“Yeah, you’re right, unless he’s also a man who hired a bossy bitch who seriously likes to spend money to kit out his new condo. That man owns placemats.”

My eyes swept the kitchen with its black KitchenAid appliances, counter appliances and the hooks under the counter where the shiny, expensive-looking cooking utensils hung. It had a black on black theme with black marble countertops, shiny black cupboards and even black tiles on the floor.

Then my eyes kept moving through the living room with its stream-lined couches, low, glass-topped coffee table and large, tall, chrome, curved lamps at kitty-corners with their domed, white shades drooping over the area. All this sitting on a charcoal gray rug that looked like a huge, square piece of fluffy fur.

Then my eyes moved over the low chest at the top situated against the wall that had three black, huge, glossy bowls on top that were wicked cool but held nothing. Then my eyes took in the heavily-framed print on the wall above it that looked like a lot of gray and black splotches and strokes that depicted nothing and made me feel less. And last, there was another state-of-the art, expensively designed CD player mounted on the wall.

It was all spare, colorless but dead cool.

I looked back at Knight. “So this woman bought everything?”

He was pulling down glossy black plates from a cupboard as he answered, “Asked my favorite color, that was it. Then she bought everything.”

“Let me guess, you told her your favorite color was black.”

His eyes came to me and his lips twitched.

Again!

“No, I said it was red.”

I stared at him.

Then it was me who burst out laughing.

Through my laughter I asked, “Seriously?”

“No f**kin’ joke,” he put the plates on the bar and opened a drawer as I moved to open and close two before I found and grabbed two black, cloth placemats. “Jacked. I was away on business, came back, this is what I got. Not a hint of red in the place. Not a hint of anything.”

I set the placemats by the stools on the other side of the bar and asked, “Did she do your bedroom?”

“Yeah.”

“So you don’t like satin sheets?”

His eyes came to me, there was something in them that made me go still but he answered, “Took one look at them, nearly lost my mind. Luckily, she wasn’t around. Slept on ‘em one night, would never sleep on anything else. Not at home.”

“So they’re nice,” I whispered.

“Fuck yeah,” he whispered back.

We stared at each other a beat as I felt his two words hit me in a very secret place.

Then Knight’s eyes moved over my face before they caught mine and he said quietly, “Think it’s a good idea we quit talkin’ about my sheets.”

I nodded because I agreed.

Definitely.

He put cutlery on the counter and ordered, “Arrange that shit and park your ass on a stool, babe. I’ll serve this up.”

I grabbed the cutlery, shifted around the other side and arranged it on the placemats as Knight worked in the kitchen. Then I parked my ass on a stool, sipped wine and watched.

He was cutting open steaming baked potatoes when I noted, “You explained the car. How do you know my last name?”

“What?” he asked, buttering the potatoes.

“The doorman knew my last name. I can only assume you told him.”

His glanced at me then went back to the potatoes, now grinding pepper over them. “Nick told me.”

I felt my brow furrow. “Nick knows my last name?”

He put the pepper aside and grabbed some maldon salt out of a small black bowl and tossed it on the spuds. “Day after I ripped him a new ass**le about the party, he asked who I took home. I told him your first name then he said, ‘Anya Gage?’ and since you’re probably the only Anya in Denver and definitely the only Anya at that party, I guessed. So, yeah, Nick told me.”

“How did Nick know?” I asked.

“No clue,” he muttered, moving to the fridge.

I didn’t like that.

“I don’t know if I like that. I never told him my name.”

Carrying a tub of sour cream, Knight’s eyes cut to me. “Your girl?”

That could be.

“Maybe,” I muttered.

“Speakin’ of her,” he started, reaching into a drawer to grab a spoon, “she needs to tone it down.”

“What?”

He glopped big spoonfuls of sour cream on the potatoes and then his eyes came to me. “You gotta advise her to tone it down. Seen her at my club more than once though never with you. She’s on the hunt. Makes men edgy. Makes her vulnerable. She’ll do what she’s gotta do to get what she wants and they know it. They also know what she wants. She opens it up right off the bat, they take what they want, throw the rest back and they throw the rest back because she gives the vibe they let her in even a little bit, she’ll suck ‘em dry. She needs to watch you, make your moves.”

“My moves?” I asked as he set the sour cream aside and went for the oven door.

“Yeah,” he answered, sliding out the grill pan.

“What are my moves?”

He answered as he put the thick, fillet steaks on the plates.

“The girl in the corner, surveying the scene, playing it cool. You don’t go to them. They come to you if they got the balls to do it which, my guess, they rarely do because they can’t hack not cuttin’ it and losin’ the promise of you. You’re the girl you take out to dinner. Get the good champagne. You pay her attention. Buy her some shit that softens her up and makes her happy. Then you hope all that sweet turns wild when you get her in bed.”

He saw me in the corner?

And he thought all that other stuff about me?

My throat felt clogged but I forced out, “Excuse me?”

His eyes came to me, brows raised. “Am I wrong?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately.

“Bullshit,” he muttered then went back to the fridge.

“Uh… Knight, I would know and you are.”

He didn’t answer. He just came back with a bowl of salad.

Then it hit me.

“Is this you paying me attention, softening me up in order to get me to bed?” I asked.

“You’ll be in my bed, Anya,” he told the plates as he mounded salad on them.