Page 25 of Lucky or Knot
I’d grown up in central Washington, with a view of Mount Rainier framed perfectly in my bedroom window. And every damn morning—or about half of them, anyway, given the typical weather—I’d looked outside and had to do a double-take, because the mountain was just so incrediblybigthat you never got used to it.
His eyes were the same. Every time they caught and held me, every time I really looked at him, it startled me all over again that anyone could be so incredibly beautiful.
“I’ll be honest,” I said—with a bit of irony, because I knew I was pulling the same bullshit he usually did, answering a question he hadn’t asked while ignoring the one he had. “I thought about throttling you, and possibly turning you upside down and shaking you to see if that fucking coin fell out of one of your pockets.” That earned me the faintest, palest glimmer of a smile, and my breath caught as I forced myself not to lean in and kiss it off his mouth. “But I really don’t understand how anyone, especially anyone like me, someone who’s stronger thanmost—like, where does that even come from, looking at you and wanting to hurt you?”
Those unbelievable eyelashes swept down as he stared at his hands twisting together in his lap, biting his lip. Rosy heat spread over his cheeks again. Shame, probably. Figured. I knew a lot of strippers, and people in our profession didn’t tend to attract the nicest guys, so I’d seen this before. Somehow, it was never the assholes who knocked their lovers around who were ashamed of themselves, but the opposite.
The wall heating unit chugged into life, humming and clicking, highlighting the bubble of silence between us.
Not surprisingly, I cracked first, because the suspense of waiting for him to speak had started to build up into a crawling sensation in the back of my neck and a twitching in my fingers, and if I didn’t dosomething, I’d have him flat on his back again.
“I know because you have more tells than a ten-dollar-tournament player, and because I’m smarter than I look.”
The fairy glanced up, and all the traces of fear in his face had faded away at last, thank the gods. A small amused smile played around the corners of his mouth.
Shit. I’d really walked into that one.
“Go ahead. Say it,” I told him. “It’s because—”
“—you couldn’t possibly be stupider than you look,” he finished for me, his smile widening and mischief starting to spark again in his eyes. “But you know, within the first minute that I saw you, you fell down on stage. My first impression didn’t indicate, um, how do I put this?”
“Don’t put it at all,” I growled. The impulse to place the blame for that fall where it belonged, on the incredibly distracting fairy who’d caused it, rose up strong. Except that no, I didn’t want to admit that his scent had been enough to short-circuit my brain and motor functions, right? Instead, I chose to ask him something else I’d been mulling over. “And I know youwere fudging the truth when you told me you picked me because I was the first one you noticed. You knew I used The Hammer on stage, which meant you’d already been in the club looking around before I came out, if you heard me get introduced. There were other guys out there and visible before that.”
A minute twitch of an eyebrow told me that hit had landed. Not a big tell, that one, but still enough to get him fleeced at a card table. He really didn’t belong in Vegas.
“So you chose me while I was dancing,” I went on. “Which means you wanted a fucking idiot. So you could cheat me and get away with it. And I really want to know why. What were you doing? What was the point, why me, why this bullshit? I’m not going to go to that motherfucker, and I won’t hurt you. So why not just tell me? Since you welshed on our deal. Pay me by telling me the truth.”
“The truth?” His smile faded away, and I could’ve sworn the light in the room dimmed. “You know, according to my own people’s rules, I really don’t owe you anything. I paid you. And whether or not you believe it, I didn’t steal from you.”
What? That coin hadn’t walked off by itself, that would be…
…That would be…
Part and parcel of an artifact that stank of magic and had been given to me by a fairy.
“It’s the coin, isn’t it?” I said, as realization finally dawned. “This is all about the coin.”
Chapter 9
The ensuing silence told me more than one of his evasive answers would have. He simply gazed up at me, eyes all limpid and wide, plush lips pursed.
“Well?” I prompted him, knowing as I did that I had no leverage at all. I’d already abandoned my blackmail plan. Given that he didn’t seem to experience guilt in any meaningful way, I’d be dependent on his sense of fair play to give me answers.
Ha.
But to my shock, the next words out of his mouth, whispered so quietly that a human wouldn’t have been able to distinguish them, were, “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re what? I mean, yes, you fucking well should be!”
That won me another faint ghost of his pretty smile. “I know. By your morality, I’m a terrible person. Even by my own…” He trailed off, gesturing with one hand as if to say,I really have no fucking idea. As if he was as surprised as I was that he had morality in the first place. Freaking fae. “I wish I’d chosen the very bronzed one in the ridiculous silver underwear.Heprobably isn’t any smarter than he looks. And I might not have regretted involving him in my problems the way I regret doing it to you.” He swallowed hard, the motion of his throat incredibly distracting. “You should go. Stand up, leave, and never think of me again. Take my apology, and go.”
Of all the absurdities that had come out of his mouth.
My laughter rang too loud in the quiet room, and his indignantly raised eyebrows only made me laugh more.
“Sorry,” I managed. “But look. Your thing about your friend you lost a bet with. That was total bullshit, I’m guessing. But I’m also guessing your sample size of alpha shifters is kindof small?”
“There was a bet, a long time ago, but it wasn’t binding. More of a…humans play a game called truth or dare? Something like that.” Truth or dare, only with young fae? The mind boggled. My teenage parties had obviously been a lot tamer. “And yes, it’s limited to—limited,” he bit off, and I winced. Limited to Cunningham. “How did you know?”
