Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(89)
“Well,” he said, his eyes full of warm, sleepy desire, “there is one other place.”
“Let me guess.”
He threw the covers back, revealing his burgeoning erection. It was lengthening before her eyes, filling, thickening, the skin growing dusky with blood.
“Just as I suspected,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek. “But if memory serves, I’ve already kissed that boo-boo.”
“True.” His expression turned wide-eyed and innocent. “But now it’s aching again and—”
“Oh, you’re breaking my heart.” She pouted playfully.
“And you can see how eager it is for another kiss.”
When she glanced down, it was to find him fully aroused—which was always an awe-inspiring sight—and bouncing up and down on his flat stomach above the inky black letters of his tattoo. “All right already, you’re making it do that,” she accused him.
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Well, maybe,” he admitted. He smiled seductively and laced his fingers behind his head so she could fully appreciate the show he was putting on for her, but he inadvertently hit the framed photo on the nightstand, knocking it to the floor.
“Here, let me get it,” she said since it had fallen on her side of the bed. She leaned over the mattress and placed it back on the metal and glass table. When she turned back, it was to find Dan’s eyes on the picture. The look on his face was soft and peaceful.
“Who is she?” she asked curiously, staring at the redhead, admiring the woman’s small, compact frame. People always complimented Penni on her tall, lithe build, but they wouldn’t be so appreciative if they were forced to wear her legs for a day while flying coach. Ever since she was a girl, she’d wanted to be short and curvy and—
“My wife,” Dan said, his head cocked, his expression all about the well, duh.
“Pardon me?” she asked, digging a finger in her ear.
“That’s my wife,” he repeated.
The bottom fell out of her stomach. Just gone. And her heart dropped down to take up the void. If her life was a movie, this is the part where the sound of a needle scratching across a record would echo in the background. “Y-you’re married?” She recoiled.
“No,” he assured her, grabbing her arm and keeping her in bed when she would have tossed back the covers and vaulted off the mattress. “I’m widowed…er…widowered.” His frown deepened. “Is that even a word? Whatever.” He waved an impatient hand through the air. “You get the point. But I thought you knew.”
“N-no,” she managed even though her throat was dryer than the Carménère wine her father had liked to drink on Christmas Eve and special occasions.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He made a face and shrugged. “Huh.”
Huh? Huh? That’s what he had to say? She didn’t… She couldn’t… She wasn’t…
Shock. Penni was in shock. And she knew her mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water, but she couldn’t stop herself. Questions formed and dissolved one right after the other. A dull swoosh, swoosh, swoosh sounded between her ears. And was it just her, or had the room halved in size? The walls were closing in, weren’t they?
Finally, one question bloomed to life and retained its shape long enough for her to grab hold of it. “H-how did she die?” she asked, not surprised her voice came out reedy and thin.
Dan’s a widower! He had a wife! She couldn’t believe it! Then again, there was that flash of pain she occasionally saw in his eyes. And she suddenly remembered the conversation they’d had in Kuala Lumpur when he tried to convince her he wasn’t worth her time, when he admitted he was dealing with a bunch of personal stuff and was all f*cked up about it. But he hadn’t expounded beyond that. And she hadn’t pressed.
Oh, why hadn’t she pressed?
Because you didn’t want to know, that’s why. You just wanted to get naked with him.
True, true. Which just proved, once again, that she was a total ass.
“Violently,” he admitted, pulling her from her swirling thoughts. His left eyelid twitched. A muscle in his jaw did the same. There. There was that sadness, that flicker of pain. Her heart ached for the way it caused his beautiful green eyes to darken. “She was gunned down just inside the gates.” He bobbed his chin in the direction of the BKI’s entrance. “It’s a long story that involves a hired thug, some stolen files that incriminated a U.S. senator, and a shoot-out. But basically it comes down to her being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Despite the fact that Penni was reeling, absolutely reeling with the knowledge he’d been married before, that he’d still be married if life and evil men hadn’t interfered and taken his wife—his wife, Christ almighty!—from him, Penni was able to whisper, “I-I’m so sorry, Dan.” Tears of sympathy gathered and burned behind her eyes. She was feeling a gazillion different emotions, but the ones she could identify were compassion and understanding. So she decided to just go with those. “That’s… It’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, rolling in his lips, growing quiet. Then, “But it’s probably not much different than a nineteen-year-old girl losing her father in the crossfire of two rival gangs.”