He grabbed them all, along with a couple of straws and a handful of mayonnaise packets for lubrication. He decided to leave the mustard where it was.
He made it back to the bathroom just as Lyric limped out, a look of crestfallen agony on her beautiful face. With a smile, he held up his plundered booty. “I’ve got you covered.”
She stared at the mismatched selection he’d picked up, then rolled her eyes. “I’m not a cheeseburger, Heath.”
“Yeah, well, the selection was limited. I did the best I could.” He crouched down next her. “Let’s get you out of this dress.”
She glanced around wildly. “Not here.”
“Why not here? I thought you had to go to the bathroom.”
“I’m not wearing anything under this duct tape.”
He froze, even as his heartbeat went wild. “Nothing?” She’d said so earlier, but he’d thought she was kidding. He swallowed. All that lovely white skin, and the only thing between it and him was a thin veneer of tape. There wasn’t a man alive who hadn’t had that dream a time or two.
“My dress ripped, remember?” She shuffled from foot to foot.
Lyric hummed the chorus of Beyonce’s “Put a Ring on It.” Huh?
“Yeah, but what about your underwear?”
“The dress was too tight. I didn’t want a panty line.” She sucked in air like it was going out of style.
“Lyric Wright, are you telling me you weren’t lying when you told me you were traveling halfway across the Pacific in nothing but duct tape?” He might have a heart attack himself, especially now that he was picturing all the bare skin just beneath his hands.
“Well, it wasn’t by choice. Believe me.”
Standing up, he propelled her back through the bathroom entrance. They were already attracting a fair amount of attention, and there was no way in hell he was stripping Lyric down in front of half the men in the Austin airport.
“Heath. This is the ladies’ room.” She sounded scandalized.
“Would you rather go into the men’s room and do this?” Over his dead body, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Well, no. But you’ll get in trouble.” She looked around like she was waiting for some sort of bathroom bouncer to appear and toss him out.
“By who? The bathroom police?” He laughed. “Sweetheart, we’re in the Lone Star State now. Short of losing the Super Bowl or wearing 49ers colors, there’s not much I can do in this state that will get me into trouble.”
“Seriously?” She eyed him with disgust.
“This is the great state of Texas. When people talk about the Holy Trinity, they’re talking about Jesus, the NRA, and the Fort Worth Wranglers. So yeah, you and I could drop down right here on this surprisingly clean tile and go for it, and the only comments people would make would be to offer suggestions … to you. And they’d still want me to sign their tits.”
“You know this from experience?” She glanced at the floor, and he could just see that huge brain of hers filing away the facts. Despite the potty dance she was doing, it was really an example of Lyric at her finest. Never judgmental, simply interested in gathering information. At least, until she said, “Well, just so you know. If it gets to that, I’m taking the top. And if you hurry and get this dress off, I just might be willing to give it a shot.”
It was the wrong thing for her to say. Now his mind was filled with all kinds of inappropriate images, namely of Lyric and her double Ds above him as she followed the advice of T-shirts everywhere: Save a horse. Ride a Cowboy.
But he could tell things were getting critical, and he really didn’t want her to have an accident, so he ushered her to the large handicap stall at the back of the restroom. As he locked the door behind them, one of the women who’d been primping at the mirror called, “When’s my turn, Deuce?”
“One at a time, ma’am. The line forms to the right,” he called over the stall door.
He turned to Lyric. “All right,” he said, laying out his improvised tools on the ledge created by the toilet paper holder like a nurse preparing a tray of sterile implements. “Let’s get to work.”
Examining the duct tape like it was a medium-rare New York strip, Heath grabbed the spork in his left hand and took the knife in his right. Then he stepped back and spent a moment taking stock. Did he start at the top and work down or at the bottom and work up? Both had appeal.
Lyric danced from side to side, humming Beyoncé louder. “Do. Something.”
He hadn’t remembered her ever humming before.
He knelt in front of her—genuflecting to Mistress Duct Tape—and pain shot through his bad knee at the awkward position. Gritting his teeth, he ignored it and sawed lightly at the dress’s hem. The pathetic plastic knife bent and twisted under his hand with each slice, but he didn’t want to hurt her so he kept the pressure light.
“Hurry.” She clamped her thighs together.
Christ, the way she said that word—like he was inside her and she couldn’t come fast enough—turned him on. Great, now he had a bum knee and a hard-on from hell to deal with. Instead of focusing on the pain, he concentrated on freeing her bare bottom. Her round, lush, sexy-as-hell bare bottom. Sweat broke out on his upper lip, and he shifted, determined to concentrate on the problem at hand.
“Open your legs.” It came out a little short, but seriously, if he had a nickel for every time he’d said that, he’d have a shitload of nickels. “Sit on the toilet.”
Now that was a new one.
Lyric looked at him in horror, then leaned over and pulled several handfuls of toilet paper from the holder before she began arranging them as a seat cushion.
Heath scooted closer to her. “Jesus, I thought you were in a hurry.”
“I am, but there are rules. A lady squats but never sits on a public toilet. Did you know the average public toilet has two million bacteria per square inch?” She piled more toilet paper into what could only be called a wreath arrangement on the seat. Was it a centerpiece or a toilet? He was getting confused. Especially when his old pal Lyric referred to herself as a lady. He’d never thought of her like that before. Then again, now that he’d been this close to her luscious thighs, he’d probably never be able to think of her as anything but.
He rubbed his knee. “I’ll file that little tidbit under Lyric’s Fun Facts. Right up there with the one in twenty shot of a meteorite striking a plane.”
“Okay.” She half sat, half dropped onto the seat. “I’m ready.
Heath didn’t have the heart to tell her that most of her fluffy seat cushion had landed on the floor.
“Here,” she inched her legs apart, “whatever you’ve got planned—GO FASTER.”
“Usually when I’m going at a woman from this angle I like to take my time. But in your case, I’ll make an exception.” With all the force he could allow, he stabbed at the tape. The knife broke in half. “Damn.”
Lyric’s legs started to vibrate. “What’s taking so long? Prisoners with the intelligence of spider monkeys are able to dig out of Alcatraz with nothing but a spoon, but you can’t break me out of this dress?”
He shook his head. “There’s never a convict with a shiv around when you need one.” He had two Super Bowl rings, a Heisman Trophy, and more wins than he could count. There was no way in hell a few strips of duct tape were going to break his winning streak. With all the murderous intent of Norman Bates’s mother with a butcher knife, Heath rammed the spork at the tape.
The spork cracked down the middle and bit into his palm.
He stared at it for a second, then decided fuck it. It was past time to go old school. “Hold on honey, I’m going in.”
Licking his lips, he stuck his head between her thighs and clamped his teeth down on the tape. But the second his jaw scraped against her inner thighs, Lyric shrieked. Her surprisingly strong thighs—who knew an astrophysicist could be so toned—clamped down on his ears and she giggled.
“What are you doing? That tickles.” Lyric wiggled agains
t him.
“My dad always taught me to use the tools at hand, and right now these are all I’ve got left.” Heath bit through the bottom edge of the dress, then spit out a chunk of tape and went for the next layer. It wasn’t the first dress he’d chewed through, but it was the first one that had stuck to his teeth.
When he finally felt like he’d made enough headway—no pun intended; well okay, maybe a little—he leaned back on his heels, grabbed the two ragged edges of the dress, and pulled for all he was worth. The dress ripped down the center. With the first rung of the dress conquered, he spit out a chunk of tape and went for the next layer.
Now he knew how a beaver felt and would have made a joke, but his mother had taught him not to talk with his mouth full. Not to mention the fact that Lyric would kill him—and if she was going to put her hands on him, he preferred it to be for a whole different reason.
He glanced back at the dress. Another two rungs down, one more to go. Sitting back on his heels, he ripped through the last layer. As the fluorescent light hit the newly exposed creamy white skin of Lyric’s thighs, he noticed a black outline on her inner thigh. “You have a tattoo?”
It looked like a necktie … Dilbert’s necktie, actually. Why would she have a tattoo of Dilbert’s necktie on her inner thigh?
“YES.” Lyric pointed to the door. “GET. OUT. OF. HERE. NOW.”
Grabbing onto the toilet paper holder for support, he hefted himself up and slipped out the door.
She barely took the time to fumble the door closed behind him before liquid hit water. He laughed to himself, then shrugged out of his shirt. Lyric might not have realized it yet, but there was no way in hell she could walk through the airport in that dress with a slit that revealed pretty much everything. And no way he would let her.
Hanging his shirt over the top of the stall door, he said, “You’re going to need this.”
She didn’t say a word, just kept on doing what she was doing.
Figuring he’d wash his hands while he waited, Heath turned around to find four smiling women of various ages—ranging from seventeenish to eighty—staring at his bare chest. He shot them the smile that his publicist’s focus group research had found appealed most to adult women, children under the age of two, and men who’d served in the military. Then, just to give them a thrill, he ran his hand down his abs. They were particularly washboardy at the moment, owing to the extra core and punishing upper-body workouts he’d added to combat the stress and boredom of convalescence.
“Wow.” The octogenarian’s somewhat milky-blue eyes went wide. She opened her cavernous black purse and pulled out a Sharpie. “Sign me, Deuce.”
He took the pen. Good God, he was about to sign breasts that had been around since before World War II. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
She undid the top three buttons of her white polyester blouse and was working on the fourth when he stepped closer. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got plenty of room.”
She opened her blouse, and the top of a saggy, white cotton bra peeked out above the polyester. She arched her back and stuck out her chest. “I’m ready.”
He aimed high on the décolletage, going for more collarbone than chest. With a flourish, he signed his name.
The other women lined up. When he came to the teenager, he capped the pen and shook his head. “Sorry, I only sign legal breasts. I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”
“I don’t have one.”
He shrugged “Then I’m sorry, honey. You’ll have to catch me in a couple of years.” Provided he was still around and his signature was still something to get worked up about.
The latch to the stall behind him finally clicked, and the door swung open. Lyric leaned against the doorjamb and sighed. His shirt still hung on the door. Chunks of ripped duct tape dotted her thighs, while strips of her dress sagged at odd angles. She looked like she’d just gone three rounds with a rabid beaver—and lost. “Wow, Heath. Thanks for that. It was better than my first white dwarf.”
The three women turned to him as one, eyes wide.
“She’s into little people,” he said with a shrug and an I-don’t-get-it lift of his brows. “I don’t judge.” Then he grabbed his T-shirt and handed it to Lyric. “Put this on.”
“Good idea.” Lyric took the shirt and once again disappeared into the stall. “I tried to get some of this tape off, but it’s too sticky. Especially the parts you got wet,” she called over the closed door.
“I told you to hold still.”
“You’re right, you did. Did you get it all out of your mouth? I read that ingestion of even small amounts of polyethylene causes impotence.”
The words had barely sunk in before he was running to the nearest trash can and spitting for all he was worth. Then, with the speed and efficiency of a man guarding his manhood, he gulped handfuls of water, swished, and spit some more. He repeated several times.
“Just kidding,” Lyric called from the stall.
He paused to glare at the stall door, water dribbling down his chin. That was so not funny. She was going to pay for it too. Maybe not now … but someday.
Of the three ladies, Grandma recovered from his burst of impotence-induced fear first. “Here.” Reaching into her voluminous purse a second time, she pulled out a travel bottle of Tuck’s Hemorrhoid Pads and handed it to him. “Use this.”
“Um … I don’t think that’s her problem.”
She leaned into him and in a loud whisper said, “It’s fingernail-polish remover.”
“Really?” He took the bottle. “How’d you get that through security?”
“I’m a victim of racial profiling. Just because I’m an old white lady, they don’t think I’m a terrorist.” She patted her purse. “I could have an Uzi in here and no one would care.”
He glanced into the open purse just to make sure. While there were lots of pill bottles, pairs of glasses, and some newspaper clippings, he didn’t see any sign of automatic weapons.
“I could be a terrorist.” She closed her purse and shoved it up on her shoulder. “I’d make a great terrorist.”
Heath stepped back as he waited for the TSA to burst into the bathroom in full SWAT gear. He noticed that the other women were doing the same thing. There were some things you just didn’t say in an airport … or anywhere else, for that matter.
When nothing happened, he inclined his head respectfully and settled for a simple, “Yes, ma’am, I bet you would.” Then he crossed back to Lyric’s stall and knocked on the door. “Lyric, here you go. Nail-polish remover.”
She opened the door a crack and reached out.
He pushed lightly on the door. No way was she leaving him out here with terrorist granny. “Let me help. You have some hard-to-reach places, and I’m good with hard-to-reach places.”
“So I’ve heard,” Lyric said with a grin as she cracked the door open just enough to let him in.
He couldn’t resist a smile as he looked at her. Bare-assed and sticky—if she’d been covered in hot fudge, the wet dream would have been complete.
* * *
Chapter 7
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Lyric stood outside of the airport and stared in a mix of horror and utter disbelief at the block-long, red, low-rider, 1980s-era Cadillac Eldorado. She peered closer. Were those curb feelers? And spinning rims?
Wanting to bend over to get a better look but conscious of the fact that all she was wearing was Heath’s T-shirt and a pair of boxers he’d scared up in a gift shop that had “Don’t Mess with TexAss” on the butt, she opted for a slight lean. “Is pimp-mobile a special upgrade at Avis?”
SETI only paid for the sub-sub-tennis-shoe-sized compact, so she didn’t know. Maybe rental companies didn’t offer new Cadillacs.
“I know. It’s pretty awful, but by the time we got you dressed, all the other cars were gone. I tried everyone from Alamo to Thrifty—nothing. I bought this off a baggage handler. He called it his “Sweet Cherry Cherry.”
He clicked a button to unlock the door and neon-blue chaser lights ran around the under carriage. “Oops, wrong one.”
He clicked another button and hydraulics hummed. The back half of the car lowered while the front half bounced up and down like it was hopping on one foot.
Lyric took a step back. “Keep clicking, maybe it’ll explode.” She was pretty sure walking to San Angelo barefoot in TexAss boxers would be better than riding in that thing. Thank God her tetanus shot was up to date.
“It’s alive.” He clicked again. The chaser lights blinked green and purple. “Damn, it’s a ride at Six Flags Over Studio 54.”
Heath clicked the last button on the key fob and the doors finally unlocked. He stepped forward, opened the passenger-side door for her. “Your chariot awaits.”
The unmistakable scent of marijuana wafted up in waves. She held her nose. “Christ, we’re going to be stoned from the contact high.”
He walked around to the driver’s side and slid in. “Damn, you’re right. Roll down the windows.” Thunder boomed, and then lightning blazed across the sky. “Okay, roll ’um up. No wonder he sold it to me cheap—he needed to support his drug habit.”
With a shudder, Heath plugged the key into the ignition and turned it. As the engine roared to life, so did the radio. The words “Baby loves me” blasted through the speakers at top volume.
“What the hell is that?” Lyric clapped her hands over her ears.
“I think its Neil Diamond.” He reached over to turn off the radio. The button wouldn’t budge.
“Here, let me.” She shoved his hand out of the way. “I’m good with mechanical things.”
She pressed down on the button a couple times, but nothing happened. Finally, figuring there were more ways than one to handle the situation, she turned the volume knob all the way to the left. The sound level didn’t change appreciably, so she tried again. Still nothing. Beside her, Heath was laughing his ass off as the chorus came on.