Just For Kicks. Susan Andersen
escaped her. Who was she kidding? She’d been so past primed. That was one of the reasons the manner in which he’d pulled the plug on her, the callous way he’d left her twitching with frustration, rankled so much.
Her first impression was obviously correct. Anyone who’d work a woman into a frenzy, then leave her flat because it wasn’t in his frigging schedule, was cold—his hot hands and hotter kisses be damned.
Catching herself standing with gritted teeth and clenched fists in the middle of the floor, Carly sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. Great. She was furious all over again.
Screw it, she had things to do today. Maybe nothing earth-shattering, but a hell of a lot more important than moaning over not satisfying her treacherous libido’s needs. She really did need to get her mind away from Jones’s infuriating callousness and onto something else. The question was: what? Looking around, she saw a piece of paper lying on the floor next to the chintz ottoman, and she walked over and snatched it up, grateful for the distraction.
When she realized it was the incident report Wolfgang had wanted her to sign last night, however, her blood pressure skyrocketed all over again. Crumpling it up, she tossed it back on the floor and ground it beneath her bare heel. That wasn’t nearly destructive enough to satisfy her urge to annihilate, so she snatched it up again and smoothed it out. Then she proceeded to rip it into the tiniest shreds she could manage. Clutching the handful of confetti in one fist, she rummaged through her little secretaire with the other until she found an envelope. She poured her opinion of Wolfgang’s report into it and sealed it up.
Tripod stropped himself against her ankles, and she bent down to pick him up, cuddling the gray-and-white cat against her breasts. He purred and butted his head against her chin.
“You’re right,” she said decisively, scratching the feline between his ears. “Standing around steaming is counterproductive. If I let this turn me inside out, Jones wins—and that is not going to happen.” She gently set Tripod down upon the hassock. “So, let’s go to the hospital and brighten someone’s day. I’ll change into something a little more conservative, do something with my hair, and then we’ll all take off. Well, except for you, Dogface.” She paused on her way to the bedroom to rub Rufus’s head. “You’re doing worlds better, but I’m afraid you’re still not quite there yet. Soon, though, little buddy.
“Soon.”
SHE FELT MUCH BETTER by the time she let herself back into the apartment a couple of hours later. She unhooked Buster’s leash and opened the door on the travel container so Tripod and Rags, who always needed a little time to decompress after one of their trips, could let themselves out when they were ready. Rufus was sulking over by the sliding doors and wouldn’t look at her, but she consoled herself with the fact that at least he hadn’t torn the place apart.
Viewing that as definite progress, she refused to let his displeasure make her feel guilty. She’d been taking her babies to local hospitals as part of the pet-therapy volunteer program for a little over four years now, and Rufus wasn’t ready to be turned loose upon an unsuspecting hospital. The idea wasn’t to have animals running wild, but rather to utilize pets as a means to cheer up patients awaiting surgery or—the ones she had a special affinity for—long-term care patients like the kids on the oncology ward. So until she could be certain Rufus would behave himself on a consistent basis, he’d just have to stay home.
But she was accustomed to having him think she was the greatest thing since the rawhide chew bone, and getting the continued cold shoulder from him was starting to punch little holes in her resolve. In order to keep herself from rewarding his bad attitude, which would no doubt set his burgeoning training back several giant steps, she strode into her bedroom and changed into her electric-blue bikini. She was a responsible pet owner no matter what He Who Would Not Be Named liked to say. So Rufus could just sulk.
But there was no reason she had to stick around to be tortured by it. She’d go take a swim.
A teenager she’d never seen before was rocketing from one end of the pool to the other when she let herself in through the gate several moments later. His form left a lot to be desired, and he was churning up a considerable amount of water, so she decided to give him time to wear himself out before sharing the pool with him. As she snapped her towel over a chaise lounge beneath the shade of the palm trees and made herself comfortable on the cheery blue-and-white delft-patterned terry cloth, she observed his dogged laps. It wasn’t difficult to tell that something was definitely driving him. And she had to admit that all that anger or determination or whatever it was that propelled him was pretty darn compelling. Wryly deciding it almost made up for his lack of style, she applied sunblock while she watched him hack and kick his way through lap after laborious lap.
It became almost hypnotic after a while and she found herself yawning. Another lap and her eyes drifted closed.
The next thing she knew there was a shadow blocking the dappled rays that filtered through the palms. Shading her eyes, she peered up at a tall sun-limned, featureless phantom standing at the end of her lounge chair.
“Hey,” said a young male voice that sounded as if it were consciously striving to be cool. The phantom moved, dropping down onto the chaise next to her, where he turned into a long, lanky teen with slicked-back dark hair and pretty hazel-green eyes. He swiped his forearm over his dripping forehead as his gaze skittered from her breasts to her bare stomach to her legs and back up to her face.
“Hey, yourself,” she said, and cast an inward sigh, waiting for the tired pickup line that was sure to come.
“Where are your dogs?” he asked, glancing around as if expecting them to pop out of the neatly maintained grounds surrounding the pool enclosure. “You shoulda brought ’em down with you.”
It was the last thing she’d expected, and she flashed him a grin that was purely spontaneous. All right, a fellow dog lover—not an adolescent jerk, at all. You gotta love a male with the good taste to be a cut above the average Joe. “No pets allowed at the pool, I’m afraid,” she said, and gave the teenager a discreet once-over.
He was going to be a big man someday, but he hadn’t yet bulked up beneath his lightly tanned skin. He still had that slightly undernourished, awkward look some still-growing adolescents got. She’d bet the bank, though, that one day he’d fill out to be an all-around hunk. And given those poet’s eyes, she imagined that even now he drove the little girls wild.
She stuck out her hand. “I’m Carly, by the way.”
He got tangled up in the towel he’d wrapped around himself as he leaned forward to thrust out his own hand. Dull color promptly stained his cheeks, but he extricated himself with a minimum of fuss and shook her hand firmly. “Niklaus.”
“Nice to meet you, Niklaus. How do you know about my dogs?”
“I saw you with them on your balcony last night.”
At midnight? “From where, toots? The courtyard?”
“Nah.” He jerked his chin in the general direction of her building. “I’m your new neighbor.”
“No kidding?” She regarded him with interest. “I didn’t realize any of the units were even on the market.”
“They probably aren’t. I just moved in next door with my uncle. You might know him.” His voice changed, taking on a slightly resentful tone. “Wolfgang Jones.”
“That’s your uncle?” The Iceberg had a family? That was so…human. And here she’d thought he’d sprung fully grown from the loins of Medusa.
Niklaus nodded and Carly said, “When did that happen?”
“My grandma brought me to Vegas earlier this week, but we stayed at Circus Circus so I didn’t move in until last night.”
And Wolfgang had had the balls to accuse her of being irresponsible? She would never leave a kid all by himself in a strange apartment on his first night in residence. She had half a mind to hunt him down and tell him so, too.
Fortunately