“Not out of all of them; he had his trousers on the whole time I was there.”
Fuck, she thought, the second she saw Anaya’s cheekily satisfied expression.
She had confessed too much, without intending to. Now, in her friend’s mind, the guy she had danced all night with had ended up half naked in front of her. And it wasn’t as if she couldexplain. She couldn’t say:well, he ripped out of his shirt due to lust for my blood.
All she had were weak denials.
“Things are not like that between us.Reallynot like that.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re not.”
“He hates me.”
“I bet he does. That’s why he danced with you like that and couldn’t keep his eyes off you and is also now sauntering over to talk to you, with what can only be described as a desperate hunger in his eyes,” Anaya said, voice so thick with amusement that Mina thought nothing of taking it that way. She even went to snark back that he would never.
But then she followed Anaya’s gaze, aimed just over her shoulder.
And there he was. The bane of her existence, doing exactly what Anaya had said. Strolling in a way that made his hips roll. Focus all on her, despite the many people who tried to get his attention. The only deviation from Anaya’s description was in those eyes.It’s not that kind of hunger, she wanted to say to her friend.
But of course she couldn’t.
She just had to sit there and wait, silently, for whatever this was going to be.
An embarrassing horror she imagined, about a second before Harker spoke.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said. Andwarmly, too.
He looked right at Anaya and actually smiled.
So of course Anaya smiled back.
“Well, good morning to you, too, Harker. Can we help you with something?”
“Actually, yes. Perhaps you can persuade Mina to eat something more than a bowl of soup. Because as delicious as it looks,I don’t think it’s really going to make up for the exhausting night she had.”
“Yeah. I thought she looked pretty spent, too.”
Anaya winked at her. She tried not to wither and die.
And that wasbeforeHarker tilted his head in that a-killer-blow-is-coming way of his. “Well, you know. Idotend to wear out the company I keep,” he said, and of course she knew he was doing it to keep the charade alive. She knew this was only cover. Yet somehow, it still knocked her sideways.
Her face flamed briefly red; she came close to making a sound of shock.
I thought you didn’t want anyone to think that, she wanted to say.
While they just carried on. “Oh, I’ll bet you do. She’s probably going to need steak and chips, after you,” Anaya said, as if the half-naked confession had unlocked some friendship setting Mina hadn’t understood.
Now everything was innuendo.
And other harrowing things.
“I was thinking the same thing. How about extra bloody, for that kick of iron? You know. To really get some color back into your cheeks,” Harker said, as he turned to her. But apparently, looking wasn’t enough.
He reached and touched her there, too.
Just with one curled finger, barely making contact.
Butgod, the effect it had. Suddenly her whole head was a mass of those strange memory flashes—and every single one of them seemed incredibly rude. A hand running down from her face to somewhere between her legs. That kind version of him, making her go up on her toes.
