Her Rebel Heart Read online

  “Won’t be me doing the begging, Pixie-lou.”

  “So I could walk right on out of here this minute, and you’d never wonder what it would’ve been like to have me at your mercy in a—an airplane?”

  In an airplane.

  Thousands and thousands of feet above ground.

  Oxygen so thin a gnat couldn’t survive.

  Temperatures so cold a polar bear would freeze.

  If a plane busted up there, she’d turn into a popsicle in four-point-three seconds.

  And then there would be the descent.

  All her blood rushed to her toes.

  She’d be falling.

  Down, down, down. No net. No hope.

  Her head went woozy.

  Her bones turned to fluff.

  She knew everything there was to know about forces, about statics and dynamics, fluids and pressure and airflow, but the safety and security of physics only went so far when the contraptions were built and flown by man and still subjected to Mother Nature’s whims.

  Lance’s brows knitted together. “Okay there, Dr. Boudreaux?”

  “You bet your britches,” she gritted out. “So. When we going flying?”

  Lordy Jezebel.

  Flying.

  Her feet off the ground. A plane off the ground. Soaring at unnatural speeds. The world shrinking. Until the plane stalled out and went into a tailspin, hurtling faster and faster, the wind ripping her hair out, slicing her skin off her bones—

  His boots thumped to the ground while black spots danced in her vision. Her head felt funny, like someone was churning butter out of her brains, and she suddenly realized she couldn’t feel her fingertips.

  Did she even have fingertips?

  A solid, warm hand settled on her neck and pushed. “Head between your knees,” he said. “Breathe.”

  Breathing.

  That was what she was missing.

  Once she found it again, she’d kick his ass for seeing her like this.

  She couldn’t feel her lips either, but she thought she parted them. She could hear something that sounded like a dog panting. Heat flushed her skin. A rush of sensations swirled where his hand touched her neck.

  “C’mon, Kaci,” he said. “Slow down. Close your mouth. Breathe in slowly.”

  She latched onto his voice, and her body instinctively reacted to his orders. Her lips sealed. Her nose quivered. Fresh oxygen channeled to her lungs while the churning in her head slowed.

  “There you go,” he murmured. His thumb brushed her hairline, and she gasped out a mouthful of air.

  She was sweating like a hog in August and her limbs were heavy as lead pipes, but the tingling in her fingers and toes receded. She squeezed her eyelids tight for three more long breaths.

  It was time to go. Time to stand up, tuck her pride away, slink out, and never come back here again.

  Shouldn’t have come in the first place.

  She lifted her head, and her eyes connected with two big ol’ black holes of compassion.

  He was right there, inches from her face, drawing her into his orbit with silent false promises of safety and security. His thumb rubbed a slow circle at the base of her skull. If she leaned forward, if she moved barely two degrees, her nose would touch his. She’d be close enough to taste him.

  Close enough to tug down the zipper on his flight suit. To push the fabric off his shoulders, to see if he still felt as hot and solid and potent as she remembered. She usually preferred a man’s brain to be his biggest muscle, but holy sweet jingle bells, she wanted this man’s body.

  “Better?” he murmured.

  She licked her lips. “Oh, sugar, that was just a test.” Her words were shaky, and so was the hand she tried to flutter. “I’ll be sure to tell your commander you passed with flying colors.”

  He smirked. “Flying colors?”

  The man was trying to kill her. “Flying colors,” she repeated, though her tongue tripped over flying.

  He tucked an errant strand of her hair back behind her ear. “Why would you trust me to take you flying?”

  Why, indeed? “Seems to me you want to live through it as badly as I do.”

  “Not so sure anybody wants to live half as badly as you do.”

  “I’m gonna assume that was a compliment.”

  “Do you really want to go flying, or is this your way of trying to get into my pants?”

  “Aww, your ego is too precious. Captain, if I wanted in your pants, I’d already be handing them back to—mmph!”

  His mouth covered hers, his fingers tangling in her hair, his tongue making a slow stroke of her lower lip. She latched onto the rough green fabric of his flight suit, and though her pride said she should push him away, she spread her knees and tugged him closer, his hips between her thighs. She parted her lips and touched her tongue to his. A primal male rumble came from his chest, rattling beneath her grip over his heart.

  And Kaci fell.

  Under his spell, into his gravitational pull, with no safety net.

  She was sitting on a chair, but she was soaring, unrestrained, alive, her heart dancing, her skin tingling, her body pulsing.

  His hands slid down her neck, down her back, then under her shirt, his fingers hot and hungry on her skin, pulling her closer to him, spreading her legs wider, the ache at the core of her begging to feel him there. His nimble fingers reached her bra strap.

  She scooted closer. Closer. Almost—

  Whoosh.

  The chair beneath her backside was suddenly gone. Her shoes slipped on the rug. Her feet shot forward. His arms tightened under her armpits, but she slid right out of his grasp, hands in the air, tailbone thumping to the ground. Her shirt was half up, and she was face-to-face with the tent in his flight suit, her rear end throbbing.

  She’d slipped off the danged chair.

  And she wanted to launch herself at him, kiss him again, peel his clothes off and ride him like she’d just gotten out of a convent.

  “Aw, shit, Thumper? The blonde? Really?”

  At the second voice in the room, she shoved at Lance.

  A young pup who looked vaguely familiar was gawking at them from the door.

  “Shove it, Juicy,” Lance said. He untangled himself and pushed back on his heels, eyeing her as though she were the problem here.

  She was, wasn’t she?

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She scrambled to her feet, but had to grip the dang chair behind her for balance. “Getting sloppier, Captain. If that’s how you fly a plane, I changed my mind. Hope you wear a parachute.”

  And before she could do something stupid—more stupid than coming here in the first place—she darted past the kid and out the door.

  Maybe Lance was capable of helping her get over her fear of flying, but he wasn’t capable of helping her get over her fear of him.

  * * *

  Lance had eight hundred million reasons why continuing his fascination with Kaci Boudreaux was a bad idea. It was a wide-ranging list, starting with she’s two figs short of a fruitcake and ending with she’ll make your life hell.

  Right in the middle of that list was the fact that she was a walking disaster.

  But Wednesday morning, instead of hanging with Pony or the guys before their scheduled night flights, he hopped in his truck and drove over to James Robert College.

  But unlike Kaci, when Lance went somewhere, he went with a plan.

  Which was how he’d managed to get himself sitting in her office, feet propped on her desk, with a dozen red roses in hand when she unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  “Holy sweet jumping jacks!” she screeched. “Who let you in here?”

  He held out the flowers. “Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell. Hope you like red. Blood-colored struck me as something you’d go for.”

  She was in jeans and a pink T-shirt with the speed of light equation stretched across her breasts. Her hair was tied back in some kind of knot. And she had a wild look in her blue eyes like she w
anted to strap him to a catapult and see how far she could fling him.

  He wanted to muss her hair, kiss her until neither of them could breathe, and learn every curve of that body.

  Not because her body oozed sex appeal and her craziness promised an unforgettable time between the sheets, but because she was a walking contradiction. Spunky. Smart. Headstrong. Impulsive.

  Still a mystery, but less so by the day.

  She talked tough, but she hadn’t ratted them out to the base commander. She was afraid to fly. She loved her students.

  He wanted to know what other secrets she had.

  She eyed the flowers but didn’t take them. “This college is private property.”

  “I’m going.” He swung his feet off her desk and set the bouquet on her keyboard. “My offer’s in the card.” He crossed around toward the door, taking grim satisfaction in the way her eyes darted over his body and lingered on his lips before her expression settled into a scowl.

  “Pretty sure you’ll like it,” he murmured.

  “If that there’s got an offer of a striptease in it, I’m gonna aim my catapult at your house next time I get a wild hair.”

  “I’ll warn the neighbors.”

  Did she realize she’d stomped her foot along with dialing up her glower? “Shouldn’t you be at work?” she said.

  “I’m flying tonight.”

  Her cheeks went the shade of her shirt.

  He grinned. “Probably see me if you look out your window just after nine. I’ll wave.”

  “I won’t be watching.”

  “I’ll wave anyway.”

  “You go on and do whatever you think you need to do. But you can do it outside of my office.”

  He sauntered two more steps to the door and caught sight of a familiar figure lingering in the hallway. “Sitting okay today?” he asked her.

  “Doing better’n you will be if you don’t get your rear end on out of here.”

  “I’ll miss you too, Pixie-lou.” He pulled her door shut behind him, then came to a stop before her ex-husband.

  Lance didn’t say anything.

  The older man pointed a finger at his chest. “Leave her alone.”

  He didn’t know the details—who’d left whom, why, or when—but he’d picked up enough that he was reasonably certain Kaci didn’t want the guy.

  Not when she’d kissed Lance the way she did.

  “You hear me?” her ex said.

  “You want her back?”

  “Point is, she doesn’t want you.”

  That was a yes.

  “Word of advice, man?” Lance said. “You want her back, don’t go threatening the competition. Lady likes to do that herself.”

  He clapped the older guy on the back, then headed out of the building.

  He wasn’t worried she would choose her ex over him.

  He was worried about what it meant that he wanted to be one of her choices.

  Short-term, this was fun.

  But if she went wiggling into parts of his psyche where she didn’t belong, this distraction would turn into a catastrophe.

  * * *

  Kaci locked her door and pressed her ear to it, listening to Lance and Ron’s short conversation. Her heart bounced like a rubber ball against a paddle.

  She shouldn’t want either one of them. Ron was a mess she would never touch again, and Lance was too heavy on the sexy to be good for her long-term.

  But he knew her pretty dang well, didn’t he?

  The voices stopped, and an authoritative knock rang in her ear.

  She yanked the door open. “What?”

  “Can I come in?” Ron said.

  “No.”

  His chest puffed up, then deflated with his nose-sigh. “I have a therapy appointment tonight. I was hoping you’d go with me.”

  “You can keep hoping, but that won’t turn a butterfly into a fish.” She slid a glance down the hallway.

  No Lance.

  Not that she should care one way or another. The man had seen her at her worst. She didn’t need a man like that in her life.

  Ron looked down the hallway too. “He’s not good for you, Kaci.”

  “Not your call.”

  “You’re still ignoring my emails.”

  “Don’t have anything to talk to you about.”

  “I’m trying to help you here—”

  “Dr. Kelly, when and if I need help from a chemist, I’ll seek out a chemist based on his or her résumé, background, and standing in the professional community. Not on who I know personally. If you’ll excuse me—”

  “There’s an opening on my research team. I want you to fill it.”

  Her jaw flapped open.

  “We’re working toward a similar goal,” he said. “A hybrid project makes sense. You’re among the best physicists here, and with the funding I’m working on, I think I could help you really take off.”

  “Who’s helping who to take off?” Of the two of them, he hadn’t been invited to speak at a major international symposium on the next generation of efficient combustion technology.

  “Think about it. My experience—”

  She shut the door in his face.

  And when she turned around, Lance’s roses leered at her.

  “Good gravy,” she muttered.

  Ron knocked again.

  She locked the door.

  There were too many things red roses could mean. And by too many things, she meant one bad thing.

  That the man was falling in love with her.

  Why else did men bring red roses?

  She plucked the card out of the plastic lining and settled into her desk chair, refusing to contemplate if it was still warm from Lance’s recent occupation of it.

  He’d brought her flowers.

  To work.

  And then left nearly as soon as she asked him to.

  Was the man falling for her?

  She pulled the note out of the white envelope.

  His handwriting was strong and dark, in black ink.

  Kaci,

  Hope the flowers don’t give you the wrong idea. Figured it was the easiest way to get help getting into your office.

  She let out an indignant squeak.

  What kind of man all but said I don’t like you like these flowers say I like you in a note?

  Whatever his offer, she was saying no.

  I’ll make you a deal. Three hours of flight-prep training and one hour in the air, plus I’ll give you an entire day alone to do whatever you want with my catapult.

  In exchange, you go on a date with me.

  One date.

  My choice.

  Final offer.

  You have until five o’clock Friday night to decide.

  —Lance

  Her belly defied gravity.

  Flying for a date would’ve been an easy no. She could easily accuse him of getting the better end of the bargain on both of those, though she knew full well she’d be lying.

  But the catapult.

  Ooh, the man played dirty.

  She lifted a rose and rubbed the petals over her lips. The floral scent invaded her senses, the silk tickling her skin.

  She liked dirty.

  She had healthy respect for dirty.

  And she wanted to know just how dirty he could get.

  * * *

  Kaci was usually in bed before Tara got home from her evening shifts at Jimmy Beans, but tonight, she was too wound up for sleep.

  She’d tucked Miss Higgs in on her bed, and now she was sitting cross-legged on her couch, making notes for her speech and trying not to listen for the sound of a C-130 overhead.

  She could’ve gone back to campus. Her lab was nearly soundproof.

  But Tara wouldn’t be there.

  The door clicked open just after ten thirty. “Oh, hey,” Tara said. Her keys clinked on the kitchen counter, and a thump suggested she’d dumped her bag on the floor. “We had leftover brownies tonight. Want one?”

  “That�
��s the best idea I’ve heard all day.” Kaci set her notes aside and patted the couch. “How was class?”

  “Boring as usual, but hey, in another six months or so, I might be able to apply for real jobs again.” She plopped onto the couch. “I got some writing done though. Bubba’s having trouble accepting that he’s just met his soul mate. She’s way too hoity-toity for him. Super fun.”

  “You got a hero named Bubba?”

  “Romance novels are all trends and cycles. I need to be ready for when redneck comes back in style. Then I’m gonna make a million dollars and retire to Destin. If I can ever finish one of these and get it out, anyway.”

  “Haven’t ever known a Bubba I’d date, but then, I’m done with men. Period. But I’ll still read your books when they come out, sugar.”

  Tara passed over a brownie. “Ol’ Grandpappy?”

  Kaci’s nose wrinkled. He’d emailed her a bullet-pointed list of all the reasons she should join his team. And all of his reasons meant that, as lead researcher, Ron would get credit for anything she did.

  Still, she’d emailed her own dean about setting up a meeting to discuss expanding her own project to include consultation from the chemistry department.

  “Oh, no. Kaci. Are you speechless?”

  “Near about.”

  Tara pulled her legs to her chest and released her hair tie. Her dark curls tumbled free. “You didn’t go launching more pumpkins without me, did you? Did you hit his house? Or were you facing the wrong way again?”

  “No, I…I got another problem.”

  “You found out one of those sexist bastards on the tenure committee is actually a cross-dresser, and you’re not sure if you should expose her or not?”

  A smile tugged at her lips. “No.”

  “A billionaire farmer with a tractor problem stopped in to see you today and offered to fund your research personally if you’ll come be his concubine?”

  “You know you’re the best roommate I’ve ever had?”

  “Considering Ol’ Grandpappy was your last roommate, that’s not really saying much.” But Tara’s bright eyes twinkled, and she leaned over to shoulder-bump Kaci. “But you’re the best roommate I’ve ever had too. And considering Brandon was deployed well over half our marriage, that is saying something. So. Is this about Captain Kissy-Pants?”