Page 4 of Protect Me
By the time I parked and walked up to his apartment, my blood smoked. Heart sprinted. Lungs felt short and compressed. Thoughts of Vinita propelled me forward. A tizzy of breathlessness of this proportion was ridiculous. For all I knew, Vikram wouldn’t even open the door.
I’d be lucky if he spokethroughit, honestly.
Gathering the last of my courage, I rapped with my knuckles and ignored the urge to duck out of sight of the peephole. That would guarantee that he wouldn’t open the door.
No answer.
“Vik?” I called.
My voice croaked. Some people carried their emotions in their eyes, but mine lived in my words. The way they quivered, turned cold as ice, or warm as tea.
Now?
I sounded like a bullfrog.
With a little quiver, I cleared my throat and knocked again. “I know you’re inside. Vini just called me. Let me in?”
The plea went unanswered. I strained to hear any sound, but none came. I chewed on my bottom lip. The concern in Vini’s voice had been real enough and she had better things to worry about than her selfish, ridiculous brother. Namely, growing her firstborn, my nephew.
Indignation on behalf of Vinita flushed through me. If anything would give me courage and power, my loyalty to Vinita wasthething. A stroke of inspiration rippled through me.
With my fist, I banged.
“Vikram Ramesh Manav—“
The door flew open.
I stopped, strangled by surprise. Two dark, slitted eyes glared at me. When a flash of bare, muscular shoulders caught my dropping gaze, I jerked my eyes back to his. Sweet baby pineapple, as Lizbeth would say.
Vikram wasn’t wearing a shirt.
From what I could tell, he wore a pair of baggy gray sweats, cut off at the knee on the right side. Crutches braced his body. The desire to check his feet—they’d be bare because he had always hated shoes—almost urged me to look down again.
Instead, I kept my gaze high and steady.
Nope.
Couldn’t ogle Vik.
Drawn back by something more than sheer desire, I glanced to his right knee. A bulky wrap covered the brown skin there, an ugly interruption to firm legs. Quick as a shot, I looked back to his eyes in silent uncertainty.
He studied me, stony as a statue.
Vikram hated nothing more than his long name—poetically beautiful, if you asked me—but the embarrassment of his childhood. Bastian and Grady had teased him relentlessly over all seven names given to him by his exuberant, loving mother. He never wanted anyone to know them. Calling the first three out now had been a lucky guess.
Nostrils flared, he uttered three hard words.
“Low blow, Kate.”
His voice shocked life back into my veins. How long had it been since I’d heard my name on his lips? Too long. The sound used to trigger my teenage daydreams. Not even the condemnation and annoyance in his words could bother me.
Vikram hadspoken.
“Can I come in?”
Five long seconds passed. Just as I prepared myself to lift an arm and block him from slamming the door in my face, he huffed.
“Fine.”
