it again,” he growled, tightening his arms around her. He stopped in front of a shining black Benz, and opened the passenger door one handed.
“I don’t remember that, though!” She couldn’t help but laugh as he set inside the car and closed the door, striding around to the other side of the car. When he got in, he turned on the car and glared at her.
“You just want to be punished,” he teased, tugging on a lock of her hair.
Jamie nodded honestly, grabbing his hand. “Punish me, master.”
He visibly tensed before his growl resounded through the car. “You little tease.”
She grinned, and he fell silent while rubbing a thumb over her knuckles and driving. She stared at him, thinking. What would it have been like for them, if they had met under normal circumstances? No violence or threat of death? Maybe their passion for each other wouldn’t be as strong, she thought.
The books she read, where people fell madly in love under the direst situations, came to her mind. It had always been a ‘what if’ to her, about whether it was the situation pulling them together, or their feelings. With Talon, she felt like it was both.
Uncertainty warred in her. He was different around her. That meant something, right? Jamie prayed that it was, and dropped her eyes from his profile. He had on the most relaxed expression she had seen on him, except from their love-making aftermath. Was it because of her?
“What are you thinking about?” he asked her, twining their fingers together as they pulled into an alley, parking. She hid her mild confusion and tried to smile at him.
“Nothing much. Just about our first ‘date’. Have you been on many?” she asked, trying to change the subject. Feeling that she would be disappointed by his response, Jamie was surprised when he shook his head and unlocked the car, taking the keys giving her a solemn look.
“I’ve been on dates, but this is more than that. To me at least. Stay here while I go talk to someone; I’ll be back in a second.” Then he was out of the car and striding from it, from her. She fidgeted with her hands, looking out of the window nervously.
It was dark, closed off, and very ominous. Her gut tightened, waiting for Talon to come back. When it turned to a minute of waiting, then five minutes, she got bored. Bored enough that she was curious about his car. He would kill her if she left the car and roamed into the dark alley after him, so she settled with opening the center counsel and found it mostly empty. A can of Axe -- she snickered -- a couple of papers, and a silver pen.
Jamie closed it and reached forward, to the glove box. It clicked open and a paper fell on the floor, rolling under the seat. She reached down with a sigh, her forehead resting on the airbag compartment as she reached under her seat for the --
Smooth. Cold. Metallic. The breath rushed out of her chest as her hands slid tentatively along the smooth contours of the metal, knowing that with just the wrong movement, it could slice her fingers. Shaking, she found a solid handle with cold leather punched at the end.
She pulled it from under the seat, staring at it.
Did he even know how to use this? Did she even want to know? The intricate blade fell to her lap with a barely audible thump. How many times had he used it? Jamie’s back tingled and her hands fell away from her body, away from the knife that laid with waiting danger.
She swallowed. He had never seemed like the guy to know modern weapons, or to prefer them. She had no doubt that he knew how to use them, but by the looks of the knife... he obviously preferred the old-fashioned way of fighting. He probably fought -- but with what?
Auro and Lyne? Lyne was dead but Auro hadn’t seemed like such a long-term threat that he would have to learn the arts of weapons. She grasped the knife by the handle, curling her fingers around it. How many men -- or things? -- had died by his hands because of this.
Her stomach turning, she shoved it back under the seat just as the door to the car opened.
Talon had on a relaxed expression, not telling her whether he had seen her with the knife or not. She smoothed a hand over her jeans