Page 11 of Kiwi Gold
I felt my face flame. I was nearly as bad as Oriana. So I had nipples. Everybody had nipples.Hehad nipples. Modesty’s a hard thing to shake, though, so I said, “Thanks,” and tried not to look at him. It wasn’t easy. He had some light-brown scruff, that perfect kind that is almost a beard but is too neat for that, some dirty-blonde hair cut short at the back and sides but with enough longer bits to fall over his forehead, and that kind of musculature in both biceps and forearms that is …
Well, “cut” is the word, because I could see nearly every surface of that muscle. That was all I could tell, because I wasn’t quite looking. I pulled the tunic over my head, grappled fruitlessly for the arm holes, and felt his hand pulling the garment down. By the time I’d finished, my face was well and truly flushed, and I made an attempt at straightening my hair andreallydidn’t look at him.
“You laughed,” he said, “when I did it. What was that about?” His arms were over his knees, his booted feet crossed, and he seemed completely relaxed, not like a man who was waiting to be chased down and arrested. I smelled his faint scent around me from the tunic, moss and sandalwood and amber, like curling up beside a wood-burner on a rainy day. The fabric was warm from his body and, suddenly, such a shield that it made me want to weep. I had to look away, in fact.
“Wait,” he said, and the tone of his voice was entirely different now. “What’s wrong?”
I stared at my hands. The man would think I was suffering from some sort of dementia. “Nothing. I’m good.” To my horror, my voice quivered on the words.
“Ah,” he said. “Not used to violence, eh.”
“Uh … no,” I said. “That’s not really it. Not used to … somebody—a man—helping like that. Exactly.”
He was still in his black mask, and I wished I could see him and was glad I couldn’t, all at the same time. That edge of danger, striking sparks everywhere. Or maybe that was just my body, because something about that flight, or the shock, or … something, had shaken me up.
“No?” he said. “Didn’t seem like much to me. Tell the truth, I enjoyed it.” He smiled, and I realized with a jolt that his canines were longer than normal, which gave him a sort of … wolf look. More of those hard edges.
You could still hear the music even here, a sort of thrumming beat that wasn’t unpleasant. “Do you rescue women often?” I asked. “Not that I want to be rescued. Doing it on my own now, that’s the idea. Responsible.” I took another breath. “In charge.” Trying out the words, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Not often, no,” he said. “Hardly ever, in fact. Just when it seems necessary.”
He wasn’t touching me, yet I could feel his warmth. I wanted him to take the mask off, and I didn’t want him to. Finally, I was looking at him full-on.
My heart stopped. “You’re hurt.”
“Who, me? Nah.”
“Your cheek.” I put my hand out to the livid red line just under the mask until I was nearly touching it.
Oh, wait. It wasn’t new. I could see the tiny pinpricks where it had been stitched.
“That was before,” he said unnecessarily. I could feel his warm breath against my fingers, and pulled my hand hastily away.
“What was it?” I asked. Car smash, probably. Not afight.
“Bullet,” he said. “But don’t get excited. No heroics. I was running away. So how do you come to be responsible now? In charge?”
I could have said,My husband died.I could just have said Kegan’s name, and that would’ve been enough. Kegan had started becoming known on the national stage when he was still in his teens, and after that, he’d only become more so. At the end, he’d been more than well known. He’d been notorious.
I said, “Because I have to be.”
“Ah,” he said. “That’s generally the way.”
“You sound like you know.” I felt much better with his tunic covering me up. It was cozy here, somehow, the man’s scent of him blending with the smell of ancient wood and something else, like ancient greasepaint and wood dust.
“Nah,” he said. “I told you. These days, I run away.” He said it lightly, but I didn’t think it was light.
“You didn’t run away,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t, it seemed.”
His eyes were on mine, and he wasn’t smiling now. My heart was pounding like it was trying to get out of my chest. I couldn’t breathe. And his own hand came up to touch my face.
A brush of his thumb on my cheek, and that was all. A buzz in my ears. A pounding in my chest. And the look of his mouth, which somehow managed to look so much harder than my own.
The voices came from behind us. Somebody calling, “Check down this way!”
My masked man jumped to his feet, and so did I.
