“Spin? Yeah, Knight. Listen, there’s a blue Corolla parked somewhere on the street, rosary beads and St. Christopher medallion hanging from the rearview. Meter’s gonna run out. Feed it. I’ll get the keys to you to move it into the garage in ten, maybe fifteen. Yeah?” Pause then, “Great. Later.”
Then he put the phone down and went back to his butcher wrapped meat.
I stared.
Knight looked down at meat, declaring, “Shit car, babe. Gotta get you something decent.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my car,” I snapped.
His neck twisted and his eyes came back to me. “Boring.”
“It gets me from point A to point B,” I replied.
“Yeah, but it does it with absolutely zero style.”
Why were we talking about my car?
“You sent Spin or… whoever on a wasted journey. I’m just here to tell you it would make me very happy if I never saw you or your brother again and if I do, it would make me very unhappy in the sense that I would feel the need to phone the police. If you would like to avoid that hassle, I’ll avoid your club and you make sure you and Nick avoid me.”
“Babe, come here.”
Was he high?
“No, I’m leaving,” I fired back.
“You don’t wanna walk away from me.”
My brows shot up. “I don’t?”
“No.”
“Wrong,” I retorted. “I do. Sorry,” I went on then finished, “Good-bye Knight.”
Then, as I heard movers coming back, I turned to round the wall of the kitchen.
I got one step in. Then I was not only in the kitchen but across it, my back pressed to the counter and Knight pressed into me.
I had my hands clenched in the sides of his tee at his waist, my head tipped back, my chest was rising and falling rapidly and I was freaked.
He had movers, right there in the house and he manhandled me.
“Move away,” I whispered mainly because I couldn’t make my voice get louder.
“No,” he whispered back.
Then his hands came up toward my face and I flinched, preparing for anything but they settled cupping my jaws and my squinted eyes opened wide. This was because his touch was gentle and, even freaked out, it could not be denied it was sweet.
And his face was different. Not expressionless. As those vibrant blue eyes moved over my face, there was something working at the backs of them, something I didn’t know him enough to get but something that I knew instinctively boded bad things for me.
“Wars fought over a face like this,” he murmured like he was talking to himself, my heart stopped beating and his thumbs moved lightly across my cheeks. “A man would work himself into the ground for it, go down to his knees to beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it,” his eyes came to mine, “poison his brother to possess a face like this.”
Oh.
My.
God.
“Knight,” I breathed.
“You are not walkin’ away from me.”
“Okay,” I found myself agreeing.
“He made his play for you last night, shoulda known, you on the scene, you’d catch his eye. I heard. I lost it. Was pissed at him, took it out on you. Babe, I get pissed, I do it a lot, that’ll happen.”
“Okay,” I repeated.
“I’ll try to stop it but I know me. There are times I’ll fail. You gotta get it and roll with it.”
“Okay,” I whispered again.
“Now, movers’re almost done. I’m gonna cook. You’re gonna take your coat off and give me your keys so Spinolli can move your car. And you’re gonna drink a glass of wine, eat and spend the afternoon with me.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
He held my face in his hands as he held my eyes.
Then he whispered, “Okay.”
Then my breath left me, my heart, which had finally started beating again, tripped as his hands tipped my face up, his head dipped down and he slid his nose along the side of mine as he continued to hold my eyes captive.
“I’ll kill him, he touches you again,” he murmured.
Oh boy.
“Knight,” I breathed, my fingers clenching tighter in his tee.
“Kill anyone, they touch you.”
Oh God.
I closed my eyes and felt his nose slide back up as a tingle slid up my spine into my scalp then I felt his forehead touch mine right before he released me.
Since he was moving away, I had no choice but to let his shirt go, so I did and opened my eyes.
“Yo!” he called as he walked to the opening to the kitchen. “One of you boys go downstairs, can you take a set of keys to the doorman?”
“No worries,” one of them called back.
Knight turned to me.
I stared at him a beat then took my bag off my shoulder, dug in it and pulled out my keys. I walked to him, he lifted his hand palm up, I dropped them in and his eyes caught mine a second before he turned and disappeared around the wall.
I stood in his kitchen holding my purse wondering what on earth was wrong with me.
Then it came to me.
“Wars fought over a face like this.”
I was trembling, scared now for a different reason, a far more terrifying reason but I didn’t move. I just stood in his kitchen trembling.
Then he reappeared and looked at me.
“Jacket, Anya,” he stated. “Throw it wherever. I gotta see to the steaks then I’ll get you a glass of wine. Make yourself at home.”
Then he went to his meat.
I shakily shrugged off my jacket while walking out of the kitchen.
Okay, all right.
What the heck was I doing?
Okay, all right.
Oh boy.
Shit!
I wandered down to the sunken living room and tossed my jacket and purse on one of the two identical black leather couches that faced each other. Then I wandered across it and up to the area on the other side that was all windows. Then I stood there looking through the clear day to the uninterrupted vista of the Front Range thinking spring was coming. Soon, I could wear flip-flops.
“Where’s Nick gonna go?”
Yep, that was me asking the window.
“Don’t know, don’t care.” Pause then, “Do you?”
“Not really,” I mumbled and considering I was across the grand expanse of his apartment he probably didn’t hear me.
“Out of my place, out of my business,” Knight muttered to himself and I rethought him not hearing me mumbling since I heard him just fine.
I looked from the Front Range to him.