Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats #6)(56)

“Ditto, plus cook, which I suck at, so…” Kat checked her sports watch. “Ninety minutes?”

Michael frowned at his own watch. “That’s sort of early.”

Kat flushed, making him want to kiss her again. “I’m exhausted, I won’t lie. And I still have a shift tonight at the bar.”

“Ninety it is.” He leaned over and kissed her, then opened his own door. Before he closed it, he waited to hear hers snap shut. But it never did. He leaned back out into the hallway to find her staring pensively across the hall at a blank wall. “Problem?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Thing is, I’m not all that hungry.”

“Huh.” He nodded, trying to keep the smile off his face.

“And as I said, my cooking sucks.”

“You did say that,” he agreed.

“So maybe we should skip dinner.”

He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “And instead, we’d…”

She sighed and glared at him. “Are you going to make me say it?”

“Yup.”

An impish smile came over her, and she looked down the hallway, past her apartment, then beyond his. The hallway was, for the moment, blissfully empty. Then she nodded at his door.

He shook his head. He’d make her say it… because for all the more she put on the bravado act in public, Kat struggled to talk up the sexy chat.

Which he found hilarious.

She gestured inside once more. He shook his head, mouthed, No.

Fine, she mouthed back, then shocked the hell out him by grabbing her T-shirt by the hem and lifting it up and over her head.

“Jesus, Kat!” Michael rushed at her, pushing her into her own apartment just as he heard the elevator ding behind him, signaling someone would be getting out on their floor. Her door closed behind him.

Kat doubled over, laughing. “Your… your face,” she gasped out, wiping at tears. “You looked so horrified.”

“You were stripping in the damn hallway!” he shouted at her. “Jesus.”

“I don’t think Jesus wants to see my boobs.”

“But the guy coming off the elevator might have.”

“Could have been a woman,” she pointed out as if that were all that much better.

He stepped to her. “Why are you constantly pushing the bounds? What the hell is going on in that head of yours?”

She started to speak, then apparently thought better of it and closed her mouth and shook her head.

“Talk to me,” he asked softly, cupping her cheek.

She watched him closely. He felt analyzed, under a microscope. Then she gave him a cheeky smile. “Are you interested in what’s in my head or in my pants?” With that, she cupped his erection and squeezed none too gently.

“Kat—”

“Let’s go, bubba. Pants off dance off.”

“What the— Kat, what are you doing?”

She’d already dug into her shorts for her phone, which she unlocked and began thumbing through screens.

Michael pinched the bridge of his nose. How was it this woman, of all the women in the world, made him insanely horny? The most annoying, obstinate, irrational female on God’s green earth, and she was the one that made him harder than stone 90 percent of the time. The world was a cruel, bizarre place when…

He watched warily as Kat set her phone down on the kitchen counter and stepped away. From the small speakers blasted Kenny Chesney’s “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.”

“What. The. Hell.”

Kat smirked and took a few steps back into the living room. “Music to pants off dance off with.”

“I’m not taking my clothes off with Kenny Chesney in the background.”

“Aw, too bad.” She gave him an exaggerated pouty face and reached for the waistband of her own pants before shimmying around so her ass faced him. “I was hoping for a dance partner. Oh well.”

“God damn it,” he muttered, then took a few steps toward her. She smiled demurely over her shoulder, encouraging him.

“I know you’re a fun guy.” She sidestepped his reach and did a little ballet twirl, all while lip-syncing another line from the song. “I’ve heard rumors.”

“People talk. Doesn’t make it true.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Something dark crossed her eyes for a moment, and she stopped dancing.

He hated that sadness, hated that he’d said something to put it there. Not when she was the definition of light normally.

Man up, Lambert. You can have fun too. Don’t be such an *.

The song ended, and she gave him a sad sort of smile. “Well, I tried. Guess my tractor’s not sexy enough.”

The next song on the playlist she’d found the first one on began, and he felt a smile tug at his lips. Flo Rida’s “My House.” “Interesting mix.”

“When I run, I need something to keep me going. The variety keeps me guessing, makes me wanna keep running to hear what’s next.” She shrugged, then started back for the kitchen to grab her phone. And gasped when he grabbed her arm and twirled her around. Her bare breasts hit him in the chest, and she looked up in surprise. “What was that all about?”

“I’m not a country boy. But this?” He started moving to the beat, best he could, with his arm around her. “I can get behind some of this.”