Page 36 of A Shot in the Dark
He tips his head up and examines the ceiling while he slowly scratches the place by his ribs where most of his scars are. “I used to think so…” he mutters. “Not sure where I fit into the scheme of things now. Kinsmen’s ranks are—fluid and hard to climb. The very definition of a slippery slope. And they’d never let me near someone like you.”
“Kinsmen’s ranks?” I stretch and yawn.
“I’m not big on talking, but you…?” He grunts. “That magic between your legs must include some sort of truth serum.” He stretches, muscles rippling and I find myself entranced. “I’ve never been so thoroughly or pleasantly interrogated. You can vet me again, anytime.”
“You’re a fabulous fuck, Boots, but you say some weird shit—in case no one’s ever told you.”
“It’s perfectly normal shit to me,” he comments. “We just live in two very different worlds, princess. Mine’s the real one. It’s grim and gritty, but it’s reality. You exist in a construction—a fabrication—created for the good of a very select and wealthy minority. It’s not right, and it’s not real.”
Like Marlyn Jenkins was a construction for me. I don’t mention that. “Like inThe Matrix?”
“The Matrix?” He rubs the heel of his left hand into the eye bearing the scar, keeping his other arm wrapped around me. “Is this a Keanu Reeves crush we need to discuss?”
“I wouldn’t saycrush…”
He slides his gaze to me and clears his throat.
“What girl doesn’t have a soft spot for Keanu Reeves—if she’s being honest?”
His fingers slip into my hair, and he pulls my head back, baring my neck. “Best remember,” he cautions as he nips his way from my jaw to my collarbone, pulling a longing sigh from me, “for the next few days, all your soft spots belong to me.”
He releases me with a playful shove. “The real world—myworld—is a world of kings and queens, knights, and pawns, darlings and demons. I made my bargain with a devil years ago. Made my bed, so now I have to lie in it. You should be glad you don’t have to share it except for the next few days.”
The next few days.
So little time with him is left for me, and I want more. “Your name, soldier,” I try again, adding a teasing lilt to the request.
“No.” It’s the most direct and honest response he gives me. Most times he speaks in metaphors and codes—a language beyond my paltry four—of things I cannot fathom. “Here,” he says, rolling over me and off the bed.
He digs into his duffel bag and withdraws a small box with a checkerboard design on it. Sitting at the table, he hooks the other chair with his foot, turning it to face me. “Come here.”
I pad across the room to him and sit. “King me!” I suggest, recognizing the box as a checker board.
“Nice try, princess. We’re playing a harder game.” He opens the box, rolling tiny chess pieces out of it and opening the box so its two sides form one continuous chess board. His fingers fly through the set up; he occasionally steals a glance at me, watching for my reaction. “On the real chessboard of life it’s the queen and her knights who hold all the power—if she can handle everything the enemy throws at her…” He gently pushes the board towards me. “Do you play?”
“I used to play with my last ex. Every time I beat him, he had to buy me a bangle.”
“A bangle?”
Unbidden, my gaze drops to the bracelets lining my wrists.
“I see,” he says levelly. “And if he beatyou?”
“He, uh…got somethinghewas very fond of.” I lick my lips and look away. “Do you want me to playyoufor something?”
“You’ll play me to learn. Understanding strategy can help you protect yourself.”
By the end of the game I’ve definitely learned something: Boots is not a gracious loser, and takes great pleasure in stripping off my bracelets, one-by-one, and replacing them with his belt. He lavishes every detail of me with attention and a strange new earnestness as if he is trying to memorize each bit of me, unraveling me to find the core of my truth.
I enjoy my chess lesson immensely because we both get something out of the deal, win or lose.
I’m pressed tight to Boots, one leg hanging across his hip with him still inside me, in that moment after the heat between ushas passed—the twilight time between fucking my brains out and falling asleep—I catch him peering drowsily at me, a certain sweetness glinting in those shimmering silver eyes. My forehead resting against his, I run my fingers lightly down the side of his face, delighting in the prickle of stubble he works every morning to keep at bay, and coax, “Tell me you like me…”
A shadow flits across those magnificent sterling eyes, turning them to pewter and with a groan of “Mercedes,” he pulls out of me, rolling over to face the wall. It is the most quick, efficient, and complete withdrawal of American forces I’ve ever imagined could happen.
And it leaves me lost.
I sit up in bed and rub at my eyes, the fog of a fresh dream slowly lifting. Silver eyes are watching me, and I reach out to run my fingers through his hair, waiting for his eyes to flutter closed again. He shifts in bed, resting his head in my lap as he dozes and I continue brushing my fingers through his hair. He sighs, and even more tension eases out of him. Since the bite and the bond, my dreams, and even my waking moments, have taken on a strange and vibrant quality. They’ve become cinematic, with panning camera angles and dazzling lighting. Everything is so full oflight. In the city my dreams were always easy to decipher, simple things that dealt with the normal things of life. They were basic, average: a party, showing up late to work, jogging through the park, that annoying naked-in-high-school dream that seems universal, and a mysterious man in my bed with silver eyes.
