Unfinished Hero 01 Knight (12 page)

“Yeah. I’m that guy ‘cause I need to be that guy,” he stated mysteriously. Then his face dipped to mine again and he talked quieter when he continued, “Straight up, baby, I’m also that guy ‘cause I just
am
that guy. But you’ll learn you got nothin’ to fear from me.”

“You drag me around,” I whispered.

“Yeah, and you follow me.”

“I kind of have no choice,” I pointed out.

His head went back and all traces of amusement left his face when he informed me, “You always have a choice. You didn’t take it. Except once, when you pulled away from me at the elevator.”

This was, casting my mind back, kind of true.

“There were two times that you carried me,” I reminded him.

“And both times you held on.”

Damn. This was true too and not kind of at all.

“I need to ponder this.”

His arm tightened, a gorgeous smile spread on his equally gorgeous face and it was at both that I realized I said that out loud.

Then a buzzer sounded in the kitchen.

“Right, then do it eatin’ a steak. I’m hungry,” he ordered, let me go and sauntered toward the kitchen.

I stood, watched him move and took a sip of my wine.

Then I found my feet following him.

When I arrived, he was pulling out the grill pan in order to flip the meat.

“Can I help?” I offered.

“Yeah, grab some placemats. Drawers this side of the bar,” he took me up on my offer as he slid the grill pan back in the oven.

“You have placemats?”

He straightened and looked at me.

“Yeah. Why?”

“A man who wears a Metallica tee doesn’t have placemats,” I informed him and his lips twitched again.

“Yeah, you’re right, unless he’s also a man who hired a bossy bitch who seriously likes to spend money to kit out his new condo.
That
man owns placemats.”

My eyes swept the kitchen with its black KitchenAid appliances, counter appliances and the hooks under the counter where the shiny, expensive-looking cooking utensils hung. It had a black on black theme with black marble countertops, shiny black cupboards and even black tiles on the floor.

Then my eyes kept moving through the living room with its stream-lined couches, low, glass-topped coffee table and large, tall, chrome, curved lamps at kitty-corners with their domed, white shades drooping over the area. All this sitting on a charcoal gray rug that looked like a huge, square piece of fluffy fur.

Then my eyes moved over the low chest at the top situated against the wall that had three black, huge, glossy bowls on top that were wicked cool but held nothing. Then my eyes took in the heavily-framed print on the wall above it that looked like a lot of gray and black splotches and strokes that depicted nothing and made me feel less. And last, there was another state-of-the art, expensively designed CD player mounted on the wall.

It was all spare, colorless but dead cool.

I looked back at Knight. “So this woman bought everything?”

He was pulling down glossy black plates from a cupboard as he answered, “Asked my favorite color, that was it. Then she bought everything.”

“Let me guess, you told her your favorite color was black.”

His eyes came to me and his lips twitched.

Again!

“No, I said it was red.”

I stared at him.

Then it was
me
who burst out laughing.

Through my laughter I asked, “Seriously?”

“No fuckin’ joke,” he put the plates on the bar and opened a drawer as I moved to open and close two before I found and grabbed two black, cloth placemats. “Jacked. I was away on business, came back, this is what I got. Not a hint of red in the place. Not a hint of
anything.
”

I set the placemats by the stools on the other side of the bar and asked, “Did she do your bedroom?”

“Yeah.”

“So you don’t like satin sheets?”

His eyes came to me, there was something in them that made me go still but he answered, “Took one look at them, nearly lost my mind. Luckily, she wasn’t around. Slept on ‘em one night, would never sleep on anything else. Not at home.”

“So they’re nice,” I whispered.

“Fuck yeah,” he whispered back.

We stared at each other a beat as I felt his two words hit me in a very secret place.

Then Knight’s eyes moved over my face before they caught mine and he said quietly, “Think it’s a good idea we quit talkin’ about my sheets.”

I nodded because I agreed.

Definitely.

He put cutlery on the counter and ordered, “Arrange that shit and park your ass on a stool, babe. I’ll serve this up.”

I grabbed the cutlery, shifted around the other side and arranged it on the placemats as Knight worked in the kitchen. Then I parked my ass on a stool, sipped wine and watched.

He was cutting open steaming baked potatoes when I noted, “You explained the car. How do you know my last name?”

“What?” he asked, buttering the potatoes.

“The doorman knew my last name. I can only assume you told him.”

His glanced at me then went back to the potatoes, now grinding pepper over them. “Nick told me.”

I felt my brow furrow. “Nick knows my last name?”

He put the pepper aside and grabbed some maldon salt out of a small black bowl and tossed it on the spuds. “Day after I ripped him a new asshole about the party, he asked who I took home. I told him your first name then he said, ‘Anya Gage?’ and since you’re probably the only Anya in Denver and definitely the only Anya at that party, I guessed. So, yeah, Nick told me.”

“How did Nick know?” I asked.

“No clue,” he muttered, moving to the fridge.

I didn’t like that.

“I don’t know if I like that. I never told him my name.”

Carrying a tub of sour cream, Knight’s eyes cut to me. “Your girl?”

That could be.

“Maybe,” I muttered.

“Speakin’ of her,” he started, reaching into a drawer to grab a spoon, “she needs to tone it down.”

“What?”

He glopped big spoonfuls of sour cream on the potatoes and then his eyes came to me. “You gotta advise her to tone it down. Seen her at my club more than once though never with you. She’s on the hunt. Makes men edgy. Makes her vulnerable. She’ll do what she’s gotta do to get what she wants and they know it. They also know what she wants. She opens it up right off the bat, they take what they want, throw the rest back and they throw the rest back because she gives the vibe they let her in even a little bit, she’ll suck ‘em dry. She needs to watch you, make your moves.”

“My moves?” I asked as he set the sour cream aside and went for the oven door.

“Yeah,” he answered, sliding out the grill pan.

“What are my moves?”

He answered as he put the thick, fillet steaks on the plates.

“The girl in the corner, surveying the scene, playing it cool. You don’t go to them. They come to you if they got the balls to do it which, my guess, they rarely do because they can’t hack not cuttin’ it and losin’ the promise of you. You’re the girl you take out to dinner. Get the good champagne. You pay her attention. Buy her some shit that softens her up and makes her happy. Then you hope all that sweet turns wild when you get her in bed.”

He saw me in the corner?

And he thought all that other stuff about me?

My throat felt clogged but I forced out, “Excuse me?”

His eyes came to me, brows raised. “Am I wrong?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately.

“Bullshit,” he muttered then went back to the fridge.

“Uh… Knight, I would know and you are.”

He didn’t answer. He just came back with a bowl of salad.

Then it hit me.

“Is this you paying me attention, softening me up in order to get me to bed?” I asked.

“You’ll be in my bed, Anya,” he told the plates as he mounded salad on them.

After the brief satin sheets discussion, I wanted to be.

Now.

Not so much.

“Sure of yourself,” I muttered, he turned with both plates and dropped them on the placemats.

Then he put both hands out wide, palms flat on the counter and leveled his eyes to me.

“One thing we got left that we gotta know is covered is that you suit me in bed. That happens, babe, you know there’s gonna be a you and me. Where that goes, anyone’s guess, but however it goes, there’ll be a you and me.”

Right, now he was a gorgeous, scary, psychopath who was genius at throwing out compliments however they came and unbelievably arrogant.

“What I know is I’m going to set a record for the fastest steak consumption in history and then I’m gonna get out of here.”

One side of his mouth curved up, his eyes warmed and he turned back to the fridge.

Then he came back with a couple bottles of salad dressing, dropped them on the counter in front of me then rounded it and took the stool beside me.

I grabbed the ranch and started pouring.

“Babe, you need to take my point,” Knight said quietly.

“Which one?” I asked cuttingly, spearing into my salad with my fork.

“Call down your girl. She needs to cool it. She doesn’t, she’ll get hurt and that hurt can come a lot of different ways.”

“I think last night your brother taught her that lesson,” I informed him and shoved salad in my mouth.

Knight didn’t reply.

I chewed, swallowed and speared more salad as I went on, “And, right now, you’re teaching me a different one.”

Suddenly, his hand was wrapped around the back of my neck and my eyes weren’t on my plate. They were on his because he’d pulled me to him twisting.

“Don’t fight this,” he warned.

“I’ve decided there’s no
this
to fight,” I returned.

“You’re terrified of me and you walked in here yourself. No one dragged you here. You brought no one to take your back. No one made you stay. Don’t try to bullshit me or yourself about the fact that you don’t wanna explore this with me. You want it or you wouldn’t be here. I get you fighting it. I’m just tellin’ you, you are not gonna win.”

“You don’t know that,” I told him.

“Yeah, I do because you’re sittin’ right here with me.”

“And I can walk away.”

“Yeah, you can do that but you’re not going to and I know this because you came in the first place. And I also know this because when we were talkin’ about my sheets, your face told me you wanted to know what I could do to you on them and no matter what your head tries to fuck you with, you’re not gonna be able to stop until you find out.”

“I’m not certain I like you.”

“You don’t need to like me to let me fuck you but since I like you, I’d prefer it that way.”

I stared at him feeling my belly curl despite being pissed at him.

Then I whispered, “You like me?”

His eyes again moved over my face before locking on mine and he whispered back, “Babe, you apologized for bein’ in my bedroom and you meant it. In one day, you returned a phone that cost a G and you did it with all its packaging. You thanked me for roughin’ up your landlord. And you made me laugh. And this doesn’t get into how much I like lookin’ at you. So, yeah, I fuckin’ like you and I do because you are the only woman I’ve met in over a decade who’d do any of that shit.”

I liked that. I liked a lot of things about him. I also disliked a lot of things about him. And there was so much coming at me, I could keep track of which was winning out.

“I find all of this very confusing,” I admitted cautiously.

“You get in my bed, I’ll sort you out.”

Seriously?

Something for the dislike side.

“You’re that good?” I asked with mild sarcasm but he pulled me closer so my face was an inch from his.

“Yeah, I am, baby. I will take care of you there in all the ways you need me to do it. That I can guarantee.”

I could feel my heart beating in my neck as I looked into his super serious eyes.

Call me crazy but his confidence and the words that went with it which pretty much promised he’d look out for my needs was definitely on the like side.

Time to shut this down.

So I blurted, “I’ve decided I’m hungry.”

His eyes went from serious to warm again. When they did that last I wasn’t up close to get the full impact and having it, I wished I didn’t at the same time I memorized that look and the feeling it gave me.

Then he said gently, “Then I better let my baby eat.”

“That’d be good,” I replied quietly. “But can we do it without talking? Most the time you talk, it freaks me out.”

It was then his eyes lit with humor close up and that was even better.

“Works for me,” he muttered then, “You cut into that steak and taste it, you won’t be talkin’ anyway. You’ll be shoveling more in.”