down, she held her hand out to the cat, who immediately slumped against it. Blake could hear the thing purr even from where he stood.
“What is it, sweetie? I know you have food.” The cat trotted to the doorway of the other room, tail held high.
Since Molly was walking right beside her, there was no option but to follow them both. At least Molly’s back was to him, giving him time to haul his body back into submission. A task none too 164 easy since her rounded hips and the curve of her butt beckoned him closer.
Damn.
The cat glanced back at him and gave a haughty flick of her tail.
She knew exactly what she was doing. He’d seen his parents’ pug do something similar whenever he’d gone to Florida to visit them. Jealously guarding its territory.
He doubted that plaintive little cry was anything other than a ploy to gain Molly’s full attention. He’d use the same tactic if he thought it would work.
The animal went down the hallway and turned a corner, leaping onto the bed it found there.
Molly’s bed.
He took a slow, careful breath as she reached out to the cat, her hand sliding over the animal’s fur, her thumb stroking across its back, just like she’d done with his arm a few minutes ago. Blake tried not to remember the emotions that light touch had aroused in him, but it was impossible. Every second was permanently seared into his brain.
God, he wanted her. More than he should.
Forbidden fruit. The more dangerous it was, the more you craved it.
Eat it and you’ll send yourself straight to some private hell.
He almost laughed. Not reaching out and plucking the apple from the tree was sending him to a hell of a different sort. Was one any better than the other?
Mark had set his sights on her, but was it because he genuinely liked her or because that was what Mark did? He saw, he conquered, he moved on to the next woman in line.
If Molly had a choice, who would she choose?
She’d just about kissed him into oblivion, which meant nothing in and of itself, but since he didn’t see her as someone who batted her thick lashes at anyone she passed on the street…
He stopped himself right there.
Was he any better for her than Mark? He’d been so busy protecting himself that he’d never stopped to think about what was good for Molly. He’d warned her off his friend, but maybe he should have advised her to steer clear of him as well.
Could he see her without either of them getting hurt?
He didn’t think so. The best thing to do would be to back off and give her some space. Let her get used to the island and to the work. See how she handled things without someone standing over her and pressuring her.
Could he do it? Could he leave her alone?
Hell, after that kiss, he wasn’t sure. But he had to try. For both their sakes.
Even if it meant handing the winner’s cup to his best friend.