Page 37 of Love Bank
“Are you kidding me?” His mouth dropped open slightly.
I shook my head slowly, not taking my gaze from his lips. “No. The seagulls are out of control. I had to do something.”
He smiled faintly. “No, I mean you hired a cat named Ethel?”
He paused and I searched my brain for what he could be having an issue with. When I came up with nothing and the moment hung there, he spelled it out.
“Your name is Lucille. You have a cat named Ethel.” He splayed his hands out wide and dipped his head toward me like I was supposed to finish his sentence.
“I-I don’t follow.” This conversation was becoming as confusing as his kiss.
“LikeI Love Lucy? Lucy and Ethel?” He scrunched up his face and even that was attractive.
“Never seen it.”
He sighed and dropped his head. When he picked it back up again, all the twinkle was gone. He’d gone dead serious.
“Listen, I just came over to tell you I’m making it mandatory for out-of-town inmates to leave town directly, no stops in Hell. I can’t do much about the locals who stay a night in my prison, but those aren’t usually the ones causing problems. That’s the best I can do.”
I shifted closer, thinking maybe I heard him wrong. Sounded a lot like he’d agreed to my demands. Which couldn’t possibly be right. Not when I’d made him so mad with my stunt yesterday he’d kissed the hell out of me and then ran down the street tearing the flyers off each of the poles for a straight mile.
“Pardon me, but did you just agree to help me?”
He nodded once, quickly. “Yep, I did.”
I was suddenly at a loss for words, so surprised by his reversal I couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence. That happened frequently around him.
“Well, thank yo—”
“Oh my God, Lucille!” Keva burst through the front lobby door, struggling with a plastic box of some sort in her hands. Her eyes were wide and frantic. “Look what I found sitting in the dirt behind our back wall.”
She turned it around and I got a glimpse of a metal cage door with a huge plastic bag inside filled with what looked like seeds of some sort. I scrunched my nose and investigated at a closer distance. It looked like—
“Is that birdseed in there?” I exclaimed.
I shot straight up, the facts coming together in my head at long last.
I’d been sabotaged.
14
Lucille
I whirled in a self-righteous flurry, pointing my finger at Bain.
“You!”
He looked from the cage to my face, his neck turning red, a neon blinking sign of guilt as far as I was concerned. I advanced on him, shocked and angry, and if I was truly honest, a little bit impressed with his creative shenanigans. I didn’t stop until my fingertip dug into his chest. At that close range, I could smell a hint of that woodsy cologne. My finger itched to travel, to caress, to explore each ripple of muscle I knew he hid behind that uniform. The fury of missed lunches and narrow misses of bird droppings on my head staid my unruly finger.
“What are you talking—”
I interrupted him, too caught up in my fury to let him try to dodge this one. “I know it was you, Bain. You’ve purposely flooded my courtyard with seagulls just to piss me off. Well, guess what, Mighty Hand of Justice. It worked.” I pushed harder and he took a step back, then another, eyes widening the harder I pushed. “But I’m on to you now. That nice little apology? Total bullshit.”
His gaze flicked down to my lips, his contrition quickly turning to the same madness that led to him kissing me.
“I like hearing those lips say curse words,” he whispered, the sound rougher than his beard against my soft skin.
For a hot second, I quit pushing him out the door and leaned in, seduced and entranced, ready to forgive it all if I could just get another taste. His chest flexed beneath my hand and, God help me, I bent my fingers and fondled.
