Page 7 of Kane

He is the most frightening human being I have ever seen—he exudes wildness, brutish animal power. Like an oversized bull, he is, all raw primal strength. Yet…to say I am attracted to him does not feel accurate. I have never felt this before. Of course, the only men I have ever been around are Pappa’s men, and they treat me like an object, or at best a little sister. Afemale—controlled, protected.

This man…

He makes my blood burn. My hands tremble at the sight of him, my thighs as well. Even certain private and intimate portions of my feminine anatomy—until now ignored except for bathroom endeavors—quiver at the sight of him. I do not know what this means, the warm, wet quiver at the apex of my thighs, but it scares me.

My mouth is dry.

I realize he is speaking, and abruptly my ears unplug. “…Lee? Anjalee? You okay, darlin’?”

I shake my head. “What?”

He smirks at me—as if he knows exactly the effect he has on me. “You’re shivering. Put this on.”

He’s extending a tightly rolled black bundle. I take it from him and allow it to unroll—it is a jacket of red and black squares, with tan fleece on the inside. I shrug into it, the garment, sized for him, is so large I could fit more than two of me into it. It is very heavy, very warm—especially when he snaps the front up to my chin, going so far as to flip the collar up behind my neck. Immediately, my core temperature begins rising, and I sigh in relief. It is, I believe, the warmest thing I have ever worn. The cuffs still hang six inches past my fingertips and it hangs off my shoulder a little, but not so much that it falls off.

Kane laughs, taking one sleeve and rolling it up past my wrist, and then the other. My hands catch his attention, and he takes a hand in his huge rough paw, tilting it this way and that in the flickering orange light of the small fire.

“Pretty,” he remarks, a thick fingertip tracing the elaborate henna designs running from wrist over the back of my hand and over my fingers, dots and whorls and tracery.

“Henna,” I say. “It is…ceremonial.” I am not ready to share why I have run away, not with him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Permanent?”

“No, it will last about two weeks.”

He turns my hands over, examining the designs on my palms. “Pretty,” he says again.

His eyes go to mine. My breath once again catches in a nearly audible gasp as I take in his eyes. They are no one color. I suppose the word, to be technically precise, is hazel. But such a boring word does not capture the truth. They are streaked, intermingled and woven lines of green and brown and gray and blue, and the more I look the more complicated they become. I see a world in those every-colored eyes—there is pain in them, and violence, and beauty, warmth, softness, hardness, brutality, kindness, coldness. Beyond all of this, merely depth. Wells of color, endless.

I tug my hands from his, shaken, unnerved. I step away from him, look toward the fire. “Where do I sit?”

He gives me an amused, confused frown. “The ground?”

“I will make my clothing dirty.”

He stares. “Oh no. The horror.” His eyes twinkle with humor. Not mocking but teasing.

I stare back. “Iwill notsit in the dirt.” I cross my arms over my chest.

He lets out a soft sigh. Goes back to his motorcycle bags and rummages. Comes back with another something rolled up, which he unfurls and places on the ground, making an elaborate show of it. “Your majesty.”

I turn my nose up and ignore his teasing tone as I sit—on what appears to be a rain poncho, dark green, and as old and worn as it seems everything he owns. “Thank you.”

He watches me a moment, then shakes his head. Once more, he turns to the leather bags. “Hungry?”

I was not, until he asked—my belly chooses that moment to gurgle noisily, telling him and me that I am indeed hungry. “I am a bit hungry, yes.” I arch an eyebrow. “Do you have a salad bar in your motorcycle as well?”

He snorts. “Salad bar? Yuh-huh, sure.” His hand dives into the bag and comes up, tossing something at me—instinctively, I reach for it, catch it. It is some sort of food bar, shrink-wrapped in silver foil.

“What is this thing?” I ask, turning it in my hands.

“Protein bar?” As if it should be obvious.

“I am a vegetarian.”

“You’re in luck, then, ‘cause it ain’t meat.” A glance up and away, tilt of his head. “It ain’tvegan,but it ain’t meat.”

He has another in his hands, ripping it open as he swaggers over to me, sitting cross-legged in the dirt beside me, his back to the rock. I watch him tear the protein bar open, crumpling the wrapper and shoving it in his hip pocket. The bar is a compressed slab of…I do not know what. It appears to have chocolate pieces, and it is brown, like a cookie.