Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(15)

“Thank you.”

He turned to face her, and suddenly the tiny hallway felt so small, it was like there wasn’t enough air for both of them. She looked up at him like he was Superman and Batman and every other superhero rolled up into one stupid Viking Knight. And that’s when he knew: he had to be careful. He couldn’t get attached to her. He’d have to fight against it because the way she looked at him made him feel invincible—like a hero or a knight or just a genuinely good guy who didn’t just break some *’s leg.

“I want you to know,” he said quickly, gulping softly before continuing, “what I did to that guy? I was mad. But I . . . I’d never hurt you . . . you or your brother.”

She nodded, her expression serene, her voice gentle. “I know that.”

For no good reason he wanted to yell at her, You don’t know that! You don’t know anything about me! You don’t know what I’m capable of. You don’t know what I’ve done. Don’t be so f*cking trusting or you’re going to get hurt!

Feeling a scowl coming on, he looked down at his shoes and muttered, “I didn’t plan for comp’ny tonight, but I’ll see what I’ve got in the fridge.”

“Please don’t go out of your way.”

“No bother,” he said, taking a step to edge past her and head downstairs.

“Colton,” she said.

He stopped, his hip flush with hers, excruciatingly aware of her small, soft body beside him. He was so close to her that he could smell her—laundry detergent and sunshine and kindness and goodness—and he fought the urge to close his eyes and inhale as deeply as possible, to lock away the memory of this lovely girl standing in his home, to tuck it away for another time, when she was long gone and he was all alone again.

Her voice was warm and soft. “‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem like enough, but I don’t know what else to say.”

He remembered the feeling of her small arms embracing him in the parking lot of the motel—the way she pressed her body against his, extinguishing the fire of his fury with her gentle calm. Without a word she had soothed the raging beast inside him, her touch transforming him from a maniac to a man. What powerful magic she wielded inside her small body, and how desperately he craved its peace.

They were both still. Unmoving. Barely breathing, though he could feel the slight movement of her chest beside him as she inhaled and exhaled in shallow breaths. She was so close that his skin prickled with awareness, with longing, with excitement, with overwhelming attraction, and, ultimately, with a cruel warning:

Don’t want what you can’t have, stupid.

“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, brushing past her to head down the stairs.

***

An hour later, Verity and Ryan sat across from Colton at a picnic table on his back patio eating tuna salad sandwiches on hot dog buns with potato chips and pickles on the side. It wasn’t fancy, but Colton had prepared it himself and set the simple table with paper plates, napkins, and three cans of pop. Everything was ready when she and Ryan had finished settling in and come back downstairs.

He was so strange, this unlikely knight who had grudgingly taken them under his wing, helping them get jobs and giving them a place to stay. She hadn’t known him longer than a handful of hours, and he groused and huffed and scowled near constantly. Yet, in his own way, he had saved them many times today, and Verity couldn’t help the warmth she felt toward him. Wait, warmth? No, scratch that. She looked at him across the table and felt her tummy fill with butterflies, making her breathless. Whatever she was feeling, it was far more exciting, more captivating, more intoxicating, than warmth.

No one in her life had really looked out for her. Her mother was forty-six when she’d had Verity, her father fifty-two. Ryan was their main concern, for obvious reasons, and Verity, by and large, was left to fend for herself. She’d spent a lot of time at her friend Elaine’s house growing up. When she and Elaine started budding breasts, it was Elaine’s mother who took the girls to Walmart for training bras. When she got her first period, it was Elaine’s mother who instructed her on how to use a tampon. Her own mother, while sweet-natured, had her hands full with tending to Ryan and the farm. And her father, who’d managed the pecan farm with only Ryan for help, just didn’t have a whole lot of time for his daughter.

It wasn’t an unhappy life, really, but Verity had grown up feeling strangely lonesome. She had a good friend, parents who made sure she had all the basics, and a brother who followed her around like a puppy. But she didn’t have an older brother. Not in the conventional sense. Not in the way her heart had been promised, by virtue of their birth order. Not in the sense of someone who looked after her and protected her and made sure the other boys treated her right. Despite their biological birth order, Verity was the older child in her family, and because of it, she would long for an older sibling for the rest of her life.

So to meet Colton, and for him to help her, to be kind to her, to defend and protect them, and give them a place to stay? He had no idea, of course, but his actions today had inadvertently fulfilled a longing—a visceral need—deep inside Verity’s heart, and it made her attachment to him quicken. He was older by a few years, she guessed, and sexier than any man had a right to be, which meant he was way out of her league, but she couldn’t help the furious fluttering of her heart when she looked at his face across the table.