One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Five. Ten. Fifteen minutes passed before I lifted my newly drained bones off the bed and submerged them in a shower. Twenty minutes and half a Xanax later, I was dead to the world.
Disco barked as I turned on my side and looked out the window toward the Kemp house before glancing at the clock.
2 a.m.
Unable to handle her yapping, I ripped myself away from the bed and slid on my flip-flops.
I could feel the tension behind the door before I knocked. Seconds later, a T-shirt clad Ian answered with wide, helpless eyes.
“Have you picked her up?” I pushed past him to see Disco in her box in the middle of the living room. “Ian, she can’t see that you’re here and that’s why she’s freaking out!”
“Well, she pisses and shats everywhere!”
“She’s a puppy,” I said, pulling her from her prison. “You have to take her outside every hour or so and reward her when she pees or poops.”
“I’m well aware,” he snapped. “So, you take her.”
“I can’t, I’m allergic,” I said with a mock cough. He crossed his arms as I held the dog toward him. Disco whimpered and scrambled in my grip before she leaped at him. He was forced to catch her and when he did, I could see the delight cover his face. He was reluctantly smitten. He looked over at me with narrowed eyes. “You are conniving.”
“Thank you, I do my best. This is a puppy we are talking about here,” I said, looking at the dog with longing. “Puppy breath, puppy love. Seriously, don’t miss out on this.”
He raised a thick brow and looked down at my camisole top before he averted his eyes without a single tell. Had I gone over there in my skimpiest camisole on purpose?
Absolutely… not.
But my breasts were the elephant that now sat on the puppy at hand.
Disco lay quietly in his grip.
“See, she just needed some love,” I said, feathering her soft fur through my fingers. I leaned down and kissed her forehead before I looked up at a surprisingly close Ian. “Disco needs you, crocky.”
He rolled his eyes as I spotted a large dry erase board behind him.
“What’s this?”
Ian cradled Disco in his arm and stepped in front of me to obstruct my view of the board. “Just something I’m working on.”
I tilted my head. “Why so secretive? I’ve already seen you at war, Marine.”
His lips twitched in amusement. “That was years ago.” His eyes strayed down to his stomach. I saw his disappointment and felt my heart rip slightly at the degrading evaluation he gave himself. So he’d gained a few pounds since his service. No big deal. He’d already lost quite a bit of it in the month he’d been on the island. And I found it admirable that he served at all. Little love handles aside, the man was drop-dead gorgeous. He had to know that. But I wasn’t going to leave it unsaid, I’d been a victim of self-image awareness my whole life. So, what did I do to make sure he knew he still had it?
“Ouch! What in the hell are you doing, woman?”
My hand burned as I lifted my reddened palm away from his firm ass and presented it to him, “Still got it, eh?”
Not my best move, but when Ian Kemp threw his head back and laughed, a wave of pure bliss washed over me.
Ignoring the urge to kiss his prominent Adam’s apple, I shrugged as if I went around slapping men’s asses on a daily basis. I sidestepped him as he kept Disco snug in his arms and looked at the board. There was a list of lecture topics and keynotes.
I nodded toward it in question.
“It’s a course shcedule. I teach.”
“Shcedule?” I grinned, and he grinned back.
“Right, you always had a thing for my accent.”
“Doesn’t every red-blooded American woman? I bet you cleaned up with the ladies very well in Texas.” I gave him a wink and his answering grin didn’t deny it.
My whole body tensed at the sight of his smile. Angry with my horny self, I moved to the defensive. “And your accent has faded a little, what a pity.” He gave me that all-knowing stare again. The one that told me he knew my next words before I spoke them. I walked over to the board and felt his eyes on me.
“I blame Texas.”
“South Africa to Dallas, what in the world made your parents make that move?”
“We went there initially to wait for my brother, the birth mother lived there.”
“Your parents told me a little about him last summer, I forgot his name…?”
“Adam. He’s adopted. My parents and I waited in Dallas for the length of the pregnancy. They got acclimated. I hated it, but we stayed.”
“Too hot?”
“I can handle hot,” he said, looking over the list on the board before he took a step forward with Disco cradled in his free arm and erased one of the notes. “The academics were lacking. I was several levels ahead, and it was all very boring.”
“I remember you griping about not being able to safari on the weekend. No chance of lions invading Dallas then?” He threw his head back at my shitty attempt at his accent. I felt like I was batting a thousand every time I heard that sweet rumble erupt from his chest.
“No, there wasn’t much adventure for me in the concrete jungle.”
“I could say different about where I came from. I suffered from overstimulation. What do you teach?”
“Linguistics and American Sign Language and sometimes I dabble in creative writing.”
“Professor Kemp?” I mused, unable to picture him instructing a classroom. “You went from the Marines to teach?”
“Actually, it was my wife’s doing. My ex-wife, Tara. When we discovered our daughter was deaf, I dabbled in speech, speech pathology, audiology, and linguistics. She pushed me in the direction of teaching. I used to write letters to her when I was stationed overseas. She thought I had a knack for it.”
“So, you started it mostly for your daughter?”
He nodded. “I taught some classes at her school for a few years when she began attending.”
“Sign language is fascinating.”
He nodded thoughtfully and let Disco free. She ran straight toward me and jumped through my feet attacking my flip-flops.
“I agree. I spent years studying the language and the culture. And with Ella’s disability, it seemed a natural progression,” he shrugged.
“None of this is impressive at all,” I said sarcastically.
“Tara was more in tune with the Marine, I think. Her pursuit for me career-wise actually backfired.”
“Did you see yourself in this career?”
“I didn’t see myself as anything. I joined the Marines to buy time to figure it out.”
“And just so happened to finish some of the hardest military training in the world?”
Ian shrugged. “It was either that or go to college for a useless degree.”
“Touché.”
“Pardon?”
“I agree with you. I am a proud owner of one of those useless degrees.”
He winced. “Sorry.”
“I’m not. I’m glad I’m not wasting any more time.” I nodded toward his full erase board. “So, teach me something, professor.”
“This doesn’t interest you.”
“Everything interests me.” I scooped up Disco and took a seat on the corner of his couch. “Were you practicing in here?”
He scrunched his nose as if he smelled something bad. “Practicing? I don’t need practice. This is a list of lectures.”
“Where do you teach now?”
“Nowhere at the moment. I’m hoping for a position at my daughter’s new school.”
“So, teach me, here, in St. Thomas.”
Ian bit his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I know what you’re doing. Did my mother put you up to this?”
“Yes, your mother prodded Disco to whine all night and forced me over here to snoop at your dry erase board. My education awaits, Professor Kemp.”
“And what was your major?”
“I got a master’s in business, got my real estate license, joined a firm and blew a $2 billion deal because I had a panic attack. I should have joined the Marines, it might have made a better woman out of me. Now, teach me something.”
Ian looked down at me skeptically. “It’s late.”