Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale) (11 page)

“You’d like full-time care for Ryan? Like . . . in a group home?”

“No!” She cringed. “I’d
never
put him in a . . . a
home
. Never.”

“Wait. That’s not what I—”

“No, Colton. No way in hell.”

She shook her head, more and more emphatically, remembering the place she and her mother had looked at three towns over from Camilla after her father died. State-run and affordable, but filthy and outdated. Chipped light blue paint on cement block walls. Men like Ryan, zoned out, staring out barred windows while a game show blared in the background. No way. Not while she had breath in her body would Ryan end up somewhere like that. And honestly? It really bothered her that Colton even suggested it. He couldn’t possibly know what he was talking about, so it would have been better for him not to chime in.

“Verity, I’m talking about a
nice
place where he can live with—”

“
Nice
?” she said, drawing back her feet and sitting up primly. “Places like that don’t exist.”

“Of course they do.”

“You’re
talking
about locking up my brother like . . . like an animal, like a burden, like—”

“No. I would
never
suggest that. I just think—”

“Think
what
? What do
you
know about it anyway?” she snapped.

Instantly remorseful, she bit her upper lip, chagrined by her meanness when Colton had been nothing but kind. When she looked up at him, she rubbed her forehead and tried to soften her expression. “Hot button.” She took a ragged breath and sighed, trying for a small, conciliatory smile. “New subject?”

Though it looked like he had more to say, he nodded.

“Sorry, again,” she said softly.

He shrugged like her outburst didn’t bother him. “It’s okay.”

A small, awkward silence stretched out between them for a few minutes before he asked, “What else do
you
want? For you, not your brother.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, cutting another piece of meat and feeling relieved that he was trying to get their conversation back on track. “More steak.”

“Steak?” His grin returned—small but still there—and it made her happy, made it easier to put their patch of unpleasant conversation behind.

“I love it when you smile.”

“Only two people in the world make me smile, you know.”

She cocked her head to the side, trying to decide if he was being serious. “I’m one?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And who else?”

“Melody.”

Her heart lurched, but she worked to keep her voice even. “Who’s that?”

Colton took a sip of wine. “Remember before? The family member I mentioned who has seizures?”

“That’s Melody?”

His smile faded a little. “My cousin.”

“Your cousin,” said Verity, laying her fork and knife on her almost-empty plate and pushing it aside. She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, closer to him. “I’m staying in her room, right?”

He nodded.

“How old is she?”

“Four years younger than me,” he said. “Twenty-four.”

“Same as me. And her parents?”

“My aunt and uncle passed away.”

“I’m sorry,” said Verity. “She has epilepsy?”

He stared at her hard for a moment. “She has seizures, yes.”

“Before, when you mentioned a family member who’d had a seizure, I just assumed that she was older. Like a grandmother.”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Are you close to her?”

He dropped her eyes, taking another sip of his wine. “Yeah. We don’t have any other family around here.”

“Is she married? Any kids?”

“No. And no.” Colton looked up at her, his expression unreadable. His next question made it clear that he wanted the conversation to move on from Melody. “What else do you want?”

“I want to see one of your tattoos,” she said softly.

In the soft light cast by the twinkle lights overhead, he took his lower lip between his teeth and grinned at her, his eyes just about twinkling too.

“What if I told you they’re all in inappropriate places?”

She lowered her chin and leaned closer.

“I’d ask how many you have.”

“Three.”

She let her eyes dip to his lap, then slowly trail up the crisp white front of his dress shirt, pausing at his throat, again at his lips, and lingering on his eyes.

“I’d say you’re big, but I’m not sure there’s enough real estate on the inappropriate places for three tattoos.”

His grin widened. “You haven’t seen my inappropriate places, baby.”

She chuckled softly, shaking her head. “That’s true.”

A new current of awareness snapped and sizzled between them. Tension. Attraction. Want. Need.

Suddenly he stood up and stepped over the bench he’d been sitting on. He backed up until he was standing at the edge of the patio with his hands on his hips, facing her, in full view.

“You really want to see one?” he asked.

“I do.”

His hands slid from his hips to his belt buckle, which drew her eyes to his crotch. Behind the denim of his jeans, she thought she saw the outline of a fairly significant bulge, but it was hard to tell in the twilight shadows. Still . . . her mouth watered. He cleared his throat, and she jerked her eyes up to meet his.

“See anything you like?” he asked, his voice hot and low.

“Maybe,” she said, feeling her cheeks flush with heat. Lord, but he knew how to fluster her with a few words. “But if showing me a tattoo means taking off your belt, I’m not sure I’m ready to see it quite yet.”

Did she want him to make a move on her? Yes. The memory of his hot lips trailing across the sensitive skin of her throat and shoulders was recent enough to make her sigh. But was she ready to have
sex
? Her body would say yes . . . but her head knew that it would be smarter to wait a little longer. After all, if things went south between them, she was living with him. It would make things monumentally incredibly awkward while she looked for a new place.

Best tread carefully, Verity.

Holding her eyes, he nodded slowly before turning around and presenting her with a perfect view of his gorgeous ass.

You could bounce a quarter off that piece of heaven
, she thought, cupping her chin in wonderment.

He peeked at her from behind his shoulder. “You ready?”

“For what?” she asked, smiling at him.

She half expected him to drop his pants, but instead he reached behind and grabbed two handfuls of his shirt, tugging the tail from his jeans. Pulling the shirt over his head, he left the arms on and held the bunched-up shirt in front of his face. His back was a sculpted work of art on its own, and her eyes hungrily traced the indent of his spine and the ripples of symmetrical muscle from the waistband of his jeans to his neck.

And there, on his upper back, from one shoulder to the other and centered between the blades was another tribal tattoo, as bold and black as the one on his foot . . . and strangely familiar to her.

When Verity was a little girl, her mother had shown her the Disney movie
Sleeping Beauty
, but unlike other little girls, who probably loved the scenes with the fairies and the princess, Verity had loved a scene at the end, starring Prince Phillip, in which he escapes from the Forbidden Mountain, riding his white steed to Aurora’s side. But Maleficent uses her staff to hurl lightning bolts at the castle, each bolt raising a thick, pitch-black vine of thorns. To get to Aurora, Phillip must hack his way through the thorns with his sword. And he does. And then he slays a dragon.

Staring at Colton’s tattoo, she suddenly knew where she’d seen it before: it looked exactly like Maleficent’s thorn vines, the sharp points deadly but beautiful across his tan, muscular back.

“Why did you choose it?” she asked.

He shrugged, turned around and let his shirt fall, but not before she got a quick glimpse at his equally muscular chest and abdomen.
Now who was trying to kill whom?
she wondered, resisting the urge to sigh.

“I know it’s a tribal design,” she said. “But to me, it looks like a vine of thorns.”

He sat back down at the table and reached for one pink rose. Lifting it to his nose, he breathed deeply before tearing off two thorns and handing it to her.

“Do you have a rose tattoo somewhere?” she asked, taking the flower from him.

“No,” he said, staring at her across the table. “I only have the thorns.”

His words were infused with double meaning, but she didn’t push him to explain. Lifting her glass to her lips, she finished the last of her wine.

“Thank you for dinner.”

“You’re welcome.” He picked up the box that had sat beside the flowers on the table all evening. He opened it and took out the necklace. “This is for you.”

She pushed the vase of flowers between them gently to the side and leaned over the table. “Put it on for me?”

He unclasped it, drew it around her neck and fastened it in the back, letting his fingers brush her hot, sensitive skin before sitting back and staring at it nestled in the small valley between her breasts.

“It looks good,” he said, his voice thick.

She fingered it gently. “I love it.”

“Good.”

“Next time, I’ll cook.”
Damn it. Too forward
. “I mean, if there is a—”

“I hope there’s a next time,” he said smoothly.

“Me too.”

“I have a show tomorrow night, two on Saturday, and the matinee on Sunday. Any chance you want to watch a movie with me on Sunday night? After the show?”

“Here?”

He nodded.

“You know, I’ve never noticed a TV anywhere.”

“That’s because there’s only one. It’s in my room.”

Oh.
Ohhhhhh
. “Um . . .”

He read her mind and grinned. “A
movie
, Verity. I’m not going to jump your bones.” He picked up his wineglass and finished the rest of his Merlot. “Unless you ask me to.”

The way he said it was at once adorable and provocative, and made her smile as her breath caught. “We’ll see . . .”

“Yes, we will.”

She stood up, looking down at the table—at their empty plates and wineglasses, the vase of flowers, the still-starched linens. “Let me help you bring some of this inside.”

He shook his head. “Nope. This was my show. I’ll take care of striking it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” He stood up. “But I’ll walk you to the stairs like a good date.”

“Okay,” she said, her heart beating a mad rhythm as she walked over to the steps that led to the kitchen. She climbed them without looking back, but as she opened the kitchen door, his arm reached over her shoulder to hold it, and her eyes slid to the vein that wound around his muscular arm like a vine. She imagined tracing it with her tongue, and a shiver sailed down her spine as he followed her through the little kitchen into the dark living room. At the foot of the stairs, she stopped and turned around to look at him.

“Thank you for having dinner with me tonight,” he whispered.

She nodded, too nervous, too hopeful, to form words.

Kiss me. Oh God, Colton, please kiss me.

In the moonlight streaming through the living room windows, she saw his jaw clench and his eyes narrow like it hurt to look at her. “You could do better than me, Verity.”

She shook her head as she took a step toward him, closing the distance between them. With every shallow breath her breasts brushed his chest, making her nipples pebble into tight points. She tilted her head back to look up at him and reached for his face, tenderly cupping his tight jaw between her palms. “Even if that’s true, it’s too late. I told you . . . I already like
you
.”

His arms clamped around her waist, his eyes searching hers fiercely as he pulled her hard against the wall of his body.

“If you don’t want this, say so. Say it now.” A lethal growl. “Say it.”

She stared up at him and said nothing. And then, as her heart fluttered like a wild thing behind her ribs, she deliberately parted her lips and licked them.

Like a starving man suddenly offered a buffet, his mouth came down hard and hungry on hers, one hand sliding up her back, his fingers plunging and threading through her hair to pull back her head. His other arm held her small body tightly to his massive, muscular form—so tightly, she could feel the rigid bulge of his erection against her belly and the rapid swell of his lungs as he devoured her lips.

Her fingers curled, her nails flexing into his cheeks, demanding his closeness. As his lips moved harder on hers, she kissed him back with a welling, rising frenzy of lust that rolled through her body like thunder, heating her up like fever. Low, desperate moans of want, of greed, of inviolable fucking need to meet her deprivation, rose up from the base of her throat, and he groaned in response, backing her up against the wall behind her and wedging his knee between her legs.