She looked away. “What happened?”
She put her hand on her own stomach, trying to calm her response. She didn’t know if that intense, unsettled feeling was coming from her horror over what had happened to him, or over the show of skin that had just occurred.
If it was the skin, she was going to be very disappointed in herself and in her hormones. Because the man had just told her he’d been stabbed. Responding to his body was awfully base. Not to mention insensitive.
“I made the motherfucker who did it regret that he’d ever seen me.” Suddenly, there was nothing in those ice-blue eyes but cold. And she didn’t doubt what he said. Not at all.
“I see.”
“You probably don’t. And it’s for the best. No, I didn’t kill him. If I had killed him, I would still be in prison.” He sat down in a chair that faced the windows. He rested his arms on the sides, the muscles there flexing as he moved his fingers, clenching them into fists. “But a brawl like that going badly for a couple of inmates? That’s easy enough to ignore. I got a few stitches because of a blade. He got a few more because of my fists. People learned quickly not to mess with me.”
“Apparently,” she said, sitting down on the couch across from him, grateful for the large, oak coffee table between them. “Is any of this furniture yours?”
“No,” he responded.
“Good,” she replied. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, per se. But—” she knocked on the table “—if you were married to a particular piece it might make it more difficult, design-wise. I prefer to have total freedom.”
“I find that in life I prefer to have total freedom,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking upward.
A rash of heat started at Faith’s scalp and prickled downward. “Of course. I didn’t mean... You know that I didn’t...”
“Calm down,” he said. “I’m not that easily offended. Unless you stab me.”
“Right,” she responded. She fished around in her bag until she came up with her notepad. “We should talk more about what you have in mind. Let’s start with the specifics. How big do you want the house to be?”
“Big,” he replied. “It’s a massive lot. The property is about fifty acres, and that cleared-out space seems like there’s a lot of scope there.”
“Ten thousand square feet?”
“Sure,” he responded.
She put her pen over the pad. “How many bedrooms?”
“I should only need one.”
“If you don’t want more than one, that’s okay. But...guests?”
“The only people who are going to be coming to my house are going to be staying in my bed. And even then, not for the whole night.”
She cleared her throat. “Right.” She tapped her pen against the side of her notebook. “You know, you’re probably going to want more bedrooms.”
“In case of what? Orgies? Even then, we’d need one big room.”
“All right,” she said. “If you want an unprecedented one-bedroom, ten-thousand-square-foot house, it’s up to you.” She fought against the blush flooding her cheeks, because this entire conversation was getting a little earthy for her. And it was making her picture things. Imagining him touching women, and specifically the blonde from last night, and she just didn’t need that in her head.
“I wasn’t aware I had ordered judgment with my custom home. I thought I ordered an entirely custom home to be done to my specifications.”
She popped up her head. Now, this she was used to. Arrogant men who hired her, and then didn’t listen.
“You did hire me to design a custom home, but presumably, you wanted my design to influence it. That means I’m going to be giving input. And if I think you’re making a decision that’s strange or stupid I’m going to tell you. I didn’t get where I am by transcribing plans that come from the heads of people who have absolutely no training. If there’s one thing I understand, it’s buildings. It’s design. Homes. I want to take the feeling inside of you and turn it into something concrete. Something real. And I will give you one bedroom if that’s what you really want. But if you want a computer program to design your house, then you can have no feedback. I am not a computer program. I’m an...artist.”
Okay, that was pushing it a lot further than she usually liked to go. But he was annoying her.
And making her feel hot.
It was unforgivable.
“A mouthy one,” he commented.
