Page 42 of Just Say (Hell) No
“Oh.” She considered that. “No, I didn’t remember. I mostly saw you. You were impressive. In the photo. Drew the eye. Compositionally.” That explanation still wasn’t quite working, so she moved on. “But let’s consider that. You were the one doing the bashing, eh. Maybe I shouldn’t be sitting here withyou.”
“You’re not sitting here with me. You’re sitting, and I’m standing over you being intimidating.”
“With a kitten on your shoulder? Nah, boy. Not so much.”
He reached up, took the kitten off his shoulder with deliberation, set her on the floor, and came to sit beside her on the bed.
He wasn’t touching her. But she felt him. And she couldn’t get her breath.
“Better?” he asked.
“From an—” Her voice cracked. “Intimidation standpoint? Yeh.”
A muscle moved at the corner of his mouth. “More intimidating, or less?”
“More.”
“Good.”
“You don’t want to intimidate me, though.”
“I wouldn’t have said so. And yet… maybe. Or could be I just want you to notice.”
“You could…” Her mouth was dry. “Assume I’ve noticed. So. Tell me what the bashing was about.”
She couldn’t smell his scent today, the spice and leather of him. She’d been painting too long for that. But she could feel him. His heat, and his color.
He didn’t answer the question. He asked another one. The last one she expected. “When you say I’m red, what does that mean? How do you see that?”
She drew in a breath and tried to get her pulse rate under control. “I don’t… it’s hard to explain. You don’t glow or anything. I’m just… aware. I see you and I think,Red.I feel the color, I guess. Or I sense it. I just know it, like when you touch something lovely and smooth or when it’s something rough and hard. Your brain knows which it is even if you aren’t looking. It’s like… instead of five senses, I have six.”
He wasn’t laughing at her. He was listening. And surely nobody listened with more concentration than Marko. Surely nobody gave off as much energy even when he was still, like when you struck a tuning fork and didn’t just hear the humming tone, you felt the vibration, too.
“What color is Ella?” he asked, which wasn’t what she’d expected.
“Uh… green. Grounded. Whole.”
“Ah. Good, then.”
“Yeh. She is. Both of you are very… real.”
She was staring up at the squared-off lines of his jaw and chin. Three days’ worth of scruff, and the outlaw in full force tonight. His corded forearms and swell of biceps showed dark against a white T-shirt, and his chest was broader and more solid than ever this close up. Or maybe she was just more aware of it.
He raised one of those huge hands. Not fast. Slowly, like he was waiting to see what she did. Or like he couldn’t help it. He drew his fingers along her jaw, then cupped her face, brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, and said, “You can’t see yourself. That’s a pity. But today, you’re orange.” He smiled. “Paint, eh. It suits you.”
One moment, she was staring up at his mouth. Which was very… nice. Firm. Determined. The next, Ella was in the room, then practically backpedaling. “Whoops,” she said. “Sorry.”
Nyree had already jumped up. “No. We were just, ah, talking.” What was shedoing?Two days in, and she was about to kiss him? Disaster. “All done now.”
Ella came back into the room one careful step at a time. “It’s just that I wasn’t sure what to do next. I didn’t want to sponge the color on, chemicals and all, but…”
“No,” Nyree said. “I’ll come do it.” She told Marko, “We’re sponge-painting in my room. Getting some richness into the color.”
Tom had shown up now. He glanced fast between Marko and Nyree, then said, “I’ve done all that orange coat for you, Nyree. Show me how to do the brown, if you like, and I’ll sponge it on and let Ella do her bit with the water. We could finish those three walls, anyway.”
“An even better idea,” Nyree said. “And maybe Marko and I can make dinner. Tell me pizza’s an option,” she said to Marko, trying her best to keep it breezy. “Make my knees weak.’
He was doing his stare that could melt steel again, and she wouldn’t swear that her knees weren’t weak this very second. All he said, though, was, “I can put a couple steaks and some veggies on the barbie. Pizza as a side dish. That would work.”
