Knight

“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 f**k 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 f**k 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 f**kin’ 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.”