In no time I felt his hands settling it on my shoulders then one moved, wrapped around my bicep and suddenly I was facing him. Then I was moving with him to the door, his hand still on my arm.
I struggled but I found my voice.
“I’m really okay with a taxi,” I told him as he pulled me out of the room, slightly tugged my arm and brought me to a stop.
Totally ignoring me, he curved his torso around the door, did something around the knob, then came out, his hand going the other way and then the lights were extinguished making the room go black. Then he closed the door, locked it, pocketed the key and turned us to the hall.
He did all of this with his hand still holding my arm.
It was at this point I realized my heart was racing and I was finding it difficult to breathe.
Then I stopped breathing altogether when he shifted quickly, bending into me. I had time enough to sway an inch away from him before I was up in his arms.
My legs flying through the air, reflexively, I slid one arm around his hard-muscled shoulders, the other one swinging out in front of him to grab my hand at his neck and hold on as he strode over the coats, walking right on the pile.
Holy crap!
Once free of the coats, he bent and dropped me to my feet. It again wasn’t rough but it wasn’t gentle and my body jolted when my feet hit floor. I had no time to recover, not from being on my feet again, not even from being off them, not from the easy way he swung me into his arms like I weighed as much as a body pillow.
Not from any of it.
Not before his fingers curled around my upper arm again and he propelled me down the hall and around the bend in it.
Okay, I had to get control of this situation and do it now.
I opened my mouth to do just that at the same time I was about to tug my arm from his hold when he stopped abruptly, stopping me with him. Then his head slightly cocked. His angry, blue eyes cut to me and I forgot I had to get control of the situation and do it now. I forgot everything.
Then for some reason he adjusted me, not gently, not cruelly but definitely firmly to the side of one of the doors in the hall.
He let me go and without knocking, he opened the door but where I was situated, I couldn’t see inside.
I heard a woman’s horrified gasp and a man starting, “What the –?”
“I gotta take someone home,” my unwelcome ride told the couple. “You got that time to turn off the fuckin’ music, empty this fuckin’ place of bodies and clean up as much as you can. She wants to finish that ride you’re meanin’ to give her, she helps you clear out this place. She doesn’t help, get her ass outta here too. You don’t want me to come home to see you not takin’ me seriously and I hope you get me ‘cause I’m not fuckin’ with you, Nick, and I am not happy.”
Then he stepped out, closed the door, grabbed my arm again and pulled me down the hall.
My first thought was that he’d just walked in on Sandrine and Nick.
My second thought was obviously Nick had a less spectacular room.
My third thought was that he’d positioned me to the side of the door. I found this surprising and intriguing because he’d heard them in there. They couldn’t have gotten far but they definitely were moving things on. Still, he’d shielded me from whatever was behind that closed door and I didn’t know what to make of it.
We’d rounded the other hall on our way to the front door when I cleared these thoughts and came back to the matter at hand.
“Um… listen, uh…” Damn! “Um, I don’t know your name but –”
“Knight,” he stated, cutting me off.
“Right, Mr. Knight –”
“No, Knight,” he interrupted me again then stopped me by one of the doors in the hall, let me go and opened the door.
“That’s what I said, Knight,” I told him. “Now, Mr. Knight –”
He came out of that door with his overcoat and turned his eyes to me.
I interrupted myself then when they hit me and I clamped my mouth closed.
“No, not Mr. Knight. Knight. My name is Knight.”
I stared up at him as he shrugged on his overcoat and then asked, “Your Christian name is Knight?”
“If that means first name, yeah,” he answered, grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall to the front door.
As he did, curious at this information even though I should be seeing to other business, I asked, “With a ‘K’?”
He looked down at me as he opened the door, “Yeah, babe, with a ‘K’.”
Then he pulled me out the door.
“That’s an unusual name,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” he agreed, dragging me down the luxuriant hall toward the elevators.
“I kind of like it,” I blurted because I did but after I blurted that I kind of wished I didn’t.