Lyric and Lingerie (Fort Worth Wranglers 1)

Except, now that Tre had made that comment, he couldn’t help wondering … was she wearing that corset now? What did it look like? And more importantly, what did her breasts look like in it?

His heart beat a little faster, and he had to shift around a bit to accommodate the sudden arousal the thought caused. Without meaning to, he found his gaze lingering on Lyric’s breasts. Now that he thought about it, he would love to see her in something black and lacy and barely there. His eyes dipped lower. Something with a thin strap on the sides and another, thinner one that disappeared between the round cheeks of her bottom.

Sweat popped out on his upper lip, and his shorts suddenly fit a lot more tightly than they had. Reaching up, he turned the overhead fan on high. Yes, Lyric and lingerie—they were made for each other.

Another glance at her had him switching the black lace to red satin in his head.

“Stop trying to pull a Superman and X-ray vision the blanket. There’s nothing to see.” Lyric elbowed him again. She really loved that armrest.

She let the blanket slip and ran her index finger along the top of the dress. “The duct tape doesn’t exactly allow for foundation garments.”

Heath reached up and turned her fan on high this time—and pointed it directly at himself. “Really?” he wheezed. “Nothing at all?”

Her eyelids half closed and her low voice purred. “Absolutely nothing. Not enough duct tape and too much Agent Provocateur. It was a bad combination.”

Without looking at him, she fished a round ice cube out of her glass, licked it delicately before sucking it gently into her mouth. “Is it just me or is it getting a little hot in here?”

His blood pressure shot up about twenty points. Her tone suggested it was nothing more than an observation, but watching her suck on an ice cube put her in sex kitten territory. Unexpected … completely unexpected, but definitely appreciated. How the hell had he overlooked her all those years ago?

Suddenly, she shot bolt upright and her eyes went wide as she coughed and sputtered, the ice cube clearly having gotten stuck in her throat.

Now there was the Lyric he’d known and loved. Heath pounded her helpfully on the back.

“Stop,” she hacked between coughs, “I’m fine.” She tried to lean forward, but a ripping sound came from her lap. “Don’t touch me.”

Heath ignored her and continued to pound. He was all about helping a damsel in distress, especially one wearing only duct tape. If he hit her back long enough, maybe that entire farce of a dress would rip right down the middle. Now that was something he was dying to see.

The fact that it was Lyric who was attracting his sexual interest should be awkward in the extreme—after all, he had slept with her sister. But instead, it was interesting … and amusing. His brief night with Harmony had been a long time ago, and Lyric was shaping up to be just the distraction he needed to take his mind off football and the barren landscape of his life without it. At least for a little while.

Eventually, her coughing turned into slow, deep breaths. She was still wheezing a little, but at least it looked like she was going to live. Though he was a little disappointed when she sat back, cutting off any excuse he had for touching her more. Her face was flushed, her eyes watered, and she wouldn’t meet his gaze.

He hated the idea that she was embarrassed—especially when he had enjoyed the hell out of the last few minutes. Casting his admittedly sex-addled brain around for a neutral topic, he finally settled on the old classic, “So, what’s been happening in your life since I saw you last?”

He leaned away from her and tried to sound casual, not like he was picturing her naked. He’d never really thought of Lyric like “that,” but now that his brain had gone there, he wanted to pull up a chair and stay a while.

Her head turned slowly to him. “So now you want to chat me up?”

“I’ve got—” He flicked his right wrist up to check his Breitling Bentley, a gift from the team owner after Heath’s first Super Bowl win. “—seven and a half hours to fill, and I would love to spend it catching up with you. Let’s start with the story of the duct tape. I bet it’s a good one.”

“You’re the Deuce, so good is relative. I’m afraid my boring life would pale in comparison.” Lyric looked down her nose at him. “Why don’t you put your newspaper wall back up and go back to pretending I don’t exist?”

“No can do. We’ve been through too much in the last thirty minutes. Tre alone is a bonding experience. Besides,” he gestured to the floor, where his now trampled copy of the Wall Street Journal lay, “I no longer have a newspaper to hide behind.”

She picked up a copy of the in-flight magazine and handed it to him. “You can use this instead.”

Heath took it, but only long enough to put it back into the seat pocket in front of her. Then he eased back into his seat and just looked at her. He would have crossed his foot over his opposite knee—it helped with the laid-back image—but the confined airplane accommodations didn’t allow for comfortable movement. And neither did the Lyric-and-lingerie-induced erection he was still sporting.

“Fine, so you don’t want to talk about the dress. Or your work. Or anything else going on in your life right now. So why don’t you tell me what I did to piss you off all those years ago?”

“That pretty much tops the list of things I don’t want to talk about.” Weariness eased across her face as she sank back into her chair. “Why are you so hung up on what happened twelve years ago, anyway? It’s not like it matters anymore.”

“It matters to me.” To be honest, he was a little surprised by just how much it still mattered. No, he hadn’t spent the last decade and then some wallowing in misery over their lost friendship, but he’d thought of Lyric a lot more than she believed he had. Especially in the first few years, when he’d reach for the phone whenever something really funny or weird or just plain worrisome happened, only to be sent straight to her voice mail.

It had gotten so he hung up before he’d even finished dialing. Not because he didn’t want to talk to her, but because he’d known she wouldn’t answer. And then she’d changed her number, and he’d been drafted to the NFL. It hadn’t taken long before he stopped trying to call altogether.

That didn’t mean he didn’t think about her occasionally, or wonder how she was doing. When they were growing up, Lyric had been more than just his friend. She’d been his confidante—the one person he could count on when he needed advice or a sounding board or someone to have his back. And then he’d slept with Harmony, and everything had changed. Between him and Harmony and between him and Lyric. At first, he’d fancied himself in love and had been devastated that Harmony was freezing him out. But as time passed and other girls caught his eye, he realized it was Lyric he really missed. Lyric he wanted to talk to when things were going bad … and when they were going good.

Not that he planned on pouring all that crap out to her on a transpacific flight—how pathetic would that be? Still, he wasn’t going to let her make him out to be the jackass, either. Not when she’d been the one to walk away from him.