by Kathy Love
Poppy glanced at Killian, clearly confused by the man’s attention.
“It’s okay,” she said, smiling, albeit weakly. Killian couldn’t say why, but he was pleased to notice the dimple didn’t make an appearance for this guy.
“Can I help you?” she said, her voice polite but impersonal.
The man looked flustered then, as if he wasn’t really sure what he was doing either. Killian thought of sending him another mental nudge, but something stopped him.
“I—” The man gave her a pained smile. “I never just approach a woman like this. But I noticed you from where I was sitting over there.” He gestured to the sofa. “And I just had to come over and speak to you. And—and see if I could—I don’t know. Call you sometime.”
Poppy stared at him, something akin to shock on her face.
“I mean, if that’s okay,” the man said. “I’m really not some weirdo.”
Killian fought the urge to make a face. Like a weirdo would admit he was a weirdo. Then Killian narrowed a critical look at the guy. Was he a weirdo?
Suddenly he decided maybe this wasn’t the right guy for Poppy. After all, as far as he could see, the guy had no sense of humor at all. And intelligence, well, there wasn’t much sign of that either. And interesting was also right out the window with this one.
Then the man laughed nervously—a nasally twitter. Okay, if the great laugh wasn’t even there, what was the point?
But before he could send the man a thought to gracefully—and quickly—leave, Poppy answered him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, offering him a pained smile of her own. “I’m involved.” She nodded toward Killian.
The man glanced at Killian for the first time since approaching the table. Killian tilted his head, giving him a cool smile by way of greeting.
“Oh. I’m sorry,” the man said to Poppy, then looked back at Killian. “I’m sorry,” he repeated to Killian.
“No problem,” Killian said, finding it easy to go along with Poppy’s story. “She is a lovely woman.”
Killian saw Poppy look at him out of his peripheral vision, surprise in her brown eyes.
“Very lovely,” the man agreed.
Okay, enough was enough.
Walk away now.
“Sorry to bother you.” the man bowed slightly.
And don’t talk to Poppy again, Killian added for good measure.
The man headed back to the sofa and his paper.
Poppy watched him go, then shot Killian a puzzled, yet amused look. “That was strange.”
“You don’t get men asking you out?”
She laughed as if the very idea was ludicrous.
“No.” She chuckled again. Killian couldn’t help noticing her laugh. Lovely. Sweet. A sound he could hear over and over. You know, if he ever considered laughter. Which he didn’t. Well, you know, until she’d mentioned it.
The waitress arrived with their food, giving him something else to focus on. But not even food distracted him long.
He watched Poppy as she cut off a piece of her waffle with her fork, a small, secret smile still on her lips.
The man’s attention had really pleased her. But he couldn’t imagine she didn’t get noticed all the time. Although, that man probably wouldn’t have noticed her without Killian’s mental prompting.
He watched her as she picked up a raspberry and popped the small fruit into her mouth. A raspberry as ripe and red as her lips.
Killian stared at those lips. He couldn’t believe she wouldn’t get attention. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said she was lovely. She was.
Then he glanced over at the man. He watched Poppy over the top of his paper. There was still keen awareness in the man’s eyes. An awareness Killian found himself disliking. Very much.
Before he even realized it, a thought was fired from his head, sent out like a warning shot.
She’s mine.
The man’s gaze moved from Poppy to him, and Killian found himself staring back. Unflinching. Unapologetic.
The man looked away. And Killian felt relief, mingled with a very real feeling of possessiveness. A feeling he refused to overanalyze as he returned his attention to his breakfast.
CHAPTER 14
Of course, by the end of breakfast, he had analyzed his feelings—to death. And he’d realized that he was clearly confusing possessiveness with concern. He could admit that he’d come to rather like Poppy, which made it harder to just pick any old guy for her.
He didn’t really care for concern as an emotion. Not his thing. But it was better than possessiveness. Possessiveness didn’t even make sense.
“How about this store?” Poppy asked, pointing to another shop in the strip mall where they’d just picked up his toiletries.
The drugstore she’d taken him to was fine. He could get a functional razor, toothbrush and deodorant anywhere. But clothing? From a place called …
“Old Navy?” What kind of name was that for a clothing store? He wasn’t planning to swab a deck any time soon.
Poppy smiled at him as he read the large sign over the glass storefront. “Why do I get the feeling that you’ve never set foot in this store before?”
“Probably because I never have.”
“Well, I figured this would be a good place for you to just pick up a few essentials. After all, your luggage is bound to be returned to you eventually.”
Leave it to her to be practical at all times.
He followed her into the store, realizing he had heard of this place—in television ads. Ads that used weird talking mannequins to sell their clothes. He was used to live models on runways selling him his clothing.
Ah well. When in Rome. Or Boston.
He picked up an orange-and-blue checked shirt, grimacing. Or in some cases, Hell on earth.
“How about this?” Poppy held up a faded brown T-shirt with a logo of a skull and wings across the front.
He must not have hidden his disdain, because she returned it to the pile, muttering, “Okay, maybe not,” under her breath.
He wandered over to a rack of button-down shirts, rifling through them until he found a few that weren’t too unpleasant. Next he went to a rack of jeans, also choosing a couple pairs of those. He wouldn’t need much—after all, he had to have this job done as quickly as possible.
“See. You found some things,” Poppy said, not hiding her self-satisfaction with her store choice.
“That remains to be seen,” he told her.
She rolled her eyes, the action more cute and impish than derisive.
“The dressing room is over there.” She pointed to the back corner of the store.
He headed that way, still not optimistic about this shopping trip. When he saw the employee working the fitting room, he felt even less sure.
“How many?” asked the young man, who looked as if he’d never met a hair dye he didn’t like. Or a piercing gun.
“Too many,” Killian muttered and the kid, clearly not very worried about the rules of his job, randomly plucked a red plastic card labeled with a white six and handed it to him.
Killian had more than six items, not that he was going to make an issue about it. He followed the kid to the closest closet-sized changing room, then quickly shut the door to block out the cockatoo boy.
Without any preamble, he tried on one of the shirts, which much to his surprise, fit pretty well and didn’t look totally like he should be hanging out in the crow’s nest of a ship.
The jeans fit well too, he realized as he studied both in the full-length mirror. He tilted his head to take a closer look at the shirt’s collar, which didn’t look quite right, but overall not too bad.
“So? How do they look?” Poppy called, clearly some distance away.
Killian smiled to himself. Leave it to Poppy to holler to him as if he were a small boy allowed to try on clothes by himself for the first time and she was his anxious mother.
He opened the door to show her.
“Well? You tell
me?”
Killian strolled toward Poppy and her first thought was of a sexy, disheveled model sauntering down the runway. The white shirt he’d chosen fit his broad shoulders to a tee, his unruly hair just brushing the collar. The sides were tailored just enough to accentuate his muscled torso and flat stomach.
Nix that—probably washboard stomach.
His jeans were slung low on his narrow hips, and she had to push aside an image of how his muscled stomach, flat navel and hipbones would look above the waistband.
Good golly.
“Um—they look—fine,” she managed, which was no small feat, considering she could barely pull in a full breath. It was just not right that a man could look so sexy.
He came closer. “I hate to admit it, but they’re not bad.”
“No, not bad at all.”
She was pretty sure most men who shopped here didn’t make the clothes look this good, though.
Lovely. He’d used that word to describe her at lunch. She realized he didn’t mean it; he’d just been backing her story. But she could easily use that word to describe him now. Without hesitation, and in all honesty.
Whoa, girl. She needed to get a grip here. Sure, he was good looking. But she was dangerously close to drooling. And frankly, she just didn’t go mushy over guys. Boy crazy wasn’t a term ever applied to her. She’d only been crazy about one guy—and that had been nothing but a lesson in heartache.
The sudden thought of Adam sobered her as quickly as an ice-cold shower. She met Killian’s eyes then, and offered him a little smile. She hoped it looked more sassy than she felt.
“I guess my suggestion wasn’t so bad, after all.”
He smiled back, his golden eyes flashing with amusement. “I’m not giving you any credit. I’m sure I’ll never hear the end of it if I do.”
Poppy managed to feign a wounded look. Even as her heart did little skips in her chest—her body reacting—again.
“And,” he added, “while the shirt isn’t bad, there is something messed up with this collar.”
He tugged at one side, and Poppy noticed for the first time there was something odd about it. She stepped forward to look closer, then reached up to fiddle with it.
“It was just tucked under,” she said as the one side unfolded to match the other. She patted it down, leaned back a bit to compare the two sides.
“Perfect,” she said decisively, her smugness returning as she looked up at him.
As soon as their eyes met, Poppy saw something like awareness in Killian’s golden gaze. A flicker like sparks ignited into flame. Suddenly she became painfully aware of how close they were standing, and that her hand remained pressed to his chest. She could feel the heat of his skin, the hardness of his muscles, the steady thump of his heart against the palm of her hand through the cotton of the shirt.
Helpless to stop herself, she moved her fingers, just a little, just a tiny caress.
“Um, it’s not really kosher to get all cozy in the dressing rooms.”
Poppy started, dropping her hand guiltily away from Killian, turning to find a boy, who looked not much older than a teen with multicolored hair and skinny jeans. He raised a pierced eyebrow at her.
“Oh, sorry,” she managed to mumble, backing away from both of them. “I’ll—I’ll just wait out here.” She gestured over her shoulder with her thumb toward the exit, still backing away. That was until she ran into a rack of unwanted clothes.
She caught herself on a pair of cargo pants that, thankfully, didn’t fall off the hanger under her weight. Righting herself, she avoided both men’s gazes and spun on her heel to hurry back into the store.
Once hidden behind a rack of hoodies, she closed her eyes and groaned.
“Not at all embarrassing,” she muttered to herself.
A woman a few feet away glanced at her as if Poppy were mad. Poppy ignored the woman. Yes, she was the crazy lady talking to herself among the hoodies. What of it?
She deserved to have a moment of insanity. Actually, she’d already had that. She’d acted like a woman who’d never touched a man before. So classy. So poised.
And there was no way Killian had missed her reaction. After all, the androgynous fitting-room clerk had even seen her attraction. And he didn’t seem like the type to notice much beyond the newest dye colors and piercing jewelry at Hot Topic.
Darn it … no, damn. Damn, damn, damn. How could she act so stupid?
Killian walked back to the changing room, stunned by what had just happened. And his reaction to it. She’d been merely fixing his shirt. A brief brush of her fingers. A small touch.
He looked at himself in the mirror, glad to see his shirttails hid exactly what that touch did to him.
He dug sex as much as the next demon—who by their very nature adored it: the gratification, the release, the pure unadulterated pleasure. But he also considered himself a demon with great control.
His sexual reactions were on his terms, just like all of his existence was on his terms. That was until he was conjured by teenage girls. Since then, nothing had been on his terms. And apparently that included his physical reactions.
He unbuttoned the shirt, shrugging out of it to inspect the place where Poppy’s fingers had pressed against him. His chest burned as if she’d left an imprint there, her mark. But there was no physical sign. Nothing to explain the raw need her touch created.
Shaken, he tossed the shirt aside. He took his time changing back into his old clothes, using these moments alone to gather himself.
Why would he react that way to Poppy? He’d been with human women far more beautiful than she. He’d been with demons more beautiful. So what was it about this pint-sized human with brown hair, brown eyes, a boyish figure, and very definitely boyish shoes? He just didn’t get it.
But you can’t hide out in here forever.
“Did everything work out for you?” the cockatoo guy asked as soon as Killian stepped out of the fitting room. “Can I take anything?”
Killian glanced at the pile of garments draped over his arm. “I’m taking them all.”
Killian didn’t know if it was a store policy or not, but it seemed to him if a man got a hard-on in a pair of jeans while trying them on, he should be required to buy them.
CHAPTER 15
“I appreciate your helping me out today,” Killian said as they reached Poppy’s door.
“Sure,” she said, not looking in his direction. “I hope you got everything you needed.”
“I did,” he said. “Thank you.”
Well, this all sounded polite and nicey-nice, but in truth neither had said more than two words to each other since leaving the clothing store.
Awkward, but the usual ending to one of their outings.
Poppy had spent their shared silence trying not to analyze what Killian was thinking. Not that she had to deliberate too much to guess his thoughts.
She was sure he was embarrassed by the encounter between them. He’d have to have been blind not to see her reaction. And given how quiet he’d been as well, he was clearly uncomfortable with it too.
He probably thought she was some pathetic single woman desperate for affection. Lonely and needy and willing to throw herself at any eligible man. And though he said he wanted to settle down and have a real relationship, she wasn’t naïve enough to think she’d be in the running for that position.
He wanted an elegant, sophisticated type with impeccable taste and a killer body. That was not Poppy.
She shopped at places like Old Navy—when she shopped, which was rarely. She had minimal curves and only got her hair cut when she remembered. She liked gourmet food, but almost always ate at home with her sister.
That was not the description of the woman she saw on Killian’s arm.
Then she caught herself. Okay, so she wasn’t what Killian would find appealing, but she wasn’t lacking. She wouldn’t demean herself that way. She’d done that, and it had gotten her nothing.
Besides, she didn’t w
ant a relationship anyway. Okay, she was attracted to the man. She’d have to be dead not to be. But her reaction in the dressing room didn’t mean she wanted anything from him. Not really.
Several times on the way home, she’d opened her mouth to tell him just that. But every time, she stopped herself.
Even now, she considered explaining herself, but instead said, “Okay, well, have a good day. Say hello to Ginger for me.”
“Oh. Yeah, I will.”
She unlocked her door, only fumbling with the key once. Then she glanced at him, quickly, before opening the door. He regarded her closely, but his golden gaze was guarded, unreadable.
“Okay. ‘Bye,” she said again because she didn’t know what else to say.
He nodded. “Good-bye.”
Poppy closed the door, then stood in the hallway, still unsure of what to do. She glanced at the closed door, wondering if he was already gone.
A part of her wanted to go look. To stop him and talk out all this awkwardness, but another part told her to walk away. Go back to her life and not waste any more time worrying about an insignificant moment in an Old Navy dressing room.
Killian stood on the other side of the door, holding his bags of clothes and toiletries like some character in a movie kicked out of the heroine’s apartment. Forced to shuffle away like a down-and-out loser. Of course, Poppy hadn’t even let him inside to actually kick him out. Did that make him even more pathetic?
He remained there for a few moments, debating on knocking and getting Poppy to come back and talk to him. To discuss the thing that had happened between them back at the store.
But, instead, he turned and headed back to the elevators. He would have to smooth things over with Poppy, eventually. Otherwise, he’d be stuck here—with Vepar breathing down his neck. But maybe for now, they both needed a little time to forget their brief moment of attraction.
If that was even what it was. At this point he didn’t know exactly what they had shared. In fact, he was starting to think that maybe he was the only one who had felt anything.
He’d watched her on their way home, and though she’d been quiet and lost in her own thoughts, she’d otherwise seemed unaffected.