God's Eye (37 page)

He grinned. “I thought I heard a knock, but I was in the shower.”

She couldn’t help smiling as she righted herself. Dusting her butt just for show, and wondering where that move had come from, she got to her feet and simply said, “I brought dinner and an apology.”

He stepped back and let her pass by. “Neither is necessary. But dinner is appreciated. Just let me get dressed.”

She sighed. Part of her wanted to tell him not to get dressed. But even though he said he didn’t need an apology, she needed to give it. It might even be selfish to do so, but that didn’t change things. So she didn’t stop him from entering his bedroom.

Her head tilted as he opened the door. “Is that a wet vac? Is that what I heard running?”

She pointed at the small red and white contraption on the floor. It sported an arm with a small brush and a water container.

“Yeah, I spilled a drink I had in here. I’m really concerned about the white carpet.” With that, he pulled the door behind him, leaving a small crack that gave her a glimpse of a bed, perfectly made, and a bedside table with a single book and lamp sitting on it. The book looked new, and definitely nonfiction. She wanted to know what it was, but she pulled her eyes away.

As she did, she noticed that he was lying. He couldn’t be really concerned about the white carpet. It was the same as the thick, pale, cream-colored pile she had in her own unit, but with random circles of gray. If he was concerned about the carpet, that concern was as far as it got. Whatever it was wasn’t getting cleaned up well enough, that was certain. Either he or the wet vac wasn’t working up to code there.

But it made her grin. He was such a guy. Her mother had always said that men wanted things to look nice, but wanted other people to make that happen. Something about the missing chromosome or some such.

She turned her attention to the food and wandered through his kitchen, pulling dishes out of their organized places in the cabinets. She checked the dishwasher when the drawers yielded no serving spoons and found it perfectly empty. Oh, well. A zap in the microwave brought the pasta back to life, and while she waited for the machine to ding at her, she rifled through the drawers again looking for a wine bottle opener. No luck there either. She frowned.

“What?” He was right behind her. She hadn’t even felt him come up and her heart kicked a little as his voice startled her.

“No wine bottle opener.”

“Oh, wait, I have one.” He turned and went into the other bedroom, closing the door behind him. She scanned the place. He was definitely a doors-closed kind of guy. He had left the bedroom door peeked a bit, but that was it. In a moment, he emerged from the room, opener in hand, and closed the door behind him.

She reached for it. “I won’t even ask why you had a corkscrew in your bedroom.”

She almost didn’t hear him speaking. The metal was so warm it was nearly hot to the touch. And it was just a basic corkscrew, nothing else. She’d have pegged him for the type to have the latest gadget version. “That’s not a bedroom, it’s the office.”

“Ah. Then I won’t ask why you have a corkscrew in your office.” The opener cooled right off and she pulled the cork from the wine while he set the plates and silverware on the table.

In a few moments, they were eating, and for a second her thoughts turned to the meal Allistair had cooked for her, how much more sensual it had been. Not sensual as in sexual, but as in real enjoyment of everything about the food. But that was the problem. He sucked her in. He made her believe things that weren’t true.
This
was what was real, even if it didn’t taste quite as good. Her sanity was worth it.

They talked about her day a bit, and she told him she’d spent some time at the library doing work research. She managed not to choke on the word
work,
which was the only lie in the sentence. She told him about her new friend, and he looked at her quizzically.

“A librarian, huh?” He sipped at the wine. “That doesn’t really seem like the kind of person you would pick for a friend.”

“I know. But I like her. I think maybe I was picking my friends wrong before.”

“Like me?” He grinned.

“No, not like you.” And there it was. The opening. The new Katharine dove right in. “I wanted to apologize for the way I’ve been acting lately.”

“What do you mean?” His blue eyes glanced at her from the side.

“Disappearing for days at a time, closing the door on you. Not returning calls.”

“You were sick, so I thought it was that. Is there more?”

How should she say it? How
could
she? She had been sick, in a way. “Yes, I was. But I didn’t need to be so rude about it. I’m hardly ever sick. And I don’t think I have been at all since my mother passed away. I was pretty grumpy through the whole thing.”

“Then there’s nothing to apologize for. Next time, I’ll bring you soup.”

She wanted to smile. She wanted to stop here. And he’d be okay with that. But now she wouldn’t be. “There’s something else.”

He leaned back and waited. Katharine couldn’t tell what his expression meant, whether he was waiting for the other shoe to drop or if he thought she was going to apologize for something as silly as being sick again.

She charged in. “When we were first seeing each other, I was seeing someone else, too.”

He nodded. “Is that it?”

She stopped, surprised, then wanted to ask him if he’d been seeing someone else too. Instead, one small word came out of her mouth.

“Yes.”

His smile lit up his face, blue eyes twinkled, and he ran his hand through his blond hair, ruffling it just enough to not be perfect. “I figured as much.”

“You did?” She couldn’t have been more surprised. But then she settled herself back. It would come, the part where he said he was seeing someone else too.

“A beautiful woman like you? Katie, I knew I wasn’t going to just walk in and have you all to myself. I was ready to fight for you.”

Well, then, he knew more about her own life than she did.

When he looked her in the eye, she felt heat spread through her. Leaning in, he formed his next words carefully. “You said you
were
seeing someone. Are you finished with it?”

“Yes.” The word almost felt as if it had been pulled from her. She couldn’t look away.

“And you told him this?”

She nodded.

“So you’re all mine now?” There was no smile on his face, only deep seriousness. His eyes held hers, and the little voice in her head said this was where she wanted to be. And, more importantly, where she needed to be.

“Yes, I’m all yours.”

“Good.”

•  •  •

Allistair was in shock.

Katharine told him she had seen his real face. She had. Several times, in fact. So why was she just now standing up to him? And why was the fight in her so attractive?

He sat on the beach in human form. He could have stood here on the other side of the veil, but he wouldn’t have felt the sand or the wind. The sounds of the waves and the birds would have been something that came to him in pure knowledge, but he wouldn’t have been able to experience them.

Since it seemed his time here was growing short, he wanted to feel all of it. The beach had a smell–the standard saltwater and biology smell, but in Los Angeles it was overlaid with the odor of industry and, where he could afford his beach house, the slight scent of human sweat. It came from the vagrants and street vendors, rollerbladers and skateboarders, and anyone who had been out for a while in the day that was getting just a little too hot. The smell didn’t bother him. It was distinctly human, and somehow, though he wasn’t supposed to, he seemed to enjoy all things human. It was a real shame that humans so rarely did.

He contemplated quitting his job at Light & Geryon, but that thought only lasted a few minutes. He would have no ready human access to Katharine if he quit. Especially now that she had rejected him.

That was still a mystery. Somehow she had wanted him so much one day, then called him out the next.

Zachary was probably responsible somehow. His opponent so often set Allistair up for problems. And it seemed that his bad luck was never just random; no, somehow, though others would lay the trap, Allistair’s failures had always been by his own hand in the end.

With that thought, he changed his mind again. He wouldn’t quit. He’d take a lesson from Katharine and stay in the game. It wasn’t over yet. And he was determined not to lose her. He couldn’t–the stakes were far too high. He would show up at work when she did, stay in the small room with her, get in her face. Anything to convince her that she couldn’t choose Zachary.

As though the thought conjured him, Zachary was there. Behind him. Allistair could sense it, even without turning his human head and looking. He wished he was himself. Humans were vulnerable from the back, and having Zachary there made him nervous. “Yes?”

“She has chosen.”

He felt the heat come around him, and with his extra senses working beyond human borders it was stronger than the wind. But he stayed still. His hand wasn’t played out yet. “She may have decided for herself, but it isn’t over yet.”

“Close enough.”

Allistair closed his eyes; they weren’t necessary. “Did you think I would take her decision to be with you as the final say? That I would turn tail and run? Just quit?”

“Actually, yes.”

He could tell from his tone that Zachary had thought exactly that. And that infuriated him.

He wanted to shimmer through and face Zachary on even ground. He could; he was more than capable. Going back was easy. But he was in the open on the beach. There were at least a hundred people in sight. Humans had rules, and one was that they didn’t just disintegrate, which is how it would appear if he did pass through to the other side. And Zachary had put him in exactly that position. But then again, he had made it easy for his opponent.

He held himself stiff and didn’t respond. Eventually, Zachary left.

But Allistair stayed there, unable to move, unable to anchor the angry thoughts that bounced through his head. He sat there in human form and acted like a human–mad that Zachary had called him coward. And mad that Katharine had rejected him. And even more mad that Zachary might just get her in the end.

•  •  •

Katharine had gotten only a glimpse of Zachary’s place the night before. He’d wanted to stay at her place, but she had wanted to stay with him. Eventually, he relented.

She’d studied his surroundings as much as she could, wanting to know more about the man. But the doors remained closed. His closet, the office. The book by the bedside was new:
Why We Do What We Do: A History of Man.
The book itself didn’t interest her, what interested her was that he thought he should read it.

All through the condo, things were immaculate and sparse. The dishes were stacked neatly in the cupboards–only the few they had used had been loaded in the dishwasher by her own hands. The counters were devoid of any of the normal surface clutter: no toaster in the kitchen, no toothbrush in the bathroom. Aside from the gray patches on the carpet, it was almost as though no one lived there.

But she hadn’t had much time to wander. She was pulled to him, like always. Somehow she just went under each time he kissed her. It was wild and deep, and she always ended up satisfied but tired. She had fallen asleep immediately last night, and dreamed of bumps and heat from all over the unit.

In the morning, he had been gone. There was a note saying that he had an early meeting at work, and that there was milk in the fridge and apples on the counter. Sure enough, when she wandered out, they had been there. But the fridge was otherwise empty, and the apples were the only food available.

Katharine had done a full three-sixty turn in his living room. The door to the office was open, and she peeked inside to see a desk and chair. There was a thin, shiny computer setup and a shelf of sealed paper reams, a few books, and an atlas.

In the bathroom, there had been a toothbrush left out with a note with just her name. She found toothpaste in a drawer alongside another barely used toothbrush and brushed her teeth at his sink. There was a small thrill in being there without him, but she resisted the urge to do any real snooping. It was enough that he trusted her here alone.

Given that she had done a short and thankfully private walk of shame this morning–from his door back to her own unit–she had tucked a spare pair of underwear in her purse before she went out with him tonight. They were going to see a movie, then on to dinner. She intended to stay over with him again.

He kept her talking about the new developments at work, things she found she could only speak briefly about, as she hadn’t been there enough to develop any knowledge of any depth. But soon he had her telling childhood stories in between bites of salmon and risotto.

He fed her a rich custard with blueberries and talked about their future together. It was the first time she could remember him saying that they would be together. That she could be with him … he even hinted at forever, and she knew that this was exactly what it was supposed to be.

He called her Katie and held her close, and she managed to talk him into letting her stay at his place again.

She was curled up beside him, naked and practically comatose, when she felt him jerk upright in the middle of the night.

Still groggy, she must have known deep down that she was with him, because she didn’t startle to immediate wakefulness herself. But that only lasted a moment.

It was Zachary’s low voice she heard as it ground out the words, “Get out.”

And, while she slowly blinked to wakefulness, he came into focus. Sitting naked at the side of the bed, all smooth muscle, he leaned forward and faced what looked like a huge black wolf.