Free Ninja At First Sight by Penny Reid Page A

me. At first I felt his nearness, then as we ascended the stairs I heard the resonance of his footsteps in rhythm with mine.
    We climbed two flights, the atmosphere between us crackling with tension, each step a chapter of unsaid words. My accelerated heartbeat had very little to do with the stairs I was taking two at a time. I kept expecting him to touch me, stop me, ask me to listen to some explanation for his behavior.
    But he didn’t.
    Unable to endure another second of this silent torture, I spun abruptly and pointed my finger at his face, demanding, “Why did you do that?”
    If he was surprised by my questioning, he didn’t look it. To my complete exasperation, he appeared entirely unfazed.
    “Why did I do what?” He shrugged.
    “Why did you interrupt my date with Mark?”
    “I’ll give you three guesses.” His voice was steady, but his mouth curved into a derisive twist, and his eyes narrowed.
    I studied him, his achingly handsome face and his dark eyes glaring at mine with mocking accusation. “Greg, you insisted that I go! You could have asked me not to go.”
    His left eyebrow hitched and I wasn’t surprised when his words arrived deadpan and sarcastic. “What? After he’d already made the reservations for Applebees'? That would have been extraordinarily poor form. That is where he took you on your Valentine's date, isn’t it? Applebee's?”
    “No,” I groused, then rolled my eyes, admitting, “He took me to Olive Garden.”
    Greg made a clicking sound with his tongue and walked around me to the next flight of stairs, mumbling, “Of course he did.”
    Now I was climbing after him. “There is nothing wrong with Applebee's or Olive Garden and you didn’t answer my question. If you didn’t want me to go, why didn’t you say something? Why encourage me to go on a date with another man if you didn’t want me to go?”
    Greg’s laugh was loud and sharp and sudden. “Fiona, you didn’t go on a date with a man. If Mark from art history had been a man I would have sabotaged the evening early on. As it was, you went on a date with a nineteen-year-old boy. I didn’t need to raise a finger. Nineteen-year-old boys are harmless.”
    “And when you were nineteen you were harmless?” My voice echoed in the cavernous stairwell.
    He stopped suddenly and turned. His jaw was set and his usually generous lips were pressed together in a firm, angry line. Greg backed me up against the stair railing and peered down at me with heavy-lidded eyes shadowed by thick black lashes.
    When he answered I felt the heat from his body, scant inches separating us; his words were low and dark, just a rumble above a whisper. “You know better, Darling. I’ve never been harmless. And it’s a good thing too, because you don’t want harmless.”
    I succeeded in maintaining eye contact—I even managed a stubborn chin tilt—and was able to toss back, “You might be right, maybe harmless doesn’t appeal to me much. But this feels a lot like playing games, Greg. And playing games doesn’t appeal to me either.”
    His eyes darted between mine. I could tell I’d surprised him because his angry expression was eclipsed by thoughtful deliberation. He appeared to be struggling.
    At last, with measured sounding gentleness, he asked, “What appeals to you, Fiona?”
    “Honesty. Sincerity.” Then, because I’d just told him to be honest and I didn’t want to be a coward or a hypocrite, I added weakly, “You.”
    Greg visibly relaxed, the tight line of his lips smoothing. “When I’m being honest?”
    “Yes.”
    He continued to scrutinize me as he gathered a deep breath, and in doing so his chest brushed against mine. I felt debilitated by his nearness. Seconds ticked by. He said nothing.
    If I’d known him better I might’ve been able to decipher the puzzle of his expression. It occurred to me that the feeling between us, this intangible magnetic field of mutual esteem, might be fleeting. Perhaps it was premature, and