Lyric and Lingerie (Fort Worth Wranglers 1)

“How? You’re the one driving.” Really, absolutely no idea.

“Yeah, but you’re the one with your million-dollar legs on display. Plus, anyone who pulls up next to us will be able to look right up your boxers.” Guarding her body from the public’s prying eyes was getting complicated.

“That’s ridiculous. No one will even notice what I’m wearing.” She went back to what she was doing.

He started to argue, but before he could say a word, a truck pulled up next to them at a stoplight. The driver gave two tugs on his horn, and Heath glanced over to see the guy doing exactly what he’d just warned Lyric about.

“Uhh, it might not bother you, Lyric, but I feel honor bound to tell you that was a honk of appreciation.” He rolled up a little in an effort to obscure the truck driver’s view, but the man was no dummy. He rolled up right along with them.

Annoyed now, even though he totally got where the guy was coming from, Heath inched up a little more.

So did the truck driver.

Damn it, at this rate, they were going to end up in the middle of the intersection long before the light turned green.

“Lyric.” He lightly smacked her hip for emphasis. “Get up here.”

She huffed loudly but finally lowered her legs and climbed back up onto the seat. As she ran a hand over her wild blonde hair in an effort to smooth it down, the truck driver honked a second time. When she glanced at him, the perverted bastard smiled and waved.

Lyric waved back.

Just then, the light changed, and Heath peeled into the intersection with more force and speed than was strictly necessary. Guarding her body from prying eyes obviously took more than just physical prowess—it took stunt-driving skills. Hmmm … he should probably start thinking about stunt driving or bodyguarding, since the physical therapist was convinced he’d played his last Super Bowl.

To distract himself from facing his precarious future, he stared at her tanned thighs. “Jesus, Lyric. You can’t go giving every guy in a hundred-mile radius a look at that crazy tattoo of yours.” It came out harsher than he’d have liked.

She eyed him suspiciously. “And how exactly do you know about my tattoo? It’s way up on my inner thigh.”

“Which is what I’ve been trying to tell you. I got a glimpse of it back in Austin at the airport, but I’ve spent the last hour and a half with a perfect view of the sucker. You like to work with your legs wide open.” Not that he was complaining—he’d like to work with her legs wide open too.

Lyric’s mouth dropped practically to her knees at his words, and to be honest, he couldn’t blame her. They’d sounded okay in his head, but now that they were hanging out there, they didn’t sound even close to what he’d meant.

A little desperate to head off the explosion he could see brewing behind her Fort Worth Wranglers blue eyes, he cast around for something to say that didn’t involve inserting his entire size-fourteen foot into his mouth. Usually, he liked nothing more than to wind her up and wait for her to blow, but not right now. Not when he was about to drop her at the hospital. If he knew Lyric, she’d be ushering him out of San Angelo so fast, Sweet Cherry Cherry’s tires would catch fire. He didn’t want her to do that, didn’t want to leave her angry. Strange as it was, he’d enjoyed the last few hours in this monstrosity of a car—probably way more than he should have.

Sure, some of that enjoyment had come from his superlative view, but most of it came from just being with Lyric. Trading barbs and smiles and something more. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but that he wasn’t quite ready to let go of either. And he needed something to hold on to right now, because he’d felt strangely disconnected ever since the football he’d been carrying his whole life had been wrenched from his grasp during the final quarter of the Super Bowl.

“What’s that tattoo of anyway?” he finally asked. “It’s kind of strange looking.” Two triangles connected by their top points, with dots at each of the vertices—kinda like Dilbert’s tie. It seemed an odd choice for an astrophysicist. Shouldn’t she have one of Newton’s laws tattooed somewhere on her body? Then again, who said she didn’t? Maybe he needed a better look at more than just her inner thighs.

“It’s the constellation Lyra. It’s one of the oldest-named groups of stars in the galaxy.” She looked absently out the window. She was retreating into herself again.

Oh, right. That made way more sense than Dilbert’s tie. Still.

“Is it your favorite constellation or something? ’Cuz I kind of think, if I was going for a constellation, I’d choose something more recognizable. Like the Big Dipper—”

“You mean Ursa Major.”

He grimaced. “That sounds like a flesh-eating bacteria … but I like the ‘major’ part. ’Cuz if I’m gonna have a tattoo pointing to my ‘major part,’ it had better have ‘major’ in the name, because ‘minor’ I am not.”

Lyric didn’t even crack a smile, but she did sigh loudly. What was it about women that made it impossible for them to appreciate a good dick joke?

“Lyra—the lyre—was the instrument played by Orpheus, the son of the god Apollo and the muse Calliope. Orpheus was so adept at the instrument that he lured a beautiful nymph named Eurydice to marry him. They were madly in love until she got bitten by a snake and died a horrible death. Orpheus was so heartbroken that he rejected all women in favor of little boys—”

“Stop. Please.” Heath swallowed several times. “I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.” He swallowed a couple more times. “Could this story get any worse?”

She shrugged. “An angry horde of women dismembered Orpheus and threw his body parts in the—”

“Yes, I can see why you’d pick that constellation over, say, one named after a fluffy bunny who finds true love with a squirrel and they live a long, happy life filled with tens of thousands of bunny-squirrel grandbabies.”

She blinked. “I’m not aware of a bunny-squirrel constellation. What galaxy is it in?”