“Are you going to offer me something to drink?”

“Are you planning on staying a while?”

I wish I knew exactly what his face looks like. I could imagine him grinning right now.

“All I have to drink is water,” I offer.

“I’ll take that.”

I turn around and step sideways. Reaching up, I open the cupboard above the counter and feel around until the tips of my fingers find a small glass near the back. I grab it off the shelf and turn around.

“Holy shit!” I scream as I bump into Daimon by the sink.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, taking a step back.

“Yes, you did!”

“I’m sorry, Alex. Truly. I should have known you’d still be a bit jumpy from the attack.”

I huff impatiently, slamming the glass down on the counter. “I’m not jumpy because of the attack. I’m jumpy because there’s a strange man in my apartment who just snuck up behind me.”

“I’m a strange man?”

“Yes! You killed someone and now you’re quietly paying visits to the one person who witnessed your crime. Yes, that’s strange.”

“Strange … or smart?”

“Get out!”

He laughs softly and the sound drives me crazy. It’s so sexy.

“I’m kidding, Alex.” His voice has taken on a bit of a hard edge now and I don’t like it. “I’m not grooming you to go along with my story. And I’m not trying to threaten you. I’m merely intrigued by you. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a beautiful woman who hides in her apartment and can also fight off three armed men?”

“Stop calling me beautiful. I’m not susceptible to flattery.”

We stand in the kitchen for a couple of minutes, facing each other, waiting for the other to speak or make the next move.

“I brought you something,” he says, reaching for the pocket of his dark hoodie.

“Don’t move,” I warn him.

He freezes. “You can reach into my pocket and retrieve it if that would make you feel better.”

I focus on taking deep breaths as my heart beats faster. “If you try anything, I will kill you. One man is a lot easier than three.”

“I believe you. And I wouldn’t dream of trying anything.”

I reach forward slowly until my fingers make contact with the soft fabric of his sweatshirt. It’s warm from his body heat and something about that makes me nervous. He’s real.

I slowly slide my hand inside his pocket and immediately feel something soft. I feel around a little more then pull it out carefully. His hand comes up and gently closes around mine as I hold the feather up.

“It’s a black ostrich feather.” His other hand comes forward to pull the feather out of my hand and the feeling of his skin on mine sends a chill through me. “I saw it in a gift shop on the boardwalk and thought of you. Soft and dark. Delicate.”

I pull my hand out of his and tuck it behind my back. “I’m not delicate. Or soft.”

“I would have to disagree,” he whispers, taking a small step forward effectively closing the gap between us. “I’ve touched your skin and it is very soft.”

I swallow my anxiety and stand my ground. “What am I supposed to do with a feather?”

The moment the words come out of my mouth I regret speaking them.

His face is less than a foot away from mine and, from this distance, in the near absolute darkness of the kitchen, I can just barely see a hint of his features. A tiny hint of dark blue light painted in soft brushstrokes over the peaks of his lips, the tip of his nose, the angle of his cheekbones. But his eyes are still completely shadowed by that hood.

“Alex?”

I can’t breathe with him this close to me. But I almost can’t move. As if his body is a magnet and I’m a delicate piece of tin.

“Yes?”

“I know I can’t turn on the lights. And, to be quite honest, I rather enjoy getting to know you in the dark. But my curiosity is piquing, and I must …” His hand reaches up slowly. “Can I touch your face?”

A sharp pain twists in my stomach, though I know there’s nothing he will feel on my face that will help him understand why I hide. I don’t have hideous scars, deformities, or malformations. I have severe discoloration of my skin and eyes. One brown eye and the other, my left eye, a gray so soft it’s almost white. I have to wear sunglasses to protect my eye and to hide it from the world. I wear thick pancake makeup to cover the discoloration of my skin.

I think I could deal with the skin issue if I didn’t also have the discoloration in my left eye. When I was five years old, my mother walked me into the kindergarten classroom and all the children were afraid of me. None of them wanted to sit next to me. My mother vowed then and there that she would never expose me to that kind of ridicule.

She homeschooled me in all subjects, but one particular subject was the emphasis of her curriculum: How to Hide Alex’s Hideous Face. She gave me lessons on how to apply makeup to cover the skin discoloration when I was just seven years old. But she only took me out in public when it was absolutely necessary. Like when the basement was flooded during a particularly bad rainstorm and we had to stay in a motel for a few days.

Other than that, I spent most of my days in the basement, being homeschooled by my mother or physically trained by my father. Always perfecting the art of hiding.

So, Daimon won’t feel anything unusual on my face. He won’t even feel my makeup since I’m not wearing any tonight. I only wear makeup on days I work. And I’m not going back to work until tomorrow night. But I’m still afraid of letting him touch my face.

I draw in a deep breath. “First, I want to touch your face.”

“Very well.”

My heart pounds so hard my chest hurts as I reach for his face. My fingertips reach his jaw first and I draw my hand back immediately at the prickly sensation.

“That’s my scruff. Is it too rough?” he asks with what sounds like genuine concern.

“No. Just … It’s fine.”

I reach up again and the roughness of his scruff tickles my fingertips as I trace them along his jaw. My other hand reaches up to the other side of his face and I can hear him take in a sharp breath. With my hands working in unison, I trace from his jawbone down to his chin. Then I bring both hands up and place my fingers on each of his cheekbones. Before I can stop myself, my hands are sliding back to feel the curves of his ears.

He exhales a soft sigh, as if he were holding his breath, then his hands are on my waist. “Alex.”

The way he says my name, a soft incantation, I feel my muscles slacken. He can sense it and before I can question him, he scoops me up in his arms. My hands still clinging to the sides of his face, he looks straight ahead, his gait purposeful as he carries me to my bedroom.

He lays me down gently then sits on the edge of the bed, the way my mother sometimes did when I was sick in bed as a child. He reaches for my face and I hold my breath. Then his fingertips make contact with my cheek and I exhale.

This time, he doesn’t ask to touch me. And I think I prefer that.

His fingertips roam lightly over my cheekbone then swoop down slowly to caress my jaw. He curls his hand so he can feel the same area of my face with the backs of his fingers. A shiver travels through me, down my arms, through my chest, into my belly, and pulses between my legs.

“Shh.” He shushes me gently when he hears my breathing getting heavier.

Somehow it works. It works so well, I don’t notice he’s removing my sunglasses until he pulls them away from my face.

“Relax, ma chérie.”

I take in a deep breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. I can see his face a bit more without my sunglasses, though the bedroom is even darker than the kitchen. I reach for his cheek and his other hand lands on top of mine. He presses my hand against his warm skin then nuzzles his cheek against the palm of my hand.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to fear me.”