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Bitty turned around slowly. L.W. was standing just outside the club, and God… he was huge. It wasn’t just that he towered over her in height, it was the breadth of him. His expression, too. Resting bitch face? More like trained killer, who might, or might not, wait for a private corner to make his move.
His pale green eyes were so unwavering that Bitty had to lookaway—and as for all of January’s freezing cold? Was it cold? She couldn’t feel anything.
No, that wasn’t exactly true…
“I’ve noticed something about you,” he said.
She tugged at the hem of her dress, thinking that the damn thing seemed tighter and shorter and lower cut. “What might that be.”
“You’re a hugger.”
It was such a non sequitur that she glanced back up at him. “I’m sorry?”
“You hug people, and when you do, you mean it.”
“Oh. Thank you? I guess.”
His eyes traveled down her body. “New dress. You usually wear jeans and sweaters in the winter.”
“How do you know what I wear?”
“I watch you.”
“Why,” she whispered.
The shrug was causal. The light in his eyes was volcanic. The energy coming off his body was…
“You never hug me,” he said.
“I’m sorry, wha—” She cleared her throat and measured his heavy shoulders. “Well, you’re not… exactly the huggable type.”
“No? Why not.”
Her eyes drifted to his chest. There were weapons under his jacket, probably holstered beneath his arms and around his waist. The guns and knives weren’t off-putting; her father was always armed, so she was used to all that. But the idea of getting up close to L.W.’s body, feeling it against her?
He opened his arms. “How about me.”
This was why I had to come,she thought.This moment, right here.
And yet she was frozen by the sense that something was coming, something that was…
After a moment, L.W. lowered his arms. “Fair enough. But I’m staying until you’ve safely dematerialized.”
Bitty shook herself back to attention. “You’ve just surprised me, that’s all.”
“You don’t have to explain.” And he didn’t seem particularly offended. “Have a good night.”
“I don’t know if I can dematerialize.”
“Why not?” He frowned. “Are you ill?”
“No.”
With his hair all but shaved on the sides, and the length of it braided down the center of his head, his face was accentuated, the jaw cut but not heavy, his cheekbones high, his brows somehow always arched with disdain no matter what the bottom half of his visage was doing. Not that she had seen him smile. Ever—
The emergency exit opened abruptly, a blue glow flooding out.
And that was when it happened.
