Knight

Chapter Six Something Calm and Nourishing

My eyes opened slowly and I had no clue where I was. I just knew I was supremely comfortable and warm.

Then I saw them. Floor to ceiling windows and the lights of Denver twinkling.

I was on the slouchy, comfortable, gray suede couch in Knight’s whatever room, the one at the end of the hall where he kept his TV and clearly where he did his normal, average, everyday living (if he did that). It was decorated in shades of gray from dove to charcoal but it was far less stylized, decked out for comfort not visual impact. And it was where he led me to wait it out when he got called away for some business he didn’t exactly explain to me.

I saw the enormous plasma TV mounted on the wall was blue screen which meant the DVD Knight loaded for me was done. I’d missed it. With a sleepless night, I’d zonked out.

But I’d done it without the soft, woolen throw on me.

Knight was home and he’d thrown a soft, woolen blanket over me to keep me warm.

Okay, right.

Um…

Crap.

I took in a deep breath, stayed stretched out warm and comfortable on his couch and allowed my mind to sift through our post-lunch activities which were what led me to agree to hang while he saw to what he needed to see to in order for me to be there when he returned.

He had, as agreed, not talked while we ate. He had also provided me with an amazing lunch. It wasn’t just the steak which was, incidentally, by far and away the best piece of meat I’d ever tasted. The baked potato was delicious too. The skin was crunchy and somehow flavored in spices, garlic, Italian herbs, and the inside was fluffy with just the right amount of seasoning, butter and sour cream. It was simple, filling and yummy.

When we’d finished, he’d broken the seal on speaking to tell me to “keep your ass on the stool”. I did this while he picked up our plates, carried them to the sink and casually dropped the cool-as-heck crockery in with a clatter. He left them there without rinsing and moved to refill my wineglass.

Then he’d sauntered out of the kitchen, disappearing around the wall only to return within moments with a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter in his hand. He came direct to me, tagged my wineglass, handed it to me then took my other hand. Gently, he tugged me off my stool and moved toward the doors to the balcony, not going down the steps to the sunken portion but guiding me around the edge.

Even in bare feet and just a tee in the mid-March Colorado chilly air, he walked out, taking me with him. He let me go to shake out a cigarette and light it with flicks and twists of his Zippo. I was not a smoker but, call me crazy, I’d always thought Zippos were cool. Then he dropped the pack and the lighter on the wrought iron table, wrapped his fingers around my elbow and positioned me at the balcony railing.

Then I held my breath as he positioned himself behind me and wrapped an arm around my chest, pulling me back into his front side.

Then he lifted his cigarette and took a drag. I lifted my wine and took a sip.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” I advised after I swallowed.

“Heard that before,” he muttered.

“I bet you have,” I muttered back.

“It bother you?” he asked and I thought about this.

Even though I was a lifelong non-smoker, it didn’t. It was whacked but it reminded me of home. My Dad smoked. So did my aunt. I was used to the smell. As far as my Dad was concerned, it made me nostalgic. As far as my aunt was concerned, it was just the way it was. It was home. Both of them that I had growing up.

“No,” I answered softly but honestly. “It reminds me of home.”

“Your folks smoke?”

“Yeah, my Dad. Then my aunt. She was a chimney. Pack and a half a day.”

I felt his body tense and he asked, “Your aunt?”

“She raised me after my parents died.”

He was silent a moment, the tenseness increasing then his arm loosened around my chest only for his hand to shift me. He shifted too, resting a hip against the railing then his arm around my waist pulled me close to his front, almost touching, as he looked down at me.

“Your folks passed?” he asked quietly, his eyes intent but his face back to blank.

“Yeah, when I was in second grade.”

His eyes slightly narrowed. “Both of them?”

“Carjacking.”

No blankness then. A flash lit his eyes and I heard him draw in a sharp breath.

Then he whispered, “What the fuck?”

“They worked together. No…” I shook my head. “They went to work together. They worked in buildings across from each other so they drove in together. They drove me to school, dropped me off then drove into work together. Witnesses said they were sitting at a red light and some guy with a gun opened Dad’s door. He shot him three times, yanked him out to the street, got in and took off with Mom in the car. Fifteen miles from there, they found my Mom, also shot, in the road. Dad survived the trip to the hospital but died in surgery. Mom took a bullet to the temple. She was gone before he shoved her out of the car.”

His arm left me, his eyes did not, then his hand came to the side of my neck and slid up into my hair as he muttered, “Jesus, fuck, baby.”

I shook my head. “Knight, it’s okay. I know it sounds dramatic but it isn’t. Shit happens all the time to a lot of people. Obviously, they had no idea that they were going to die at the same time so they didn’t make arrangements for what to do with me. My aunt, Mom’s sister, got me and control of their estate, such as it was, and life insurance policies. My uncle, Dad’s brother, lives in Alaska. He went through the motions of trying to get me to take care of me but he worked on a pipeline, wasn’t married and lived in a barracks with a bunch of other guys. Judges didn’t go for that. And my grandmother, Mom’s Mom, was already sick so she was out. She left my grandfather and he went back to Russia because apparently he was a jerk but also he missed home but he didn’t miss his daughters and had nothing to do with them after he left. Dad wasn’t close to his parents. They’d already raised two sons and weren’t hot on having a seven year old to raise so they didn’t try for custody. Still, they were relatively cool and still are, though they live in Arizona now. So my aunt raised me and she, um… smoked. And also, uh… she drank a lot of vodka.”

Knight’s eyes kept mine captive and he asked, “Drank? She gone too?”

“No, she’s very alive. Apparently, if you become one of Satan’s Minions, as a reward, he makes you immune to cancer, heart and liver disease.”

At “Satan’s Minions”, I felt his fingers flex tightly against my scalp but he waited until I was done speaking when he asked, “She didn’t do right by you?”

As an answer, I explained, “I had a job at Arby’s and moved in with three girls, paid rent, slept on a couch for eight months until one of them moved out and I did this two days after I turned eighteen. I still went to high school until I graduated but at eighteen I was g… o… n… e… gone.”

“She didn’t do right by you,” he murmured then twisted his neck and I watched him take a drag from his cigarette and exhale an angry stream of smoke. Then he contemplated the Front Range with an expression on his face that made him look like he was plotting to annihilate it.

“Years ago, Knight,” I said quietly and his eyes again tipped down to me.

“She beat you?” he clipped out.

I shook my head. “No, she’s just not very nice.”

“In Anya Speak what, exactly, does not very nice mean?”

“Anya Speak?”

“You’re playin’ it down, I know that. But I don’t know you enough to know how you’re doin’ it. So I want to know and I want to know it exactly.”

“Knight –” I started and his face dipped to mine even as his hand in my hair pulled me up to him.

“Exactly, babe,” he ordered.

I sighed.

Then I started talking because I didn’t know him very well either but I was getting to know the fact that he tended to find ways to get what he wanted and most of these ways involved extreme levels of bossiness mixed with tenacity.

When I started talking, he shifted away, let me inch back and he smoked while I did it.

“She was just not nice and her not nice got bitchy not nice when she drank a lot which unfortunately was often. We didn’t have a lot and she didn’t have a lot before she took me on and I’m not certain she was smart because she didn’t count on the life insurance policies and the rest of what she got selling our house and stuff running out so fast. But since she blew all that on vodka, smokes, clothes, new furniture, a stereo, a TV, dumping me with my sick Gram and going to Vegas or on a cruise and stuff like that, it was bound to.”

Knight kept smoking as I was speaking but his hand in my hair slid down to my neck and his thumb stroked the skin there.

It felt nice, so nice it was a distraction and to keep my mind off how nice his thumb felt lightly stroking my skin, I kept talking.

“But she wasn’t even nice before the money ran out. I knew I was a drain on her because she told me. I knew she felt she deserved compensation for taking me on because she pretty much made me her slave. I cooked. I cleaned. The minute I could drive I did the grocery shopping. She didn’t do any of that and when I say that I mean never. She sat on her butt and if she wanted a drink, she told me to get it for her, iced tea, occasionally, vodka, mostly. She didn’t help me with my homework, though she probably wasn’t smart enough to help. Didn’t care about my grades. She constantly made remarks about my clothes, my hair. Just being nasty. The minute I could get a job, she made me then she made me buy my own stuff and stopped giving me money, only a roof over my head and feeding me. She was in a bad mood perpetually. Life wasn’t good for her, never was. But if life isn’t good, she’s not the kind of person to find a way to make it that way or at least make it better. Just expected it to be and as time wore on and it didn’t get better, even if she didn’t do anything to improve it, she got more and more pissed.”

Knight kept smoking, watching me, stroking me and I pulled in a breath and continued.

“She had no man or no man who hung around a lazy woman for very long though she blamed that on me too. She said the men in her life dumped her because she had me hanging on her neck. But really, it was just her. And worse, she really loved my Mom. Like, really. It’s jacked but I think the only person in her life she really loved was my Mom. I look like my Mom. She told me that all the time. I reminded my aunt of my Mom and she said more often than not that it sucked I was there and my Mom was not. I’ve thought about it and I always wondered if it was that that made her such a bitch. That she missed my Mom, didn’t know how to deal, had an overabundance of feelings she had to get rid of and didn’t know how and was the kind of person to take that out on me. Whatever. Bottom line, it was no fun so the minute I could, I got out. I never see her anymore. Now she’s just a memory.”

Finished, I stopped talking.

Knight didn’t move, not his body or his eyes away from me.

Then his hand left my neck and he shifted around me to go to the table to put his cigarette out in a clean, cut glass ashtray that was sitting on the wrought iron table. Once done with this errand, his eyes went back to the mountains.

He did all this and did not speak.

I didn’t either but I turned to watch him and kept watching him as he surveyed the Range.

Finally, thinking this was weird, I called, “Knight?”

His eyes instantly came to me.

“I’m taking you to dinner tomorrow night,” he declared and I blinked.

I’d done what he asked, explaining about my aunt exactly and he had no comment.

Jeez, this guy was weird. Hot, but weird.

“I can’t,” I told him. “I have class.”

“Class?” he asked.

“School. Beauty school. I’m getting certification in skin technology.”

“Tuesday,” he stated immediately and I shook my head.

“Clients. Two of them. One at six thirty. One at eight.”

“Clients?”

“I’m already a certified nail technician. Both are acrylics.”

He turned to face me fully and asked, “Why do you take clients on evenings and weekends?”

“Because I work as a file clerk full-time during the day.”

He studied me.

Then he murmured, “Life isn’t good, find a way to make it that way or at least make it better.”

“What?” I asked quietly but I knew what. Those were my own words coming back to me.

“Don’t know shit about this,” he announced. “Do women who do nails need to have a full-time job to cover their asses?”

“Um… no. But I only have a part-time clientele. To rent a station in a salon or whatever and make a living at it, I need a full-time clientele. I’m working to that.”

“Babe, full-time work with school, just pointing out, that’s an impossible feat.”

“I only have a few weeks left on my skin technology certification so I can start taking clients on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday nights. That’ll make it easier. And I can diversify and pick up facial clients too.”

His mouth got tight. Then his eyes went back to the Range.

“Knight?” I called.

His eyes cut back to me. “Schedule you keep, babe, no time for me. Not likin’ that.”

I pressed my lips together because this was kind of true.

“I don’t work Saturday nights and most of Sundays,” I said softly.

“I do work Saturday nights which leaves only Sundays,” he replied then repeated, “So, not likin’ that.”

Jeez. He said he liked me but evidence was suggesting he liked me.

And I liked that.

“You come to the club on Saturday,” he declared. “Bring your girls. I’ll give you a VIP and send a car for you and them. Any friends you got that you want there, I’ll give you Kathleen’s number, she’ll get you the passes you need for them to join you in your section. I’ll spend time with you in the club if I got it but rest up, you’ll be spending time with me after I’m done. I also claim Sunday.”

“I have clients on Sunday morning,” I told him.

“I’ll take you home to take them and I’ll pick you up to spend the rest of Sunday with me.”

Take me home?

This meant he assumed I’d be spending the night with him.

And I liked his assumption.

My heart squeezed.

The cell in Knight’s back pocket rang.

“Give me a second, babe,” he muttered, pulling it out, looking at the display then hitting a button and putting it to his ear. “Yo,” he greeted, paused then there was a semi-growled, “Tell me you’re shittin’ me.” Another pause then an annoyed, “What time is it?” Pause then, “Why the fuck did she wait until nearly two fuckin’ thirty to drag her ass to you?” Silence then, “Jesus, fuck, this bitch is gonna do my fuckin’ head in. Shit for brains. She report he’s a regular?” Pause then, more annoyed, as in far more annoyed, “He’s done it before?” Another pause then, sinisterly quietly, “Oh no. This is a message I’m gonna relay. Got Anya with me. Gonna get her settled and I’ll meet you at the club.” Pause then, “Right. Twenty, maybe thirty. Later.”

He hit a button and his eyes came to me.

“I gotta go do something and I want you to wait here for me.”

“Maybe I should –” I began but he shook his head.

“I want you to wait here for me.”

“Knight –”

“Anya, you aren’t gettin’ this but two weeks ago when you walked into my bedroom to use my phone, the life you been livin’ which isn’t all that good got better. A fuckuva lot better. Because I’m gonna make it that way. And in return, I’m gonna ask very little of you. And right now, all I’m askin’ is for you to hang here until I come home so I can spend more time with you since I’m probably not gonna see you again for another week.”

He was going to make my life better.

Oh God.

Oh my.

Oh crap.

He was right. He already had. Expensive phones. Safe apartment. Saved costs of a taxi. Succulent steaks. My girls enduring a scene and getting VIP vouchers and escorts to their car to try to make it better.

“Shit car, babe. Gotta get you something decent.”

Oh God.

He was thinking of buying me a car!

“Anya?”

My body jolted and my eyes focused on him.

“Knight, I don’t know.”

He was three feet away.

Then he wasn’t, his hands were cupping my jaw again and his face was all I could see.

“Babe, eat what you want, drink what you want, watch TV or a movie and just wait for me. All I’m askin’ is for your time and, when I get back, your company. And I’m tellin’ you I really want you to give it to me,” he said gently.

God, seriously, he liked me.

And I liked how much he liked me.

Because, call me crazy, I liked him.

“Okay,” I agreed.

I watched from close as his eyes smiled.

My heart squeezed and my lips parted.

Then I watched from close as his eyes dropped to my mouth. Then I watched them darken.

At that, my breasts swelled, my knees got weak and my one free hand came up to grab onto the side of his tee at his waist.

“Fuck, wanna take that mouth,” he muttered like he was talking to himself but I heard him since he was right there with me, looking at my mouth, eyes now dark and hungry and that tingle slid up my spine, my neck, radiating over my scalp as another tingle hit a secret place deep inside me.

Okay, right.

Okay, God.

I wanted him to “take” my mouth. I wanted that with every part of me.

My body swayed into his but his hands tensed on my jaw and his eyes moved to mine.

“Not now, baby,” he whispered. “I take your mouth, I wanna give it time and attention and I don’t have the first and, I give it the last, I won’t do what I gotta do.”

That was disappointing. Seriously disappointing.

Even so, I whispered back, “Okay.”

He didn’t let me go, just looked in my eyes.

Then, the pads of his fingers tensing into my skin, in a rough, sexy-as-heck voice that also tingled in a secret place in me, he growled, “Fuck, I cannot fuckin’ wait to have you under me and lookin’ up at me like you’re right now fuckin’ lookin’ at me.”

Okay, right.

Okay, God.

I liked that too.

“Knight –” I breathed.

“Jesus, I’m gonna possess that beauty.”

Oh God.

Another secret tingle.

“Honey,” I whispered as I swayed closer.

“Step away from me, Anya,” he ordered.

“Pardon?”

“Step away from me, baby. Now.”

I looked into his eyes. Then I did what I was told.

His hands fell away but one grabbed mine. Then he took me to his shades of gray, comfy whatever room. Then he loaded up a movie for me. Then he ran a finger across the hip of my jeans, promised me he’d be back soon and he left me.

When he did, I sipped my wine and freaked out. Then I stretched out on his comfy couch while still freaking out and sipping wine. Then I put my wine on the square coffee table in front of me and tried to focus on the movie.

Then, obviously, I fell asleep.

And while I was sleeping, Knight came home and covered me with a soft, warm, woolen throw.

“Two weeks ago when you walked into my bedroom to use my phone, the life you been livin’ which isn’t all that good got better. A fuckuva lot better. Because I’m gonna make it that way.”

I closed my eyes and sighed.

Then I threw off the blanket, pulled myself up and walked across the room to the windows. No sunken portion to this room, all one level. Still, it was awesome.

I stared at the view noting what I’d already noted vaguely. No time, day or night, was Knight’s view bad. Sunshine, Denver and mountains during the day. Moonlight, city lights and midnight-purple mountain shadows at night.

As my eyes unfocused, the twinkling lights of Denver went hazy and I saw me reflected in the windows.

I had good hair. Even Sandrine said she wished she had my hair and her hair was amazing. I also had a lot of it. It was long, past my bra strap at the back. It was shiny even when I didn’t use shine-inducing products. A deep, rich, glossy brunette.

I also lucked out in the skin department. When I was younger, around that time of month, I might get a blemish or two but this stopped in my early twenties. My skin also had the uncanny ability to look good in a rosy, creamy pale way in the winter but I tanned relatively easily in the summer.

And even I liked my eyes. This was because they were my Dad’s and my Mom always used to look in my eyes, smile her sweet smile, and whisper to me in her sing-song way, “When Irish eyes are smiling…” My Dad was Irish and even though neither of them had been to Ireland, both declared with grave authority that the Irish had the most beautiful eyes in the world. And Mom put Dad and my eyes forward as proof and she did this repeatedly.

I couldn’t see them very well in my reflection in the window but I knew they were a light gray with a very thin ring of midnight blue at the edge of the iris. They were set well in my face and with Mom giving me her dark, long lashes and dark, arched brows, even I had to admit my eyes were striking.

I was five seven. I had tits and ass and a slightly rounded tummy that even though I tried to run as often as I could, did ab crunches and stability ball crunches not to mention regular pushups and other stuff , that roundness didn’t go away. My midriff was lean, my waist tiny, I had decent arms, not as toned as Sandrine but they weren’t flabby but that round in my belly always got to me. Vivica told me I worked it, it looked good on me, men totally dug it, especially as it came with my little waist, big ass and breasts. She also told me I’d learn that as time went on and get over hating it.

But that had yet to happen.

Other than that, looking at my reflection and knowing it by heart in my mind’s eyes, still, I was seeing me differently.

I was seeing what Knight saw in me.

People were people and everyone was different. There were as many different tastes and opinions as there were people. And it wasn’t lost on me there were men who liked tits and ass and hair far, far more than they liked super lean and cut.

And, clearly, Knight was one of those.

But it was my face he talked about and standing there, I remembered how Dad used to stop Mom for no reason but to cup her cheek and run his thumb over it as his eyes moved over her face. He did this like he was mesmerized, like he was seeing her for the first time even though he’d had her for years. And he did it always smiling.

And I also remembered how my aunt would get drunk on occasion and wax on and on about my mother’s extreme beauty.

“Coulda had anybody,” she’d slur. “Anybody. A movie star. A millionaire. With one look. That was how beautiful was my Ekateirna.”

It didn’t hit me until right then that even though she talked trash to me often about what I wore, my makeup, my hair, she also told me often I looked just like my Mom. So her giving Mom that compliment meant she was also, even though she didn’t get it, giving it to me.

I had a face that launched a thousand hard-ons. A face men would fight wars for. A face that, a man as aggressively masculine and beautiful as, Knight wanted to possess. So much, he barely knew me but knew he had little time with me and intended to make ways to get as much as he could get.

I watched my hazy reflection in the glass smile a secret smile that was just for me as I felt something calm and nourishing settle deep inside me.

Then I moved out of the room in search of Knight.

The minute I opened the door, I heard Billie Holliday. It was super quiet and I knew that was because he wanted music but he didn’t want it to disturb me.

I smiled my secret smile again but it didn’t curve my lips. It curved in that tranquil, sated place inside me.

I hit the living room-kitchen area and saw the under the counter lights on in the kitchen and one domed light softly illuminating the sunken living room. There was also a tall floor lamp I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the windows on the upper level that was casting a soft glow on the space.

Knight was not to be seen until my scan of the area took in the outside of the balcony and I saw his shadowy frame and the glowing tip of a cigarette.

I moved there and out and saw him turn to me.

He’d put on boots and a black turtleneck. I wondered if it covered Metallica or if Metallica was gone and totally casual, personality-showing Knight was a memory and I had somewhat casual, hot guy club owner in an expensive turtleneck Knight.

“Hey,” I called as I moved across the balcony to him. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

“Here, baby,” he called back softly even as I was going there but when his arm came out I knew he meant he wanted me there as in, in his arm.

I thought about it as I moved the two feet I had left.

Then I did it and his arm curled around my waist and he pulled my lower body into his.

“Business done?” I asked, tipping my head back to look at his face softly illuminated partly by moon and city lights and partly by the lights coming from his apartment.

“Yeah,” he answered then asked, “You sleep last night?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Fuck,” he muttered then got half the reason right, “Nick.”

He was the other half of the reason but I didn’t share this. I didn’t say anything.

He shifted and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray he had resting on the edge of the railing.

Then he came back to me, curving his other arm around me so he held me loosely in both and asked, “What happened to him?”

This question was confusing so I asked back, “Who?”

“Guy who did your parents.”

I sucked in an unexpected breath like he’d struck me with a surprise body blow.

He either didn’t hear it or was focused because he repeated, “What happened to him?”

“He got life,” I whispered.

“No shot at parole?”

I shook my head. Two murdered people who were doing nothing but driving to work. They were the parents of a seven year old and killed by a man who took their car because he was literally on the run from cops. Cops who finally caught up with him because he was wanted for putting his pregnant girlfriend in the hospital because he was pissed she was pregnant. A problem he solved since she lost the baby.

No. No parole.

Knight kept at it. “He livin’ a long one?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“He died in prison, it’s likely cops would let you know.”

“Would they tell my aunt?”

“If he bought it when you were a minor, maybe, expecting her to tell you. Now, no. They did it, they’d find you.”

“Well, I haven’t heard anything.”

He was quiet a moment before he muttered, “No shot at parole, nothin’ to inform you about.”

I suspected this was true but I had no idea. I didn’t think about him. Ever.

And I didn’t want to now either.

“Why are you asking about him?” I asked quietly and his arms gave me a light squeeze.

“Nothin’. Just curious, baby. I’ll shut up about it, yeah?”

I nodded.

Knight asked, “Hungry?”

For some reason I giggled then explained, “Uh… lunch was kinda big.”

“Yeah, babe, but lunch was also six and a half hours ago.”

I blinked up at him.

“Is it that late?”

“Uh… yeah.”

Whoa.

“Maybe I should go home,” I mumbled to his throat and I got another light squeeze.

“No, maybe you should answer my question if you’re hungry.”

Thinking about it and knowing the time, suddenly I was.

“Yeah. But if you make me steaks, I’ll explode.”

I heard his soft, deep chuckle. I also felt it. I’d never done either and I liked both immensely.

Then he told me, “Got a quota, baby, I cook once a week. You got that thrill. I’ll take you out for something.”

A date. In fact, that day had been the longest, weirdest, strangely most comprehensive date in history even though I’d showed at his place to tell him I never wanted to see him again. We’d shared. We’d touched. We’d had profound moments of intensity. He’d cooked for me. I’d napped in his house. And now we were going out to eat together for the first time.

As I thought this, I got another light squeeze and a simple order. “Jacket, Anya.”

I didn’t move but looked into his shadowed face. “Can I drive your car?”

“No,” he denied immediately.

“I’m a good driver.”

“Your ass is next to me, I drive. You wanna borrow it sometime, it’s yours.”

“Knight, I only had one experience but I think I’m actually a better driver than you.”

“This is doubtful, babe, seein’ as I drove drags, sprints and raced streets. My Dad was a fuckin’ race freak, lived it, breathed it, put me behind the wheel of a cart when I was eight and never looked back.”

This explained the “driving since I was twelve” comment though he’d semi-lied since I thought go-carts counted so he’d been driving since he was eight.

I didn’t quibble this fact. Instead I pointed out, “Those race people get in wrecks all the time.”

“When’s the last time you heard of a driver getting in one on a city street?”

He, unfortunately, had a point.

I decided not to tell him that and concede through silence.

He accepted then declared, “I drive. You ride. Not a rule, that’s a law. Get me?”

“What if you’ve had a freak accident and you’ve broken your arm and ankle?” I asked for specifics.

“If that shit happens, I hope to God you’re smart enough to pick up a phone and call an ambulance rather than draggin’ my ass to my car, which would be agony, shoving it in, which would be more agony, and taking me to the hospital.”

Another valid point.

Again I conceded through silence.

Knight’s body started shaking and his voice was too when he asked, “Are we done with this fuckin’ stupid conversation?”

“I guess,” I muttered, still wanting to drive his car.

I got another light squeeze and he dipped his smiling face in mine. “Whenever you want, baby, you can take my ride out. Just say the word. I’ll arrange it. I’m just not gonna be in it with you.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I’m a man,” he answered.

“So?”

“I’ll clarify,” he offered. “I’m a man who does not let my woman or any woman drive when my ass is in the car.”

“That teeters over the edge of macho crazy, Knight,” I informed him.

“Yeah,” he was completely not offended, “Head’s up, babe, get used to that.”

It was then it occurred to me he was pointing out the obvious.

So I conceded not with silence but instead by sharing, “Now, I’m even more hungry.”

I got more of his hard body shaking against mine, I liked it and he reiterated, “Then jacket, babe.”

“Right,” I whispered, pulled away and moved into his apartment to get my jacket and purse.

I met him where he was waiting for me at the top of the three steps in front of the mouth of the hall.

Then he took my hand.

Then he took me to his car.

Then he drove like the ex-speed-racer he was and took me to dinner.

I was laying in bed, feeling my new soft sheets, thinking Knight’s satin ones were probably way softer, staring at my ceiling and thinking that Knight Sebring had claimed me, no doubt about it, but he had yet to kiss me.

Dinner wasn’t good, it was great. He took me to Wynkoop’s and suddenly, somehow, after the day, the nap, me coming to my understanding and our lighthearted, safe and amusing bickering, I was at ease. Knight always seemed at ease even when he was pissed or annoyed. He was just Knight. And I settled into that.

He told me about his race-freak Dad. He told me about his race-widow Mom. He told me they both were still alive and lived in Hawaii. He told me I was right, Slade stayed popular because he closed it down for a month every year after he put out bids to designers to offer their visions of a shit-hot new look, he picked one and went with it. He told me his business that day had to do with a side business that also vaguely linked with the club (though he didn’t fully explain). He told me Nick had always been a pain in the ass fuck up but he’d also, obviously, always been a brother. So Knight put up with it and covered a lot so his parents wouldn’t take any hits from Nick’s asshole behavior and fuck ups but that didn’t make him any less done with it.

I told him about Vivica and Sandrine. I shared detailed specifics of my schedule. I hesitantly and shyly told him about my goal of opening my spa which he watched me weirdly intently the whole time I talked about it rather than just with his usual deep interest. I told him next up in the buying schedule was not a sweet ride but an excellent quality table where I could do my facials. And I shared that the Wynkoop and its beer were one of my top five favorites in Denver on both the restaurant and beer counts.

This was easy conversation with a number of smiles, a few deep chuckles (Knight), a few soft giggles (me). Since we sat on the same side of the booth, more than once, when my sweater drooped down to expose my shoulder, Knight’s finger came up to trial my skin lightly. It was at these times I congratulated myself for my heretofore unknown clairvoyance that wearing that sweater was the very right idea. I did this after he quit touching me and before I pulled the sweater back up. And I pulled it back up because I knew it would droop down again, catching Knight’s attention (because he never missed it, not once) and I’d get his touch back.

It was a game, we both knew it but it was debatable which one of us liked it better.

Then he’d driven me back to his place, parked beside my Corolla that was in his second parking spot and informed me the remote to operate the gate to his garage was on my visor. Then he handed me my keys that he collected from Spinolli while I was sleeping.

Then one of his hands cupped my jaw, his face dipped close and I stopped breathing because I thought he was going to kiss me and I really, really wanted him to.

Instead, he slid his nose along mine in that sweet way he did earlier, holding my eyes locked to the warm intensity of his the entire time. But then, to my extreme disappointment that was so extreme it was almost despair, he lifted his head up half an inch.

Then he whispered, “Call you soon, baby, see you Saturday.”

Then he dropped his hand and moved away.

With no choice but to throw myself at him, which I was not going to do, I just smiled, got in my car and drove off.

He stood with his arms crossed on his chest, the side of thigh resting against the back of his car and watched. I knew this because I saw him in my rearview until I had to take the turning ramp up to the next level.

Now I was in bed wondering why he didn’t kiss me and wishing I’d thrown myself at him.

And also thinking that Saturday was a long, long way away.