“You just met him.”
“I am serious. We have a connection. I don’t know how to explain it other than the old love-at-first-sight scenario.” She knew Henry and Joey were protective of her, but she was an adult after al and could make her own decisions.
“The guy is a little on the strange side,” Joey said.
“A little on the strange side? If I’m not mistaken, some people view you two as a little on the strange side. How does that make you feel when that happens?” She crossed her arms over her middle, a clear sign of her aggravation.
“Okay, maybe that was uncaled for, but he’s different, Georgia,” Joey insisted.
Joey was right about Kish being different, but it didn’t automaticaly make him a bad guy just because he was. Her friends were not normaly judgmental, and she was certain they were being so now out of concern for her wel being, but Kish being different wasn’t grounds to have him condemned.
“So what? Everyone is different.”
“His eyes glow when he looks at you. That is more than everyone else’s different,” Henry said.
“What? How in the heck do someone’s eyes glow?”
Holy shit. Did they? She couldn’t sit here and say they didn’t for sure because she had no way of knowing a detail such as that unless someone told her. How did she explain that one when she didn’t know how to? Was it a lycan trait? Damn, but she needed to talk to Kish.
“I don’t know, but they do,” Joey argued.
“Maybe it was just a reflection of light.” Georgia frowned. “Besides, if that’s the only thing you can find that you don’t like about him, I realy don’t think that’s much at al.”
“Okay. Let’s try this one then,” Henry said. “He’s one of the biggest motherfuggas I’ve ever seen in my life and the whole right side of him is covered in scars.
That kind of makes you wonder what kind of things he’s been involved in to sustain such injuries.”
Georgia laughed. “Realy? Scars must be tied to crime somehow? Maybe he had an accident. Did that simple explanation ever cross your mind? Besides, when has it ever been right to judge someone from scars or handicaps?” She wasn’t going to tel them what happened to Kish. He’d entrusted her with that information, and if he ever decided to tel Henry and Joey, so be it. She would not betray his trust.
“Al right, al right, I see your point, but it doesn’t change the fact that the scars, which I am not judging him by, only add to his hugeness and scare factor,”
Henry said.
“The scars are pretty ugly, Georgia. They are the kind that wil make people talk,” Joey said.
“The scars are pretty ugly?” she repeated incredulously.
But before she could admonish Joey about that particular remark and how hurtful and insulting it would be to not only Kish but her as wel, a door slammed.
“Uh-oh,” Henry and Joey said in unison.
“What?” she asked, hoping like hel she was wrong about what had just happened.
Turns out, she wasn’t.
“I have to go after him.” She got up from the couch and started for the front door.
“Georgia, it’s dark out there. You can’t go wandering around in the dark by yourself,” Henry said.
“Watch me.” She felt for her coat hanging beside the door, puled it on, and zipped it up before fishing her gloves from the pocket.
“Georgia!” Henry and Joey said at the same time.
She tugged at the door. “Do no try to stop me, and do not folow me.”
She puled the door shut behind her and shivered as the cold hit her ful force. It didn’t matter to her that it was dark. It was always dark for her.
“Kish?” She paid attention to her footing so she could find her way back. She should have brought Lucy with her, but she’d been in a hurry to find Kish and hadn’t wanted to go back to her room for the harness. “Please answer me, Kish,” she caled out.
Another thirty feet ahead, she found the first tree.
“Damn it, Kish. Please. It’s not what you think.”
“Sounded exactly like what I think.” His voice rumbled close beside her.
She jumped, stil amazed at how quietly he could move. “No. It wasn’t.”
“Realy? Because I distinctly heard you say ‘the scars are pretty ugly.’ Was I mistaken? Last time I checked, my hearing was amazingly accurate.”
“Yes, I said that, but I didn’t say that. I was repeating what Joey said. I was upset. I repeated what he said to him in hopes he’d see how ridiculous he sounded. They were both trying to convince me that you aren’t right for me, that I couldn’t possibly be in love with you since I just met you.”
He sighed loudly. “This is the type of thing I was talking about. You wil get sick of people saying things like what Joey and Henry were saying about me.”
“As wrong as they were, Henry and Joey were being extra critical and extra harsh because they are worried about me. They were wrong to say those things, but I know them, and I don’t believe either one of them were trying to be cruel. Neither one is that shalow, Kish. Honestly, it was a big misunderstanding.”
He didn’t respond, and she worried he may have left. “Are you stil there?”
“Yes.”
She folowed his voice and reached her hand out until she touched his chest. “Aren’t you cold?” He didn’t have a coat on.
“Do I feel cold?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“One of those pesky lycan traits.”
She slowly trailed her finger up over his colarbone to his neck then to the right side of his face where she laid her palm against his cheek. “I don’t think your scars are ugly. I would never think such a thing. You are gorgeous, and I quite truthfuly couldn’t give a rat’s ass what other people say about you.”
“Georgia . . .”
“Come back in with me, and let me show you how sexy I find you.”
“What about your friends?”
“I don’t care what they think either.”
She tentatively held her hand out to him and almost cried in relief when his big fingers tangled with hers.
They started back to the house.
“If I ever catch you roaming the woods at night by yourself again, I’m going to spank that pretty ass of yours.”
His whispered words sent shivers through her body. “I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to a spanking in my life . . . until now. I might just have to test that theory in the near future.”
She laughed when he groaned. “Don’t tease me, Georgia. You could get hurt out here.”
She shook her head. “Not with you around.”
When they got back inside, Henry and Joey were arguing in the living room.
She cleared her throat, took her gloves off, and stuffed them in the pockets of the coat before hanging it by the door.
“Kish,” Joey said. “I’m sorry. I don’t usualy say such asinine things. I was simply worried about Georgia. Which is stil no excuse for what I said. I overreacted.”
“Yeah,” Henry said next. “I was so wrapped up in trying to protect Georgia, I didn’t think before I said some horrible things. I didn’t mean them. Please forgive me.”
After a couple tense, silent moments, Kish finaly spoke. “I care about her too. I won’t hurt her.”
“Yeah, I think we’ve finaly realized that. We’re going to turn in now before we make bigger asses of ourselves.” Joey hugged Georgia. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m sorry too. I would never intentionaly do anything to hurt you.” Henry hugged her next.
“I know you two were worried about me. And I know you don’t normaly judge people like you did Kish. You were simply trying to protect me. But don’t do it again because Kish means the world to me, and I won’t take kindly to anyone who hurts him.”
Kish’s sharp intake of breath bothered her. Had no one taken up for him in the past? Had no one cared enough about him to stand up for him?