Angela Knight - Unbound

Perfect, he’d thought.

He had it printed on a thousand tiny slips of paper, crumpled them up, then stuffed them all into a bed sheet. Between second and third periods, he’d hung that sheet above the Creative Writing classroom door. As he worked, he’d turned to the gorgeous, studious, copper-haired girl whose desk was conveniently closest to the door.

“Hold this,” he’d said, and handed her the string attached to the draped sheet. “And don’t let go, or you’ll ruin the surprise.”

When he’d winked, she’d positively bloomed . But as he slid that string from her fingers, deliberately touching her, she’d swallowed that brilliant smile. The birth of the deer-in-headlights look.

When Mrs. Harris had sauntered into the classroom, clipboard at her hip, David had released the string, showering the teacher in tiny slips of paper. He went to one knee and shouted, “There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved, Mrs. Harris! It is God’s finger on man’s shoulder!”

He’d gotten an A .

The sound of wine splashing into a glass brought him back to the present. Twelve years gone, and just now he and Kelsey were moving forward. At least, he hoped they were.

He turned toward her living room and stopped. “I can’t get to the couch,” he called over his shoulder. “There’s a giant, black road block.”

“Just step over him.” She came to David’s side. “He won’t move.”

“I don’t know if my leg goes that high.”

She giggled. Actually giggled. And he was a goner.

David raised a dubious eyebrow. “Will he go after me again?”

“He’s lying down. You could seriously do anything to him right now and he won’t move.”

“Anything, you say?” David lowered himself to the floor, right next to Dante, who blinked slowly at him. David snatched the TV remote from where it balanced on the corner of the coffee table. “What if I put this on him?”

Kelsey edged around them to take a seat on the sofa. “Yep.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She smiled into her wineglass. “Try it.”

So he balanced the long, flat remote on Dante’s wide, round belly. The stupid cat just pressed his head to the carpet as if to say, “More. Bring it.”

“Here.” Kelsey tossed him another remote, this one to the receiver. He laid it next to the other. Dante didn’t even twitch.

She slid off the couch, her eyes mischievous, her hand stretching for a small, circular candle. “Now this.”

David looked at the candle, then back into her glittering eyes, and shook his head. “You do it. But let’s make it interesting.”

“Yeah?” Her fingers tightened on her wineglass, little ovals of heat surrounding the tips.

“Yeah. Winner gets to ask a question. Any question. Loser has to answer. Truthfully.”

She sucked in a breath, held it, and he realized he’d been holding his, too. Somewhere between the front door and her living room rug, this had turned personal. Right at that moment, he had no desire to ask her about the Pritcharts.

She licked her lips, and though it wasn’t the first time the sight of her had gotten his dick hard, it was the most intense, because it was just the two of them, alone for the very first time in a quiet room.

“Okay.” She exhaled, looking alternately excited and scared.

They settled on opposite sides of the black, furry monstrosity, whose side moved up and down under the two remotes. Kelsey set her wineglass aside and placed the little green candle near Dante’s tail. She sat back, satisfied, a dare quirking her lips.

This was how he’d always wanted to be with her. A man and a woman with nothing in between—not books or school or work or duty. Or social classes or edicts from their elders.

Nothing except . . . the World’s Largest Cat.

“So,” he said, looking around and finding a blue crayon wedged next to the TV. He’d forgotten about her small nieces and nephews. He laid the crayon between the remotes. “Are you at the clinic tomorrow night? Or can you go to the Star Gala?”

The crayon wobbled, but eventually steadied.

She pressed her lips together in disappointment. “Thought for sure that would roll off.”

He considered throwing the game, just to find out what she was so desperate to ask.

“The gala,” he prompted. “Are you going?”

She pulled out a little statue of a cat carved from stone, and eyed him sideways. “You haven’t won.”

“That’s not what I want to ask you.”

She matched his stare for a long second, then leaned forward and balanced the statue on a fold of fat near Dante’s back leg. “I’m closing the clinic for the gala. I’ll be there.”

“Good.” He looked down at the game board. “All you left me was the neck and head!”

The sly grin she threw him was wonderfully evil. Deliciously seductive. It made him want to push the cat aside, snag the straps of her tank top and bra, and pull her to him. She’d kiss like she’d grinned just now, full of secrets and heat.

“It’s your turn,” she prodded.

Dante’s tail thwapped against the rug. David looked around for a playing piece. There, on the end table, sat her anemic wallet—because Kelsey Evans would never carry along extraneous items. He’d bet she had her license in there, maybe one credit card, maybe a picture of her brother and his kids. When David stretched for the wallet, she quietly gasped.

“This okay?” he asked.

“Sure.” Her voice had gone thready.

He bent over the cat. “Dante, sorry. She’s making me do it.”

Though the tail slapped harder, Dante didn’t move as David nudged the wallet edgewise into the narrow space left on his neck, not quite on his forbidden head.

Kelsey chewed her lip. David couldn’t tell if she feared losing or winning more. To be fair, neither did he.

She took down a tiny picture frame showing her nieces and nephews and held it over the two remotes. “You love me, Big D. I know you do. Don’t fail me now.”

She set down the frame. With a high chirp that didn’t seem like it could come out of his massive body, Dante struggled to his feet, shaking the objects off his girth. He sauntered away, his belly swinging like a cow’s udder.

Kelsey’s shoulders sank in defeat. In any other situation David would be rubbing his hands together and gloating, making a joke out of it. Except that suddenly all the fun had been sucked from the room. The pile of discarded objects scattered between them, as real and divisive as all the questions he longed to ask.

Have you ever thought of me as anything other than the class clown?

How can I prove myself to you?

Can we start over?

She blinked at him, those plump, berry lips falling open. She looked expectant. Fearful. Hopeful?

Her breathing turned shallow, but in truth, he could have been confusing that with his own. The heat rumbling through the town house vents sounded like a tornado bearing down. She was the eye of the storm—his calm, his center.

They’d kissed once before. Well, not really—just on the cheek during their matching ceremony. He remembered the silk of her skin on his, the rigid inhalation of her breath as he’d pulled away. He didn’t want tension from her. He longed for acceptance. He craved desire.

Turned out, he didn’t need wine courage after all.

Quickly, before he could doubt himself, he leaned over and kissed her. Fingertips bracing his weight on the rug, only his mouth touched her. A swift, gentle brush of lips, worthy of new beginnings. It was impulsive. Sweet. Wonderful.

She just sat there at first, but then, oh fuck , she softened with an angelic sigh. Her lips parted, letting him in. He touched his tongue to hers so slowly it felt like twelve years passed. Because they had.