Lyric and Lingerie (Fort Worth Wranglers 1)

“Oh, God no.” She rolled her eyes. With a frown curling on her mouth, she was all sexy teacher. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel his own knob stir after that. Which … there had to be some special place in hell for men who got hard-ons over a woman while sitting at the bedside of her comatose father. Could coma victims read minds? He’d read that they could hear everything going on around them, but since her father was straddling that line between death and life—was he having an out-of-body experience? Heath looked around. Was Bowman watching them right now?

If Bowman could read minds, he’d probably rise up out of bed and strangle Heath with his IV line. He sent Bowman happy, mellow thoughts that had nothing to do with getting his baby girl naked on the floor right now.

Was it his imagination or had Bowman’s hand moved?

“Not that it matters,” she continued, lowering her voice to a whisper as she glanced at her sleeping daddy. “There are a lot more important things than the size of a guy’s penis.”

“Jesus, Lyric. Are you really going to say the word—” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “—penis, with your daddy lying there?”

She thought about it. “I’m pretty sure my daddy knows I’ve seen a penis before.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean you need to rub his nose in it. Some things fathers don’t need to hear about.” Or best friends for that matter. He knew he was the one who’d brought this whole nightmare-inducing topic up for discussion, but that didn’t mean he wanted to think about Lyric touching anyone’s penis but his. Not Rob’s and not any other guy’s either. Lyric was hi—

He cut the thought off before it could fully form. If he was going to hell for getting a hard-on in her daddy’s sickroom, he sure as shit was going to a deeper level of hell for thinking about tossing those million-dollar legs of hers over his shoulders and sliding deep inside of her.

His phone buzzed again. He had every intention of ignoring it like he had every other message that had come his way in recent days. Ignorance really was bliss, after all. At least when it came to busted-up knees and broken-down spirits.

Lyric obviously didn’t feel the same way—or maybe she just hadn’t gotten the memo that he wanted to wallow in his own self-pity a little longer. Either way, she reached into the pocket where he’d shoved his phone and pulled it out. He tried not to concentrate on the fact that she’d very nearly found a lot more than a phone in that pocket, but it was hard to think about his dick when he knew Lyric was reading a message about his knee.

Some people might say he was being paranoid, but he could tell that was what the text was about. Her whole face had turned soft and sympathetic, and he hated it. No, hate wasn’t strong enough. He fucking detested it. Lyric in full-on problem-solving mode, trying to help him figure out what to do with his life, was one thing. Lyric looking at him like she wanted to give him a hug and a pat on the head was something else entirely. And he wasn’t fucking having it.

Pushing her feet off his lap, he snatched his phone out of her hands and then stood before she could do anything more than gape at him with that mouth he was absolutely, positively refusing to think about anymore.

“I’ve got to go,” he told her, shoving the phone back into his pocket. Only, much deeper this time. Then he shoved his hand in his pocket as a kind of barrier—he didn’t trust Lyric not to go diving back in for the phone and end up with a handful of him instead. Not that he didn’t twitch at the idea, but now wasn’t the time or the place.

“Go?” she asked. “Where?”

“I have a thing,” he said. “Sit down. Reporter. Interview. Now.” When he could finally stop babbling, he made a point of looking at his watch.

“In San Angelo?” She sounded like he’d just told her that he, too, had fallen for a hula-dancing astrologer. “You didn’t even know you were going to be here before you bought Cherry Cherry at the Austin airport.”

“Yeah, well, I have a very efficient agent. Most of the time, he knows what I’m going to do before I do. I think he’s psychic.” Heath knew how to throw her off the scent. “He’s into astrology.”

“Isn’t everyone?” Her top lip curled, and then her face softened and her eyes turned sharp. “Is he descended from gypsies? I’m not usually one to buy the whole psychic world, but I hear Romany gypsies have insight that can’t be explained. I’ve done some reading on the idea of a cosmic consciousness and how some people are more tapped into it than others. It’s said that the gypsies are descended from the most ancient people on earth. Lucy,you know, the Australopithecus skeleton that’s 3.2 million years old, has more DNA markers in common with Romanichal gypsies than any other ethnicity. I always wanted to meet a gypsy and see if they really can tap into the cosmic consciousness. Not like Mistress Kailana, who was about as Romany as I am.”

Heath pictured Josh Leland, his agent, who was blond-haired, green-eyed, and six foot two. He needed to make sure the two never met, or Lyric was sure to ask him for a cheek swab to see how much Australopi-whatever DNA he had. “I don’t know who Josh is descended from, but I’ll be sure to ask him next time we talk. Inquiring minds and all that …”

She looked like she had more questions, but he took off at as close to a run as his injured knee would let him. He loved Lyric’s inquisitive mind, loved everything about her, really, but he was two very small steps from losing his shit, and the last thing he wanted was for her to witness it. Bad enough he’d already lost football. No way was he losing what small bit of pride he had left.

No, he had to get out of here, and fast. He needed to get as far from the hospital, and from Lyric, with her bizarre and pornographic plans for his future, as he possibly could. Because the longer he stayed here, the longer she looked at him with that halfway-pitying gaze, the harder it was for him to ignore the new texts from his agent and the Wranglers’ owner and general manager. The harder it was for him to pretend that, somehow, some way, he was going to be okay.

It took every ounce of willpower he had not to make a mad dash for the exit. It was still close, freedom beckoning to him just beyond the clear glass sliding doors. But he had one thing to do first, just to make sure Lyric had everything she needed for the night.

* * *

Chapter 11

* * *

For long seconds after Heath left, all Lyric could do was stare after him as he all but ran out the door. She didn’t know what was wrong with him, didn’t know what she’d done to have him running like the hounds of hell were after him, but obviously she’d done something.

Not that that was exactly a surprise. Men had been running from her since she’d learned how to talk, much to her mother’s disappointment. When she’d grown breasts, boys started paying attention to her, but as soon as she opened her mouth, they moved on over to Camp Harmony. Her sister had never repelled people the way Lyric did. She discreetly checked her breath. It smelled okay, but maybe she was noseblind to her own case of chronic halitosis.

After stopping to talk to a nurse for a few seconds, Heath disappeared around the corner that led to the waiting room—and the exit. She hadn’t bought the whole he-had-an-interview thing, but she hadn’t wanted to let him know that. The man had his pride, and the fact that she knew about his knee was obviously messing with his head.

There was a part of her that still couldn’t believe Heath was never going to play pro ball again. In her head, Heath was football … and he always had been. Even in the years when she’d hated him, she had followed his career. Not obsessively or anything like that, but if a Wranglers game just happened to be on television and he just happened to be running around in those skintight pants, she might have paused to check him out. Or, you know, drool a little bit. But no one besides her ever needed to know that …

And now, now here he was back in her life, and she didn’t know what to think about that. Or what to feel about him. He’d been so kind this entire trip, had gone way out of his way—like three hundred miles out of his way—to make sure she was okay. And though her brain knew it was a bad idea to start thinking about him as anything but a friend, it wasn’t so easy for her heart to get on board with that.