Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1)(45)

“Hmm?”

“You couldn’t have started in here,” he said. “I’d be disappointed if this was all you got around to.”

“You have quite a stack of mail to sort through,” she replied.

Kaz grinned. “That I do.”

“And your living room looks like a show floor. I suspect you don’t spend much time in it.”

“Busy,” he offered.

Violet took his word for it, but she thought it might be a bit more, too. Like maybe he was too high-strung on any given day to sit down and just enjoy his surroundings. He was probably always on the go, and this apartment was simply the place he stopped to rest and not much else.

“Are my drawers safe?” he asked.

Violet tipped her chin up, defiant and coy. “I’ll never tell.”

“If anything goes missing, I know where to find you.”

His joking tone took away what little anxiety might still have been lingering inside of Violet.

“Aren’t you scared I know all of your secrets now?” she asked.

Kaz shook his head. “Not at all.”

“Let me guess—because you don’t leave them lying around for anyone to find?”

“No, this place is full of surprises to find. It’s got tighter security than even my father’s house. That’s not why at all.”

Violet’s brow furrowed. “Then why?”

“Because the only thing that I’m really concerned with keeping hidden at the moment is standing just a few feet away from me.”

Oh.

She fidgeted with her manicured nails as Kaz finally took a step into the walk-in closet—although it was big enough to be a small bedroom—she suspected that’s exactly what it had been at one time, before he remodeled—and shrugged his jacket off. As he grabbed a garment bag down from the many sections of bars meant for hanging clothes, her gaze was drawn down to the ruddy, smeared stains at the middle of his white shirt.

Violet knew better than to ask, but her mouth worked faster than her brain. “Is that blood?”

Kaz didn’t even look down to see what she was talking about. “Yes, my brother’s.”

She flinched inwardly. “Sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for if you weren’t the one telling lies, remember?”

“I told you that I didn't do that, Kaz.”

“And I believe you,” he murmured. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Violet didn’t quite know how he wanted her to respond, nor how she wanted to, so she chose not to say anything at all. Kaz side-stepped her as he lifted his wrist slightly, and unlinked the cuff of the watch he wore to place it into an empty slot in one of the many turning displays.

As she watched him begin to undo the buttons on his shirt, Violet took a quick breath. She had known the moment that he hadn’t directed his vehicle back toward Manhattan that a suggestion was in the air, hanging silently between them. He had only confirmed it further when he told her she could ask to go home at any time, and he would take her there.

She wasn’t a dumb woman—she heard his unspoken words loud and clear.

Violet figured she had answered them just as clearly, simply by being where she was.

And yet, seeing Kaz readying for the evening like he was done for the day, only seemed to heighten her realization of just how far she had gone with him already tonight.

Violet chewed on her bottom lip.

What was a little farther going to hurt?

He had her so curious—what would feeding it do?

“What?” Kaz asked.

Violet’s gaze jumped up to him. “Pardon?”

“You’ve been staring at my hands for the last two minutes.”

Had she?

“Thinking,” Violet supplied.

It was only then that she realized he hadn’t finished undoing the rest of the buttons on his shirt, and had only gotten through the first two. But since the very top two had already been undone before he began, her eyes were drawn to the barest hint of ink under his shirt that was peeking out.

There was no denying the fact that Kaz was a sight to be seen with his tall, fit form, his darkly handsome features, and an attitude that almost screamed for someone to back off.

Subtly, Kaz tilted his head, still watching her like he could read her mind. That unsettled her just a bit—enough to put her off balance, and nervous under his eye.

“Don’t do that,” he said quietly.

Violet stilled on the spot. “Do what?”

“That—overthink and worry. I wouldn’t take you for the kind of girl who turns shy when a man looks at you. Don’t you know how beautiful you are?”

That was not what she expected him to say.

“I’m not shy,” Violet said.

“Good. Because I lack the couth it takes to make a woman comfortable in her own skin. And I don’t want to, either. You shouldn’t need me to—not looking like you do.”

Well, then …

Violet didn’t feel as unnerved under Kaz’s heavy gaze as he regarded her for a second time, letting his stare wander down her body and back up again. Almost imperceptibly, his gray irises darkened, his lips edged up in one corner, and his tongue snaked out to wet his bottom lip before disappearing again.