Check My Heart

by Christi Barth

  Not a blink, not a sound. Lisette froze.

  Waiting. Hoping.

  “Push me away,” he demanded.

  She still didn’t say anything. But she curled her fingers into his shirt, just the tiniest bit.

  It was all the signal he needed.

  Kurt dipped his head the rest of the way to slant his lips across hers. She’d thought it’d be hard and fast, the way he played.

  But his wide lips just teased at hers. Stroking and nipping and gently setting off sparks of excitement that sensitized her even more. Lisette slid her hand up, over his shoulder, to curve around his strong neck. Realized that they were still staring into each other’s eyes. It was the most intimate kiss of her life. She felt stripped naked already, right outside her pregnant sister’s bedroom.

  Kurt’s hand came off the wall to skim down her side. His thumb grazed the side of her breast. When she moaned and arched into the touch, he slipped his tongue into her mouth. Whatever heat she’d imagined between them before quadrupled.

  It was obvious he’d been holding back. Because now his tongue thrust with a rhythmic, searching skill that had her grabbing at his waist just to stay upright. There wasn’t an ounce of extra skin on him. So her fingers curved lower, into the top rise of that amazingly tight ass to find purchase.

  Obligingly, he tilted his hips forward. Lisette felt his interest—all of it—in a hard, vertical line against her belly. As fast as this kiss had heated her up, Kurt was right there with her. That spiraled Lisette up even higher, even faster. It was amazing to be so wanted by someone she’d lusted after for so long.

  His fingers tunneled through her hair, tilting her head to the side so he could move his kisses in a line across her jaw over to her ear. Teeth closed on her lobe. Gently, but with just enough of a bite to zing wetness between her thighs. His tongue flicked the very edge while his teeth held on and his lips kept moving, caressing the oh-so-sensitive inner shell of her ear. Holy crap, but the man was good at that.

  Kurt brushed his thumb along her breast again, this time with more purpose. A little more pressure. Enough so that Lisette arched sideways and let out a soft moan.

  His head jerked back. “Shhh. Your sister,” he cautioned.

  Oh. Yeah. Probably six inches away with her cheek pressed against the door. Talk about a mood-breaker. Lisette came off the tiptoes she didn’t remember flexing up onto and stepped out of his embrace.

  “Let’s, um, go back into the living room.” As she led the way, Lisette put her palms to her cheeks. They were flaming hot...just like many, many other parts of her.

  She sat in the wooden rocking chair. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, with its ladder back. But it kept her away from the couch, where she’d be tempted to crawl right onto Kurt’s lap. Lisette laced her fingers together. Then she remembered what they’d been doing and hastily reached up to finger-comb her hair. “What brings you here, Kurt?”

  One dark blond eyebrow shot up.

  It was devilish and sexy and sent her pulse jackrabbiting again. “Besides that. I assume you didn’t come here to kiss me.”

  “Didn’t your mother teach you that it’s never safe to assume anything? But,” he continued at her get-on-with-it glare, “I came over here to get your help.”

  “With what?”

  “I need you to plan a party.”

  That was about as random a request as if he’d asked her to help wax his hockey stick. Instantly, Lisette wondered if that phrase was as dirty as it sounded in her head. Thank goodness she hadn’t said it out loud. There was no question that Kurt flustered her beyond all telling.

  “My tools of choice are a stethoscope and hypodermic needles, not a clipboard and balloons. I think you’ve got the wrong woman.”

  “Are you kidding? Running into you today was exactly what I needed.” He leaned forward, draping those thick, hair-dusted forearms over his knees. “You planned Jasper’s birthday party.”

  “I helped a sick patient.” A mere teenager, at that. Kurt couldn’t seriously be equating that to planning a party for a famous athlete.

  “Don’t downplay it. Jasper told me that you made lots of decoration suggestions when he was stuck. You helped him work through the logistics.”

  “While checking his blood pressure and changing his IV bags. I don’t know the first thing about professionally planning a party.”

  “You helped him. I guarantee that means you know more than me.”

  Well, that was probably true. Kurt was the ultimate guy’s guy. But that didn’t single her out as a party-planner extraordinaire by any means. “Kurt, you’re a big star. Your friends will expect excesses that I can’t even dream up.”

  “This isn’t for my friends. Who, by the way, aren’t fancy at all. For the most part, we’re still all the same guys who used to scoot around a tin can with a broom in the kitchen.”

  Mmm hmmm. She’d seen him in his Bentley SUV. Even if it was just a party with his teammates to watch a baseball game, they’d probably expect top-shelf liquor Lisette couldn’t even name. “Who is the party for?”

  “Jasper’s old hockey team. I want to throw them a party on my day with the Cup.”

  The unexpectedness of his answer stole away her breath almost as much as the heart-squeezing sweetness of it.

  Lisette knew the tradition. Each member of the winning team got to spend one day with the Cup. They could do whatever they wanted, take it wherever they wanted, for twenty-four hours. She’d seen pictures of it over the past few weeks as the other Cajun Rage players had their days. It’d been to the top of the Matterhorn at Disneyland. It’d been right behind home plate at Yankee Stadium. And there’d been a photo of it draped with naked females that got removed from Twitter about two minutes after being posted.

  But to throw a party for a high school hockey team? For them to get to touch it and pose with it in a way that so many professionals never even got the chance to do? That was selfless and wonderful of Kurt.

  He stared up, over her shoulder, clearly lost in a memory. “It was on Jasper’s bucket list. He was so positive that we’d win it that he made me a bucket list of things to do with the Cup.”

  Lisette flashed back to a piece of notebook paper she’d seen Jasper hide beneath his pillow and his tablet every time she entered the room. And realized that the young boy had been protecting her from his matter-of-fact acceptance of his impending death.

  “Please, Lisette.” It took him only two long strides to cross the room. Kurt dropped to one knee, gripping the arm of her chair. The mix of desperation and vulnerability on his face was so at odds with his muscular frame dominating the small space. “I need to do this up right. For Jasper. Come work for me. Just two weeks. I’ll pay you the same daily rate you got for nursing my brother. No, double that, if that’s what it takes. You cared for him so much, so well. This is the last thing he asked for. So you’re not done yet.”

  No. Nope. Huh-uh. It was a bad idea for soooo many reasons. The ghost of losing Jasper would always hang between them. Lisette didn’t want to be reminded of the pain of losing him. After all, that’s why she’d spent the last ten months and all her savings training to switch her nursing specialty—to get away from the heartbreak of hospice care and its inevitable death.

  Kurt wasn’t ready for a relationship. He was too busy holding himself together to be available to another person. Not to mention the overriding fact that Lisette had a gigantic crush on him that would undoubtedly only increase the more time she spent with the hockey hottie.

  On the other hand...

  There was absolutely no denying that she needed the money. It’d be a huge help. It’d be enough for a deposit on an apartment of her own. All she was doing was beating the pavement trying to get a job. That left quite a bit of time to fill during the day. This would keep her from going crazy with impatience at waiting for the phone to ring. It was apparent Kurt needed the help—both logistically and with balancing his grief. Lisette loved to help people. It made sen
se.

  Accepting his offer would be the fiscally smart thing to do.

  Emotionally injudicious, sure. Reckless, even. But who was she kidding? This wasn’t just about the money or even Kurt. In some way, no matter how small, she’d be helping carry out Jasper’s last wish. So there was only one possible response.

  “When do I start?”

  Chapter Three

  Lisette’s perfume was driving Kurt crazy. On their right, the gray Mississippi barely moved, so its stench hung overhead, locked in by the August humidity. The stains on the concrete, coupled with the squawking seagulls, accounted for the other smell mixing into the air.

  But over it all was the bright scent of Lisette’s perfume. The one that made him picture her in a field of white flowers. Naked, of course. Which meant every time he smelled it, his dick surged to attention. Kurt believed his dick was a lot like a pet. It needed regular attention and regular exercise—and it hadn’t gotten either over the past year. Still, it was embarrassing to walk around with it at half-staff like he was a freaking teenager. Hell of a lot more embarrassing if Lisette noticed. So he jammed his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts and stayed half a step behind her.

  No, that wasn’t awkward or weird at all. Kurt looked at the warehouse’s wide door, which was flanked by twenty-foot-tall purple and green poles topped by jester masks and four life-size Wizard of Oz figures. On the other hand, Mardi Gras World was probably the ideal place to get away with being weird and awkward. It looked like there’d be enough to keep Lisette’s eyes off him and his NC-17 shorts situation.

  “Have you been here before, Kurt?” Her head whipped left and right and back again as they entered, taking it all in. All being a lineup of bright, enormous floats that filled a space bigger than several football fields. Most looked like they could hold his first apartment. Purple, green and yellow were the predominant colors, whether on a dragon or four-headed jesters or boats overflowing with gators and flowers. Heads—just the heads, which was creepy—of Lincoln and Nixon were next to cartoon characters and fire-breathing demons. Psychedelic would be the mildest way to describe the onslaught on their eyes.

  “Nah. But last year the whole team rode on a krewe float the weekend leading up to Mardi Gras.”

  Her head whipped back to him, brown eyes wide and round as pucks. “You rode in a parade? That had to be amazing. When you grow up here in New Orleans, it’s pretty much your lifelong dream to be on a Carnival float. Was it wild?”

  “Oh, yeah. Especially since I didn’t grow up here. You hear stories about the boob-flashing and beads and drinking in the streets, but there’s no way to capture the scope of it until you’re on a fifty-foot float painted with hot orange stripes, screaming your lungs out and still not being heard by the guy sitting next to you.”

  Lisette bounced on the balls of her feet. Her enthusiasm was adorable, the way it made her hair bounce and the skirt of her sundress pouf out. Which was the last damn thing he should be noticing if he wanted his dick to go back into hibernation. “You’ve got to bring that all to life during the party,” she said.

  “Boob-flashing and drinking?” he asked, tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

  “Very funny. I mean the spirit of Mardi Gras.” She thrust her arms up and out, like the weird yoga guy Coach brought in to work with the team. Yeah— that had lasted less time than the mandatory condom talk their old coach gave in the locker room after the first game of every season. “Holding the party here isn’t enough. You’ve got to make the kids feel like they’re truly participating.”

  Kurt liked the idea. He just didn’t have a single damn idea how to make it happen. Without booze, anyway. “How?”

  She ran her fingers along the raised grapes arching out of a basket at the front of a float. Each one was as big as her fist. “Well, we need torch bearers. They lead the parades, and I’ll bet you could get them to come. They don’t just carry the flambeaux, they dance and put on a real show.”

  “Sounds good. Add it to the list.” He pointed at the leather portfolio sticking out of Lisette’s bag. She’d insisted on bringing it along, as well as an actual camera. Kurt would’ve just talked notes into his phone—and used the phone to take pics—but she seemed to be taking the whole planning thing very seriously. It was sort of adorable.

  Shit.

  That was twice in two minutes he’d thought of Lisette as adorable. It wasn’t picturing her naked, but it wasn’t moving the hell on to a different mental topic, either.

  It’d been impossible to shake her from his mind since that hot-as-fuck kiss two days ago. The one he never should’ve planted on her. The one that got totally out of control. The one that turned his blood into liquid fire.

  “Beads are a given.”

  Thank God Lisette was distracted by the floats. The six-foot Yoda seemed to have kept her from noticing his little trip down sexual fantasy lane. “Yeah, but different colors. Can we get them in the Cajun Rage colors—red, gold and black? And Jasper’s team? I think they’re red and silver.”

  “Good call.” She nudged her elbow playfully into his ribs. “See? You’ve got an instinct for this party stuff.”

  “Trust me when I say how very much I do not.” Just knowing that someone else would help him make all the decisions had given Kurt the first full night’s sleep he’d had in ages.

  Until he woke up thinking about Lisette with a raging morning boner.

  She tipped her head back to look at a gold and fake-gem-encrusted scepter as big as a street light. “We should crown one of the kids Rex, King of Carnival.”

  “I’ll ask their coach if there’s anyone that needs the boost. Otherwise, my call would be to make it Jasper’s best friend.”

  Tears suddenly sparkled at the corners of her eyes. One trailed a path down her cheek. “You see? That’s a wonderful, thoughtful suggestion. And it makes me bawl. This is why I quit.”

  What...shit, what? Lisette was a great nurse. She was smart, too. Too smart to quit without another job lined up. That was why he’d felt zero guilt at asking Coach Courage not to hire her.

  Until now.

  “You quit nursing?”

  “I quit hospice nursing. I couldn’t handle the extremes of emotion anymore. I cared for each patient so much, gave them everything I had. No matter what...they all...”

  “Yeah.” His first year in the pros, Kurt had played a game with their team’s first-string goalie, center and best forward all on the DL thanks to a car accident the night before. It’d sucked knowing from the first buzzer that no matter how hard they skated, the team had zero shot of pulling off a win. He couldn’t even imagine showing up to work every day feeling that. That sensation of uselessness must’ve dragged her down.

  Except... “But you helped so much. You did make a difference. You sure as hell made Jasper’s life better.”

  “Thank you. And I know that, in my head. My heart’s the part that suffers, though.” She tapped her chest. Right between those beautiful breasts that he so did not need to stare at. “So I went back to school to change my specialty to orthopedic nursing. It’s delightfully cut and dried. I do my job, and the patient gets better. They go from not using a limb to using it. Happy endings, guaranteed. Or at least, they’re more likely.”

  “So you up and quit without having another job lined up?” Guilt churned Kurt’s stomach, worse than the time his teammates doused his red beans and rice with habanero Tabasco as an initiation to New Orleans.

  “I did.” Funny how calmly she said it. Like the thought of life without a paycheck didn’t scare her at all. “It takes time to recertify. Too much time and effort to keep working. Now that I am certified, I’m starting from scratch looking for a job.”

  Lisette’s bravery impressed the hell out of him. Inspired him, too. “You’re forging a whole new path.”

  “Sometimes that’s the only way.” With a wistful smile, she turned and then squealed. “Look at that.”

  The side wall of the float was a fishbo
wl. At least two dozen goldfish swam in it. Kurt wondered who the heck fed them the other eleven months of the year. Did they hire someone just to feed the decorative-but-alive fish? “I’ve been thinking of getting a fish.”

  Laughter burbled through the lips she’d slicked a deep pink. Lips he couldn’t stop staring at, remembering their softness against his own. “To swim in the Cup? Like a centerpiece?”

  “No.” How cheeseball was that? On the other hand, he wouldn’t put it past a couple of the guys. Might even suggest it to them, just for shits and giggles. “For my apartment.”

  “Kurt, you can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” It wasn’t like he was investing in some crazy business venture, like a guy on his old team who’d dropped fifty large to start his own sock company. It was a four-dollar fish. At most, he’d spring for one of those mean-ass red betas who had to live alone in a bowl. That’d fit his mood.

  “You’re on the road all the time during the season. Who would feed it? Change the water? Just because fish are low maintenance doesn’t make them no maintenance.”

  Caring was so ingrained in her that now Lisette was fighting the good fight for a stupid goldfish. The woman was amazing. “Maybe I won’t go back on the road.”

  “I know we’ve got self-driving cars now. But I didn’t realize technology had advanced to the point where the Rajuns were going to do all their games in virtual reality next year.”

  That’d be cool. It’d cut down on the way he threw back ibuprofen like Tic Tacs, at least. Like it was no big deal, words—totally unplanned words—tumbled out. “I’ve been thinking of quitting.”

  “The team? Or hockey altogether?”

  How did she do that? Kurt had kept this yearning close to his chest, hadn’t told a soul. But ten minutes with Lisette and he wanted to tell her everything. Wanted her to comfort him and make all the appropriate noises about how it was a big decision and a brave step and that there was no wrong decision to make.