Knight

by Kristen Ashley

  He started paying attention to me.

  Although it was sheer lunacy that I considered it unflattering, I did and what I considered unflattering was the fact that suddenly he seemed to be looking at me and actually seeing me. Until I shifted away from him, I didn’t exist. I was just an excuse to get him away from his apartment and Nick before he let loose his fury. Now, he was looking at me, his eyes moving over me, taking me in. My face. My hair. My hand pressed against the wood paneling. Down the length of me to my shoes and up.

  And when his eyes caught mine again, his face was no different. Hard jaw, angry eyes, pissed but not at me.

  But his voice was soft when he said, “I won’t hurt you.”

  “I’d really like to take a taxi,” I whispered.

  Swift and almost imperceptibly but I caught it and he meant me to, his eyes dropped to my feet then came back to mine.

  “Taxi won’t be a hit?” he asked, still soft, and I knew that he knew from what he saw of me that paying for a taxi would be a hit for me.

  I straightened my spine, dropped my hand and assured him, “I’ll be fine.”

  The elevator doors opened and without taking his eyes from me, he lifted his hand to catch one so it wouldn’t close and he spoke. “I’ll take you home. Safe. You’ll have no problems from me. Just a ride. And you’re doin’ me a favor, givin’ me a chance to calm my shit. But swear to Christ, you can trust me.”

  “I don’t –”

  “Babe, swear to Christ, I’m just a ride. Take advantage. And do me a favor and give me an excuse to get outta here.”

  I saw his anger now. I remembered what I felt when he walked into the apartment earlier. And it was fresh in my mind all that had just happened to me at his hand. None of it hurt me but all of it was bizarre in a dangerous, scary way that demonstrated irrefutably that I should know better than to court further time and attention from this man.

  And still, I found my head tipping down so I could look at my feet. Feet that were walking me toward the elevator.

  Knight shifted his arm high and I ducked under it to enter and he entered after me.

  The doors started closing as he tagged the button B2.

  I stared at the doors.

  Yes. Sheer lunacy.

  “You’re called?”

  My neck twisted and my eyes moved up to his to see his looking at down me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Name, babe.”

  “Anya.”

  He stared at me.

  Then he asked, “Anya?”

  “Anya,” I confirmed.

  “Anya,” he repeated and I nodded. “And you think my name’s unusual?”

  “Yes, I’ve never met anyone named Knight,” I informed him.

  “And I’ve never met anyone named Anya,” he informed me. “What is that?”

  “What is what?”

  “Your name.”

  “It’s a family name. As in, my grandmother’s.”

  “Before that,” he stated.

  “It was her grandmother’s,” I shared.

  “And before that,” he pushed then explained, “Origins.”

  “Russian,” I told him.

  “You’re Russian?” he asked.

  “My grandmother was,” I answered.

  “She grow up here?” he asked.

  “No, she grew up in St. Petersburg when it was called Leningrad. But she died here.”

  His head cocked slightly to the side but his face remained impassive. “Died?”

  I nodded. “Seventeen years ago.”

  “Babe, what are you? Twenty-three? Four?”

  “Seven.”

  His head righted. “Twenty-seven?” He sounded like he didn’t believe me.

  “Yes, twenty-seven.”

  He studied me but didn’t give anything away.

  Then he stated, “Still, she had to be young.”

  “Liver failure. She was Russian as in, from Russia. She drank vodka like it was water and that’s not a stereotype. That’s very real.”

  And it was. And she passed it down to my aunt, unfortunately.

  He looked to the doors, muttering, “That’s the fuckin’ truth.”

  I kept my eyes to his profile and asked, “Are you Russian?”

  The doors opened and his hand came to me, not to my upper arm this time, to my elbow and he propelled me out, answering, “Fuck no.”

  His answer was emphatic and therefore insulting since I was half Russian but I didn’t call him on this. I also wondered at his knowledge of the Russia vodka drinking habit but I didn’t ask about it. I simply walked with him through the brightly lit, cement underground parking garage.

  He took me to a sleek, shining, low-slung, gunmetal gray sports car the like I’d never seen. It was so clean, it was gleaming and it looked like it had been driven there direct the from the showroom floor. I had no idea what it was and the only clue was on the back it had the word “Vantage”. I’d never heard of a make or model named “Vantage”. All I knew was, like his bedroom, apartment and clothes, it was fabulous.

  He moved me to the passenger side door and opened it for me.

  “What kind of car is this?” I asked, aiming my behind to the seat.

  “Aston Martin,” he muttered, eyes to my feet that I was swinging in and that was all he said before I cleared the door and he threw it to.

  Aston Martin. I wasn’t sure but I thought some James Bond or another or several of them drove Aston Martins.

  Wow.

  I buckled up and looked around, experiencing the feel that, like everything that had anything to do with Knight, was pure opulence.

  He got in, didn’t buckle up but started the car and it purred all around us.

  Yep, pure opulence.

  Then he wrapped an arm around my seat, twisted around and looked back to reverse. Once out, he straightened, put the car in gear and away we went.

  Fast.

  Crap.

  We were at the second level of parking under the building and I was reminded of one of my few (but I had them) irrational fears and that was I didn’t like underground parking. Sure, there were huge cement pillars I knew someone with a great deal of schooling designed to hold up the weight of the big building. But all I could think was, if that dude was drunk one day at work, screwed up and the building came tumbling down, there was no hope for me. It didn’t help that Knight had a high performance vehicle that he clearly liked to explore the boundaries of its functionality so now he was scaring me in a different way.

  He hit a button as we were speeding up the ramp that would take us to freedom and luckily slowed for the gridded gate that kept the riffraff out to slide up then we were out of the danger zone and idling at the entrance to the street.

  I took a breath.

  Knight called, “Babe.”

  I looked at him to see he was looking at me or, more accurately, looking at my hand that had a death grip on the armrest of the door.

  Then his eyes came to me and he declared, “One, been drivin’ since I was twelve. I know what I’m doin’ so you can quit tryin’ to fuse with the car, relax and enjoy it. Two, I kinda gotta know where I’m goin’.”

  “You’ve been driving since you were twelve?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. Instead he asked back, “Where am I goin’?”

  “Capital Hill.”

  He looked away, turned left and I gave him my full address.

  Conversation was non-existent as he negotiated the streets like he was attempting to set the land speed record from downtown Denver to Capital Hill. I tried to “relax and enjoy it”. I failed spectacularly at this effort but didn’t fail at prying my hand from the armrest though I did knot both in my lap while praying.

  We hit my block and he found an unusual nighttime, daytime or anytime parking spot on the street two houses down from my building. However, it wasn’t a spot, as such. More like an opening. Still, in one go with a speed that made my heart slide in my throat, parallel parking
, he whipped that expensive car into a space that I was certain wouldn’t fit it but somehow did.

  I closed my eyes, sucked in a breath and then turned to him to thank him, grateful the night was over and relieved my time with him was too.

  But my view was of his back as he was angling out of the car.

  “Crap,” I whispered, uncertain I liked his peculiar demonstrations of gentlemanliness. Giving me a ride. In a not offensive way noting I needed one. Shielding me from whatever I’d see in the bedroom. Gentleman and Knight didn’t go together somehow and I found it perplexing in a way I knew I shouldn’t give any headspace seeing as this was the one and only time I’d be in his presence but I also knew I’d give headspace way beyond this night.

  I unbuckled, my door was opened and then his long fingers were wrapped around my elbow and I was out. He slammed the door and guided me to the sidewalk but stopped us both.

  I looked up at him, preparing to tell him I was grateful for the ride and his attention but he didn’t have to walk me to my building but the words didn’t come out. This was because his eyes were aimed down the block and my eyes went where his were.

  My street had, back in the day when the economy was booming, flourished. The houses had been renovated, repainted, landscaped beautifully and two crappy apartment buildings had fallen so smart, trendy condos could be built on their lots. The cars on the street were new to new-ish, maybe not luxury but not economy and the vibe was quiet. Families or double-income couples lived in these homes and condos, they cared about them and this was reflected on the entire block.

  Except my apartment building which was where Knight was looking. It was old. No attention had been put into what it would look like when it was built. No attention was put into how it was now maintained. And it was a blight on the neighborhood. The good thing was, rent was low and it came with a parking spot. The bad thing was, the neighbors hated it, hated the landlord and sometimes, by association, hated the tenants which included me.

  Now, weirdly, Knight was staring at it, again his face giving nothing away but his contemplation of it was deep.

  “Knight,” I called softly, his head jerked very slightly and his eyes tipped down to me. “You don’t have to walk me to my building. I’m good. Thank you for bringing me home.”

  He didn’t answer and again totally ignored me as, hand still curled around my elbow, he moved us toward my building.

  “Really,” I went on as we were walking, “this is a good neighborhood.”

  It was like I didn’t speak. Eyes to my apartment building, he kept moving, his fingers firm around my flesh.

  I sighed and gave up. It wasn’t that far and soon this would be over.

  We walked up the steps to the door and Knight stopped us.

  I looked up at him to thank him again but he spoke before me.

  “Punch in the code, babe.”

  I stared up at him and asked, “The code?”

  He jerked his head to the keypad by the door.

  I looked at it, knowing it didn’t work because it hadn’t for six months. Then I lifted a hand and pushed open the unlocked door. As I did this, I could swear I heard the quiet hiss of an indrawn, pissed off breath but when my head quickly turned to him at the sound he simply drew us through.

  Once inside, he stopped us, looked down at me and declared, “Babe, please tell me you don’t live on the first floor.”

  This was a strange thing to say and I looked into the hall at the doors of the apartments on the first floor.

  Then I looked up at him and replied, “No, top floor.”

  “Thank Christ,” he muttered and moved us, eyeing the first staircase that had a rope across it with a sloppily hand-printed notice tacked to it that said, “Not in use.” Then Knight was moving us to the elevators but his step faltered when he saw the sloppily hand-printed sign on it that said, “Out of Order.” I definitely heard his sigh when he moved us to the other set of stairs and up them.

  I didn’t know what to make of this but it kind of irritated me. I mean, he’d made it clear he knew where I was coming from and that wasn’t the land of sunken living rooms and Aston Martins. My building might be crap and the rent relatively cheap but it was also in a relatively safe neighborhood so the rent wasn’t that cheap and thus the tenants were pretty awesome. For instance, we were walking up the stairs, there were no loud parties (unlike at his building) and all was quiet and peaceful.

  We got to the third floor and he guided me down the hall even though it was me who was leading us to my door. I chanced a glance up at him and noted his head was tipped back. Mine did too and I saw that down the corridor, three of the five overhead lights were out. The hall was thus understandably murky. I’d called about this situation four times (as I had about the elevator, security system and stairs) but nothing had been done. So I stopped calling and decided to change the light bulbs myself, eventually, when I had a free second.

  My body swayed toward my door and Knight took us there and halted us. I dug in my purse, coming out with my keys and my lips parted when his fingers closed around them. He slid them out of my hand and then, like he had a sixth sense, he picked the right one, inserted it, opened the door, swung inside and hit the light switch so my overhead light went on.

  Then he grabbed my upper arm and pulled me in, closed the door but positioned me at the side of it.

  Then, again weirdly, he looked me in the eye and ordered, “Do not move.”

  I blinked.

  He moved.

  Then I stared as he walked through my one-bedroom apartment into the kitchen that was open like his and delineated by a short breakfast bar. He switched on the light and looked around even though he could see everything (nearly) from the living room. Leaving the light on, he moved out, opened the door to the bathroom, turned the light on, swung his torso in and looked inside.

  What on earth was he doing?

  Again, light left on, he swung out and moved to my bedroom.

  My body jolted and I called, “Um… Knight?” but he didn’t hesitate, the light went on and he disappeared behind the door.

  Seriously, what on earth?

  “Knight?” I called, taking two steps into my apartment but he reappeared and prowled with his long-legged strides to me, face still impassive but eyes on me.

  He stopped in front of me and held my keys out to me.

  “You’re good,” he declared as I took them. “Nice to meet you, Anya.”

  Uh… what?

  Then his eyes went to the door, they narrowed on it strangely like the sight of my door pissed him off in a not at all vague way, he looked back at me and his eyes unnarrowed but the pissed off look didn’t go away.

  Then he muttered, “Jesus.”

  I stared at him, confused. Or, I should say, profoundly confused.

  Before I could ask, though I was uncertain I would, he went out the door, stopped in it, turned back, his eyes leveled on me and he commanded, “Lock this after me, babe. Pointless but it’s somethin’.”

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter Two

  We Slid over the Edge, Together, Holding Tight, into Nothing

  I was sitting on the wraparound balcony. The cushions on the wrought iron furniture were comfy. The view of the Front Range was awesome. The sun was warm. I had a piece of toast in my hand and was about to take a bite when I stopped and twisted my neck to look over my shoulder.

  Knight was walking to me, dark gray, drawstring pajama bottoms on, long-ish hair sexy messy from sleep, chest with its enticing array of dark hair bared, eyes on me.

  I felt my lips curve.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  He didn’t reply.

  He walked to me, his hand gathering my hair then twisting it around, he tugged my head back. It wasn’t gentle, it was rough, a hint of pain spiking through my scalp and shooting pleasure straight between my legs. So much, I felt my lips part as I watched his strikingly handsome face coming toward me.

  I closed my eyes
slowly and waited impatiently for his lips to hit mine.

  * * * * *

  I opened my eyes and I was in Mrs. Herndon’s room. Second grade. I was sitting at my desk but I was an adult so the desk didn’t fit me. There was a knock at the door, all the kids’ eyes went to it and I felt my heart clutch, my stomach drop.

  I remembered this. I’d never forget it. Not ever. Not ever.

  Not ever.

  Mrs. Herndon got up from her desk at the front of the room and walked to the door.

  Don’t go there! Don’t open that door! My mind screamed but I sat at that desk that was too small for me and just watched, not able to move, not able to do anything, just sit there, powerless, about to be cast adrift, lost in a way that felt like forever.

  She disappeared behind the door and I kept my eyes glued to it, waiting… waiting…

  She came back in and her gaze came right to me. I remembered that too. I’d never forget. Not ever. Not ever.

  Not ever.

  Her face was gentle and kind, tender, embattled, pained.

  No! No, no, no, no!

  Then he walked through. Knight. His eyes on me too, his face blank, giving nothing away. But relief washed through me.

  This wasn’t how it happened. This was different. Better. Out there in the world a child had no control over, everything was torn from me but I had him. I had him.

  Knight was there. Tall, broad, strong, dangerous. I could lean on him. He’d be there for me.

  And he was. Without hesitation he walked to my desk, bent and grabbed my hand. His fingers closing warm and firm around mine, he pulled me away from the desk.

  Right. Good. This was good. I could face this. I could face the pain. The loss. I could face this with Knight at my side.

  My fingers curled deeper into his and his hand gave me a squeeze as he walked me through the room, all my classmates’ eyes on me, Mrs. Herndon’s head tipped slightly to the side, her eyes bright, tears shimmering.

  We moved to pass her and I whispered to Mrs. Herndon, “I have Knight. It’s all gonna be okay.”

  Her head jerked slightly, her face became confused and her eyes lifted to Knight.