His gaze dropped to the backpack that had slipped off one shoulder and was resting on the seat beside her then returned to her face. “And then what?”
She didn’t understand what he was talking about. “Then I wake up and leave.”
“What about the next night?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“No,” he admitted easily, “but now I’m making it my business.”
“Why?” She didn’t look away this time either, staring hard at him, because there had to be a reason why a man like him was bothering with a woman like her, and only one reason was springing to mind. “Do you want sex?”
Chapter 4
Xavier blinked, struggling with the real yet highly unfair urge to laugh. Because seriously? Sex? With her?
She was sitting bolt upright on the seat opposite him, her shoulders hunched, her hands clasped in her lap around her ridiculous knife, obviously uncomfortable. With her horrible orange hat, hideous brown overcoat, dusty dirty jeans, and soaked sneakers, he’d never seen a woman who looked less like a sex object.
But her dark eyes were fixed on him, all fierce and burning, and for some reason the urge to laugh drained completely away. There was a curious dignity to her, the kind he both wanted to preserve yet mess around with a little too.
No, he didn’t want to have sex with her. The thought had never crossed his mind, but the way she was looking at him was almost challenging, and he could work out if it because she’d be mad if he said yes, or mad if he said no.
So he didn’t laugh. Instead, he allowed himself a moment to consider the idea, to look at her as a woman he might be interested physically in.
She had gone very still, the fine line of her jaw lifted. Her cheekbones were sharp and slightly hollowed, which indicated she didn’t eat very often, and she really wasn’t pretty in the conventional sense. But she was striking. Her eyes, for a start, were amazing, and the long, dark lashes that framed them were black and silky and thick. Her mouth, too, was very promising, with a soft, full bottom lip, red and chapped from the cold.
Something kicked unexpectedly inside him, a pulse of what surely couldn’t be desire.
It unsettled him, because he might be an asshole with a healthy disrespect for authority and an unhealthy interest in firing guns and blowing shit up, but even he drew the line at forcing a hungry, freezing homeless woman into giving him sex.
Letting out a breath, he leaned back in his seat again. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t want sex. That’s not why I’m interested in what you’re doing.”
Her gaze narrowed, as if she didn’t believe him. “Then why are you?”
If he’d been a different man, he might have been annoyed at her assumption that he was the kind of man who’d force a woman into sex. But he wasn’t that kind of man. Given her situation, she probably experienced that sort of shit all the time, so no wonder she was distrustful. He’d probably feel the same in her shoes. “Because I don’t like the idea of you freezing to death in an alleyway somewhere.”
The fierceness in her eyes didn’t lessen. “Lots of people freeze to death in alleyways, but I don’t see them sitting in the car with me.”
“Maybe if they’d been standing in the shelter doorway with you just now, they might be.” Which was a lie. Oh, he would have helped them out, seen them safely to the next shelter, no question, but he wouldn’t have offered them a ride. Wouldn’t have offered to take them back to his penthouse.
It was only her he was interested in. Only her he was curious about.
She looked down at her hands again, her posture hunched and stiff.
The assumption he wanted her for sex hadn’t annoyed him, but the way she was sitting did. He’d thought she’d be happier here in the limo, out of the snow and out of the cold, yet apparently not.
Why? Did she still think he was going to hurt her?
Or maybe getting into some rich asshole’s limo is just a little overwhelming. Did you ever think of that?
Actually, he hadn’t.
Xavier frowned, giving her another, closer look. Her clothes were filthy, the hems on her jeans and the edges of her overcoat sleeves soaked and frayed. Her sneakers looked like they might have once been bright red, but now were a dirty purple. The sole on one foot was starting to come away, and he could see by the gleam of moisture on them that they were also soaked.
Jesus Christ, she must be freezing.
He sat forward and reached for her hand without thinking.
She flinched, rearing back like she had in front of the shelter doors, her knife at the ready. But this time he ignored it, taking her hand in his and closing his fingers around it. Her skin was icy cold.