Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale) (4 page)

Straightening in her seat, she faced forward again, looking at their new friend askance, and checking out his profile while he drove in silence. As she had observed when they first met, his face wasn’t conventionally handsome. His features were too blunt to be beautiful. His nose had likely been broken a time or two—it wasn’t straight, and it was slightly thicker on the right side. Square and strong, his chin jutted out a little like it dared another man to take a swing at it, and there were several scars on his face: a diagonal slash across his chin and another one, more pronounced and crescent-shaped, on his forehead over his left eye. His hair was dirty blond and shoulder-length, and there was a scruff of blond growth on his jaw. As for his eyes, they were deeply set and hooded, which made them look suspicious, though she’d seen them soften once or twice, which had made her belly tighten with an unexplained yearning.

Her eyes slipped down to the thick muscle of his neck, then lower, to his chest, which was hidden behind a tight gray T-shirt that allowed the contours of his body to be imagined if not seen. He was rippled with muscle tone—with ridges that could be easily counted. Her eyes trailed over the tanned skin of his bare arms, lingering on the veins twisting around his forearm and down to his hands. They were as big as Ryan’s, but toned and rugged, the bones pronounced and angular under the skin. Her mother would have called them farmer’s hands, which they were, she supposed, since he worked with horses every day. She imagined those rough hands tangled in a leather strap, then she imagined them spanning her waist, his fingers like sandpaper against her naked skin.

She gulped, flicking her glance lower, to take in the hard lines of his hips and thighs in faded denim. Her cheeks flushed, leaving her grateful that the Atlanta heat had already colored them red. No doubt
every
muscle in his body was just as huge, hard, and toned as the rest of him, a thought that made her mouth grow dry as the long-ignored muscles in her
own
core—

“Where exactly do you live?”

She jerked her eyes from his crotch, beyond thankful that he was still looking out the windshield and hoping that he’d missed the way she’d just been ogling his beautiful body.

“Oh, uh, we’re, uh, staying at a place on . . . Glenellen?” she squeaked, grimacing at her breathlessness. When he didn’t respond, she added, “Exit 44 off of I-285.”

“Got it.”

She took one last wistful glance at his face before shifting her body to face front. “So . . . I guess we’ll be working together.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Have you worked there long? At
The Legend of Camelot
?”

His eyes narrowed as he answered. “Few years.”

“So you like it,” she said brightly.

“Didn’t say that.”

“So you don’t?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

He stopped at a red light and glanced over at her, his face expressionless but hard. “It’s a paycheck.”

She searched his eyes. She knew too much of their kindness to believe that they were truly as unfeeling as he wanted them to appear. “Is there anything you really
like
about it?”

He dropped her eyes and shrugged, his broad, thick shoulders holding for a moment before lowering.

Was that a no? A maybe? A fuck off and leave me alone? She sighed softly, rubbing her arms and wondering if he was going to answer her verbally or if a shrug was all she’d get.

He turned onto I-20 headed east and reached for the air-conditioning knob, turning it down a little.

“My horse,” he said softly, like he wasn’t used to giving words away. He paused before adding, “And the gym, I guess.”

She felt relieved to hear his voice, to know that he wasn’t just ignoring her, and she slowed down the pace of her expectations to accommodate him. Colton Lane wasn’t a chatterbox, clearly, but that was okay.
Could be
okay if she slowed down too.

“You have your own horse?” she asked, anxious to keep him talking.

He nodded. “Thor. You know . . .”

“Because you’re the Viking Knight,” she said, grinning at him. And—
oh my God!
—was it just her imagination or did his jaw twitch with a touch of merriment?

“Yeah,” he said, his face setting quickly back to stone.

“And there’s a gym? At the theater?”

“Rule one,” he said, giving her a dry look before turning back to the highway. “It’s not a theater. It’s a castle.”

“Um—”

“I’m not an actor. I’m a Viking Knight,” he continued, salt in his tone. “And you don’t work in a gift shop. You’re a merchant.”

“A . . . merchant.”

He nodded. “They’ll cook up a whole backstory for you unless you come with one prepared tomorrow. I suggest the latter. I’ve experienced the former.”

This was intriguing. “Why? What’s
your
backstory?”

“That I’m originally from Sweden, descended from Vikings.”

“What else?”

“That I was arrested for street fighting in Stockholm and sent to America to live with my grandparents.”

“And then . . .?”

“I got into trouble here.”

“Arrested?”

He scoffed. “Many times.”

“A real bad boy.”

“Apparently.”

She grinned at him. “How did you find your way to Camelot?”

He slid his eyes to her, nailing her with a dark look. “A woman.”

She felt the heat start in her core, low in her belly, spreading out to warm her pelvis and breasts, her thighs and neck, until all of her felt tingly and hot. From a look. Oh Lord. From Just. One. Look.

She gulped, her voice breathless. “And then?”

“
Backstory
, remember?” He scoffed softly, looking away. “It’s just a story.”

“So, what’s your
real
story? I mean, is any of your Viking Knight backstory true?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “What do
you
think?”

He was blond and gray-eyed: Swedish was as good a guess as any. His face was rough. So was his voice. And his body seemed almost built for fighting. A bad boy? Absolutely. A woman leading him astray? Certainly possible. But more like the other way around.

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“No,” he said. “The story’s not true.” Then, under his breath, she was sure she heard him mutter, “Not much of it, anyway.” His bottom lip slipped between his teeth for a moment, and he worried it before letting it go. “What’s
your
story?”

“Nothing as glamorous as your Viking beginnings,” she teased.

He was silent, staring out at the highway, and Verity decided if she wanted to hear someone’s voice filling the space between them, it might as well be hers.

“We’re from Camilla. Ever heard of it?” He shook his head once. “Thought not. No one has.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “We had five acres of land covered with pecan trees and a little farmhouse on Strawberry Road that my daddy’s daddy bought the day before he married my grandma.”

Out the window the highway zoomed past, and Verity stared at the crisp white line on the gray asphalt. How desperately she’d wanted to leave Camilla. But she’d had no idea how hard it would be to start over, to start a new life. “My daddy passed on last year. My mother followed not long after. They were like that, you know? Always did everything together. Even dying.”

Beside her, Colton cleared his throat, which she took for “I’m sorry.”

She sighed and turned to look at his face. “It’s okay. They were old when they had Ryan. Older still when they had me. More like grandparents, really, when I think about it. They never really knew me. And I never really expected them to last forever.”

“Your brother . . .”

“Got kicked in the head by a mule when he was little. Before I was born. I don’t ever remember Ryan being different than he is now.” She turned back to glance at her brother, at his face in repose and his mouth opened wide as he snored softly. “But I saw pictures. They said he was clever as a fox when he was little.”

In the pictures his eyes were wide and bright, mischief deep in the crevices of his face when he smiled. She winced. “Life isn’t always fair.”

“Amen.”

“So now you know my life story,” she said, forcing herself to brighten. “You gonna tell me yours?”

“No,” said Colton, frowning as he shifted to the slow lane.

“Okay,” she said. “I ask a lot of questions, but you don’t have to answer them unless you want to. I don’t take offense. My friend back home, Elaine, she calls me Magpie. You know, because I’m so chatty.”

“Smartest bird in the world,” said Colton, turning off the highway and stopping at the end of the exit ramp.

“Is that right?” she asked, grinning at him, delighted by this unexpected offering in their stilted conversation. “I didn’t know that.”

“Only non-mammal that can recognize itself in a mirror.”

“Well!” she exclaimed. “That’s interesting. So if I’m a magpie, I’m chatty
and
smart, huh?”

He gave her a quick, annoyed glance before pulling forward. “You said Glenellen?”

“Uh, yep,” she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious as she realized how close they were to her destination. Their temporary lodgings at the Thrifty Inn embarrassed her. She wasn’t anxious for Colton to see the dumpy motel they called home.

The fact of the matter was, however, even the Thrifty Inn, at $56.84 per night, had become a hardship for them. Verity didn’t have a working credit card, and her cash was almost gone. She was hoping to buy a little more time tonight by telling the front desk manager, Florence, that she and Ryan had gotten jobs and she’d be able to pay their whole bill in a week or two. Well, if she was really honest, she was hoping to dodge Florence for a few more days and
then
tell her. That would be best because, until
TLOC
paid them, she wouldn’t be able to cover their bill.

Turning around, she placed a hand on Ryan’s leg and shook it. “Wake up, Ry. Almost there.”

His eyes fluttered open, and Verity made sure that she kept her eyes on his because she didn’t want him to wake up disoriented and frightened. She saw the uncertainty pass over his face for an instant before his blue eyes settled on hers, and all worry slipped instantly away.

“Hey, Ver’ty.”

“Hey, handsome.”

“We home?”

She nodded. “Almost.” Then she turned to Colton. “You know? I could use a few things from that Sunoco station right there. Just drop us off? We can walk from here.”

“I’m tired, Ver’ty,” said Ryan from the back. “I don’t wanna walk back to the motel.”

Colton flicked his eyes to the Econo Lodge across the street from the Sunoco. “You staying over there?”

She swallowed, willing Ryan to let her get away with one little, tiny lie. “Yep.”

No such luck.

“No, we ain’t, Ver’ty. We’re stayin’ at the Thrifty Inn, friend,” said Ryan, leaning forward and pointing right. “It’s down there a ways, right next door to the Methodist church. Nineteen forty-four Glenellen Street. Nineteen forty-four Glenellen Street in Decatur, Georgia. You told me to remember it, Ver’ty, just in case we got separated apart. You forgot, but I remember. Nineteen forty-four Glenellen Street in Decatur, Georgia.”

“That’s right, Ryan.” She nodded, her shoulders slumping as Colton turned right onto Glenellen. “May as well just take us home.”

What a dump.

Colt was shocked that the words on the tip of his tongue didn’t sally forth as he pulled into the weed-covered parking lot of a run-down, ramshackle, by-the-hour, no-tell motel about a half mile down the road from the Sunoco station. He’d seen some crappy roadside motels in his day, but this one had to take the cake.

U-shaped and two stories tall, the motel rooms had identical once-red, sun-faded doors, some with numbers, some with letters, some with door knockers, some without. A chipped, aqua-painted railing with vertical bars outlined the perimeter of the upper level, while unkempt cement patios added zero charm to the lower. Running his gaze over the parking lot, he saw a few sketchy characters hanging out by the fenced-in, empty outdoor pool, and another couple of men leaning against a soda machine that had seen better days. He looked up to see a mother holding her shrieking baby on the second-floor balcony, gesturing to one of the men by the pool to get his ass upstairs.

As Colt pulled into a parking space, he glanced at Verity’s profile, noting the bright red color of her face, the uptilt of her chin, and her rod-in-the-spine posture. She was embarrassed. He’d stake his life on it.

He cut the engine and turned to find her sweet blue eyes looking up at him, guarded and defensive.

“It’s temporary,” she whispered.

“Here we are,” said Ryan cheerfully, reaching for the door. “Thank you for the ride, friend.”

Colt watched as Verity’s brother exited the car and carefully closed the door behind him, ambling over to a ground-floor room not far away and standing outside the faded red door to wait for her. When Colt slid his eyes back to hers, he was surprised to find that she hadn’t moved. She stared at him desperately, searching his face before blinking back tears.

“Tornado took the pecan trees,” she said softly. “I didn’t know that you needed to keep up payments on an insurance policy. Didn’t even know we
had
an insurance policy. Daddy never . . .” She licked her lips, her perfect pink tongue darting out before hiding again. “There was just so much I didn’t know.”

Colt shrugged, uncomfortable with so much emotion. “You’re, uh, you’re doing the best you can, I guess.”

“I am,” she said, blinking her eyes again. “We’ve been fired from two jobs since we got here. We just . . .” She looked down at her lap before finding his eyes again and offering him a small smile. “We needed today so badly, I can’t even tell you. You saved our skin.”

He shook his head. “No, I just—”

“You
saved
us,” she repeated. She flicked a glance at her brother, then looked back at Colt. “I want to give you a few dollars for gas. Wait here, huh?”
“No, I don’t . . .”

She reached out, placing one small hand on his arm.

“Don’t shame me by saying no,” she said softly. “I’ll be right back.”

He kept his eyes trained on her through the windshield, his arm burning where she’d touched him—hot and cold, like fire and dry ice mixed together. He huffed softly, shaking his head and rubbing his arm. Damn it, he couldn’t take money from her. If she was living in a place like this, she was in real trouble. Whatever money she had, she needed.

But she had already sprinted over to her brother, reaching into her purse for the room keycard and dipping it into the lock. She pulled down on the door lever and pushed forward, but the door didn’t give. Again she dipped the card; again she tried the door. Nothing. Shaking her head, she dipped the card a third time, but when the door didn’t open, she turned left and started walking at a clip toward the motel office, her brother following at her heels. She disappeared into the office, and through the glass Colt could see her at the desk talking to someone. After a few minutes of heated debate, she exited the office, a duffel bag over her shoulder, a box in her arms, and her brother weighed down with an enormous suitcase in each hand. They stood there in front of the office, her brother’s face confused as it stared down at hers. Colt leaned forward and realized that her cheeks were streaked with tears, then watched, with his heart in his throat, as she let the duffel fall from her shoulder to her elbow and plopped down on the bench outside the office door. Still holding the box on her lap, she bent her head forward, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. Ryan, who still held the suitcases, shifted from one foot to the other, back and forth, back and forth, his lips moving, his face frightened.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that they’d just been evicted from the crappiest motel in the Greater Atlanta area, and Colt was positive they had nowhere else to go.

“Act like you didn’t see,” he muttered to himself, unable to look away from her trembling shoulders. “Back up and drive on out of here.”

Clenching his jaw as he hissed through his teeth, his hand reached for the door handle, and he swung his body out of the car before he could force himself not to. His shoes scuffed along the gravel from the chipped cement sidewalk as he walked over to her.

“’Vic-ted, ’vic-ted, ’vic-ted,” whispered Ryan, staring down at the ground, still holding the suitcases in white-knuckled hands.

“It’s okay,” said Colt gently, prying the suitcases from his grip. He set one down on the sidewalk, then the other.

“Friend,” said Ryan, staring straight ahead, at Colt’s neck.

“Colt,” he answered.

“Stallion,” said the older man, lifting his head to meet Colt’s eyes.

“No. My . . . my
name
is Colton.”

“Yeah. Okay,” said Ryan.

Pulling out his wallet, Colt opened it and peeled two dollar bills from the fold. “See that pop machine over there?”

“I like pop,” said Ryan, his lips wiggling up into a hopeful smile.

“Go get two Cokes, okay? One for you and one for your sister.”

“Yeah. Two Cokes for me and Ver’ty. From Colton,” he said. Then he turned and ambled toward the machine at the other end of the U-shaped motel.

Colt sat down next to a weeping Verity, spreading out his legs in front of him and crossing them at the ankle with a sigh.

God damn these two anyway. Heaps of trouble. A couple of foundling kittens in a world full of wolves. And what now? He sure as shit wasn’t going to take them home with him, so he hoped they could come up with an alternate solution by talking.

“Got evicted?”

She nodded, sniffling pitifully, her head still down, tears falling into the open box on her lap.

“Got any family round here? Friends?”

She shook her head, a soft, mewling sound of sorrow escaping her lips.

He reached into his back pocket and took out a handkerchief, glad that his aunt Jane had always insisted he carry one. He pushed it against her hand, and her fingers grasped onto it, sliding the thin fabric across the back of his hand as she drew it away from him and wiped her eyes.

“Th-thanks.” She looked up at him, her eyes swimming and cheeks still slick from tears. “You don’t have to st-stay. We’ll, uh . . . we’ll f-figure it out.”

Right.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.

She shook her head and took a deep breath through her nose, using the handkerchief on her cheeks before folding it on her lap and handing it back to him. “I don’t know. There’s a church next door. Maybe we could . . .” Her voice drifted off.

He looked over the rusted chain-link fence at the dark church and empty parking lot next door. “Listen, I could give you a few dollars. To tide you over.”

Her neck jerked around, and her eyes widened at his suggestion. “I can’t take your money.”

“You
could
,” he said, putting the damp linen back in his pocket as the sun dropped lower by the second, “or you two could come stay a night or two with me.”

She blinked at him, her lips parting in surprise. “What?”

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. What the FUCK are you doing?

He rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “I mean, it’s going to get dark soon, and—”

“No! We don’t
know
you. I mean, I appreciate the help getting the job, and the ride, but we can’t just—”

He nodded. “Got it.”

“I don’t mean to insult you,” she said, hopping up from the bench, still clutching the box in her hands as though it would protect her from Colt’s inappropriate suggestion.

“I’m not insulted,” he said, and it was true. In fact, it was the first smart thing she’d done since he met her. What surprised him was that, while he didn’t feel insulted, he did feel, unaccountably, disappointed. Whatever adventure they’d been on together today was ending here, and though he knew it needed to, part of him felt . . . sad. Everything would change tomorrow when they ran into each other at work. After the rumor mill got going, she’d stop meeting his eyes, start avoiding him as he passed her in the castle hallways. That look she had that bordered on hero worship would quickly fade until she acted like she didn’t even know his name. And part of him was already mourning the loss of her sweet eyes and ready smiles. Not to mention, he felt a little worried about them, leaving them all alone in this shithole. But he figured that wasn’t his business and they weren’t his problem. It was time to say good-bye.

He nodded again, rising to his feet. “Well, I’ll, uh, I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

Now that he was leaving, she sat back down on the bench and looked up at him with sad eyes. “Tomorrow. Right. And thanks again for . . . everything.”

Giving her one last, exasperated look, he turned away, striding back to his car, calling himself a stupid fool for getting involved with her, for helping her, for wishing that—

“Oh, you want this pop, dummy? Come’n git it!”

Looking across the mostly empty parking lot, Colt saw Ryan standing between the two shifty-looking men he’d noticed earlier as they tossed a can of Coke back and forth over his head.

“That’s for Ver’ty,” said Ryan, reaching in the air for the Coke can as it sailed overhead.

“For your hot-piece-of-ass sister? Well, now, you tell her to come over here and git it, dum-dum.”

“Yeah. Tell ’er to come and git it,” laughed the other man, throwing the can back to his buddy. “On her knees.”

Ryan jumped up in the air as the can was lobbed overhead, reaching for it without victory.

“Aw, fuuuuuck,” grumbled Colt, shoving his keys back into his pocket. He sighed, opening his trunk quietly and reaching inside for a crowbar, then made his way deliberately across the parking lot.

As he approached, one of the two assholes torturing Ryan looked over, holding the can in his hand while he sized up Colt.

“Go on back the way you came,” he said, tossing the soda from hand to hand. “Ain’t nothin’ here concerns you.”

“Actually,” said Colt, mimicking the man’s movements, but with the crowbar instead of a little can of pop, “it
does
concern me.”

The other fucker sneered, showcasing a row of rotten teeth. “That right?”

“Yeah,” said Colt, nodding slowly. “That’s exactly right.” He shifted his eyes lazily to Ryan. “You okay?”

Big tears welled in Ryan’s bright blue eyes. “They took the can a’pop for Ver’ty.”

“And now they’re going to give it back,” said Colt, a menacing growl in his voice as he cut his eyes to the dickhead holding the can of soda.

The redneck’s eyes slit narrow, and his lip curled with anger, but then his face cleared and he nodded, a mean smile spreading over his ugly face.

“Yeah. Sure,” he said. “Here you go, dummy.” Holding his arms out toward Ryan, the man cracked opened the soda can and cackled with glee as the pop exploded all over Ryan’s dress shirt and pants, covering his face and hair in a shower of Coke.

Ryan cried out, shielding his eyes.

“Stop!” screamed Verity from behind Colt, running across the parking lot. “Stop it! Leave him be!”

Colt faced her. “Stay behind me.” Then he turned back to Ryan, jerking his head toward Verity. “Go stand with your sister.”

“Yeah,” said one of the two motherfuckers, between gasps of hyena-like laughter, “go stand next to your sister, retard!”

Colton Lane had always had a temper.

Always.

Always.

It had gotten him into trouble before, that temper. He felt it now, rage and fury churning inside like a twister, turning and frothing, boiling and freezing—the heat readying him to fight and the cold stripping him of any humanity that might moderate his wrath.

In a move he’d perfected at work, he bent his knees and drew his arm back, striking forth with the crowbar against the first one’s thigh like the hammer of Thor. A sickening crunch sounded, and the man screamed in pain, falling to the ground as his broken femur gave way.

Behind him, Verity screamed, but Colt ignored her, advancing on the other man, whose wide, terrified eyes begged for mercy. He stumbled backward and fell onto the cement, a stain of wetness spreading across the crotch of his shorts and making a puddle on the ground. Colt raised the crowbar to strike again—

“Colton!” she screamed again. “No! No more!”