Progress, this was most definitely progress.
“He’ll come around.” Becca continued scratching behind Gibson’s ears. He turned on a full purr motor for her.
Linx scooted closer, now that Gibson was in Becca Heaven.
“Dude doesn’t get that I did him a favor.” Linx kept his voice bedroom-low so he wouldn’t startle the cat. This was the closest he’d been to his favorite buddy ever since the surgery. “Now, he can tomcat around all he wants without responsibility or litters of dependents.”
Was he mistaken or did Gibson give him some feline side eye?
“Does he go outside?” Becca asked, still massaging behind Gibson’s ears. “Will he have ample opportunity to sow his oats with his newly minted freedom?”
“Unsupervised?” Was she crazy? “No. There are wolves and…stuff…out there.”
“Doesn’t that make you the worst wing man ever?” The side eye that she gave him eerily resembled Gibson’s from a few moments earlier.
Linx rearranged his face in mock horror. “I am not appreciating your judgmental attitude of my feline parenting.”
He scooted closer again. This time, his knee kissed Becca’s thigh. The air in his lungs seemed thinner. The touch wasn’t soothing. This touch felt like the moment before he hit the stage at the Pepsi Center with a full house. She gave a pointed look to his hand at his side and the happily chilling Gibson. Then she reached for his palm, eyes expectant. He held it to her and let the intoxication of her touch fill is bloodstream. She placed his hand on Gib’s head. Linx took the hint, petting Gibson and sending up a brief prayer that he wouldn’t immediately hiss.
He didn’t. His motor just turned up, and he gave a kitty cat smile that was freaking contagious.
“Sorry, man.” Linx said, still stroking the fur. “I should’ve consulted you first.”
Becca laughed lightly. Her finger skimmed his as they both went for the same spot above Gibson’s ear.
Linx bit at his lower lip and glanced up to her.
Her eyes sparkled in that way they did when she wasn’t annoyed or asleep in his Porsche. They glimmered like stars while tendrils of her dark hair escaped from the knot she’d tied at the back of her scalp. She was her own version of a cosmic universe. And his cat had just adopted her.
If she stayed, he’d probably start touching her. Then Brek would get pissed. It would be a whole thing.
“I should get you home.” He withdrew his hand and stood.
“You could just let me sleep in your Porsche,” she suggested. “I like your Porsche.”
He could do much better than heated-leather bucket seats. “Do you want to feel the most comfortable mattress in the world?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that your pickup line?”
“Ha. No.” He shook his head and offered her a hand to help her up. “If I were using a pickup line, it wouldn’t involve mattresses. In that case, we’d definitely go for the Porsche.”
“I’m not sleeping in your bed.” Gibson still in her arms, she followed him up the staircase where he swung a right at the chandelier.
“This, from the woman who wanted to drive around Denver naked with me?” he asked.
“Those are two entirely different things. Sports car skinny dipping is entirely different than actually sleeping with you.”
He opened the door to guest bedroom number one. This was the blue room. If the previous owners had a commitment downstairs to gold and white, in this room they went full-in with their commitment to blue. All the shades of blue.
He hated it.
She followed him into the room. Gibson jumped from her arms and, tail high, did a figure-eight through her calves before he moseyed out of the room. “Seriously, Linx. It’s not happening.”
He’d need to work on her faith in him.
Yes, there was a time in his life when he was a playboy. But now he had a cat. He couldn’t just have random women coming over and meeting Gibson. It’d confuse him.
And Becca wasn’t a random woman. She was his friend. She was Brek’s friend. She could totally come see Gibson whenever she wanted, and it had nothing to do with the semi he’d been fighting ever since she showed up at his table earlier that night.
