Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(90)

Kendall reached across the table and took her hand. She let him because it felt so good and it kept the fears at bay.

“There’s lots—”

“Let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”

He squeezed her hand, then he did. Most guys would push and shove. Kendall Clark had apparently decided it was his duty to fly to her rescue and at the moment she wasn’t complaining. He started with a funny story from a training mission that somehow involved a standard poodle with the name Underdog and a paper chain of cut-out Santas.

“I swear, I’m not making this up.”

She didn’t care if he was. As long as he kept holding her hand, she felt as if she somehow belonged.

? ? ?

Kendall escorted her to her front door. It was long past dark by the time they returned to post. Most of the apartments would be empty, any Night Stalkers not on deployment would be night flying. She found it disorienting to be done with her day while the rest of the company was just starting theirs.

After holding the front door for her and making sure she had her keys, Kendall turned to leave. She was done in, it had been her longest day in a long time, but she still didn’t want it to end.

“Hey, Clark. Where are your manners?”

He stopped with one hand on the lobby door and furrowed his brow at her.

“C’mere.” She waved him over when he hesitated.

He approached cautiously.

“It’s rude to hold a woman’s hand half the night, tell her she’s beautiful when she’s feeling like shit, and then you don’t at least try for a good-night kiss. What’s up with that?”

“You want me to kiss you?”

“I wouldn’t complain if you at least tried. Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about it.” Because she knew she had, and it surprised her no end. And not just human-male contact. She wanted some Kendall Clark contact.

He stepped until he was so close that she actually backed up the last half-step against her locked apartment door.

“I…” His voice was soft and deep. They were so close she could feel the vibrations as much from his chest as she could with her ears. “I’ve been thinking about it since that day two years ago when we sat under the cherry tree in my backyard.”

Then, before she could begin to process her shock, he kissed her. Not some friendly thanks-for-the-nice-date kiss. Not even a testing kiss from a handsome and geeky guy.

He wrapped his soldier-strong arms around her and pulled her in against his surprisingly hard body. She’d never really quite paid attention to how often he’d joined in when they were doing physical training workouts. Now, she certainly could appreciate that he had. The heat of the kiss built until all she could do was wrap her arms around him and hold on for the ride. And it was a wild one.

He plundered, and she gave until her entire body heated turbine hot. The adrenal roar so loud it drowned out everything except how Kendall felt in her arms, his lips and tongue offering no hint of gentle in their need, and his hands—those wonderful hands—one dug deep into her hair and the other at the small of her back, pulling their bodies tight together. Somewhere in the distance she heard the clunk and rattle of her cane falling to the tile floor.

Then, just as abruptly as he’d taken her, he stopped and took a step back. Her hands, so recently clenched in that black wavy hair that was even softer than it looked, now rested on his chest. And his rested comfortably on her waist as if they’d been there a hundred times before.

“Been wanting to do that for a long time, Captain Lang. Even better than I imagined. Way better.” He offered a very self-satisfied grin, then kissed her on the tip of the nose. “Sleep well, Superwoman.” He retrieved her cane, slid it into her nerveless fingers, and was gone.

She didn’t manage a good-bye or even a wave. Her body buzzed very happily as she let herself into her apartment.

Lois lay down in her bed knowing there was no way she’d find sleep anytime soon. Eight hours later she startled awake—startled because for the first time since the accident, she’d woken up after she’d extracted the injured but before the crash had begun to unfold.

? ? ?

Lois spent a grinding morning with the Physical Eval Board. All paperwork. “Do you need any help keying this in? No? Okay. Go to computer station B-24 and fill out forms…” and the interminable list had begun. Army thinking, the fact that all the information was on file for the Medical Eval Board didn’t mean it was in the right format for the PEB. Thankfully, she’d been smart enough to bring the paper copy of the MEB stuff, so it was mostly transcription.

That had left her plenty of time to think about Kendall while typing. A lot of little pieces began to fit into place. She thought all the way back to that party he’d had out at his place. He knew who he was dealing with so he had some beer, a lot of soda, and an impressive amount of meat for the grill. SOAR pilots were on-call 24/7. They also had a rule of twenty-four hours bottle-to-throttle, so having the chance for a drink didn’t happen very often. Some of the ground crew who’d tagged along took a beer, but SOAR was a pretty straight crowd.

But before the party, Kendall had made a point of finding out her preferred beverage. She’d given him two answers, because she could never decide about food. There’d been a significant stock of both the caffeine-free Diet Coke and a giant pitcher of fresh-made iced tea. He’d served her a double cheeseburger on a toasted bun with only stone-ground mustard, without her having to ask. He’d probably gotten that from watching her at cookouts by the hangar and noting that’s what she always ate.