“Want me to let you in on a secret?” she whispered, leaning closer to Knight.
Heat spread through Knight’s body, and he moved forward to meet her halfway, enticed by her perfume and the fullness of her lips. “I’m all ears.”
“I didn’t even care how much this gig paid, I came over for kicks. I’ve heard the Kings throw the best parties in the area.” Star winked at him, and he could already imagine where this night would end for them.
Knight grinned and rubbed her bare legs—not too gently yet not to roughly—in a promise of a fantastic conclusion to this night. “You heard right. I’m willing to show you around later.”
“I can think of a few things I’d like to see.” She ran her finger up Knight’s arm, pulling up his short sleeve. “Like more of these tattoos.”
Knight groaned and his gaze followed her fingers, which traced the long sequence of names and dates. All the ancestors he’d managed to trace so far permanently etched into his skin. “I’m proud of my heritage. My family came here from France in early nineteenth century. Look,” he said and lifted his T-shirt to expose the battle scene and the early twentieth-century French emblem.
Star bit her lip and tossed her long, shiny locks over her shoulder. “Oh, I definitely like what I see.”
Knight smiled and pulled her hand to his breastbone, hissing softly when the long nails gently scraped skin. “It’s the Battle of Valmy. The French were fighting the invading Prussians. My ancestor, Georges Mercier, was one of the commanders.”
Star nodded, and her fingers glided over Knight’s pec, all the way under his nipple. “And what about this guy?”
Knight was elated to see her interest, but when he looked down at the tip of her nail, he saw a face that meant nothing at all. He took her hand and moved it to rest against Georges. “There he is. His family owned a countryside inn, but he moved to Paris to join the revolutionaries. A tough guy. Married four times but only had one kid outlive him. Can you imagine?”
Star nodded, but her smile died down a bit. “That’s horrible,” was all she had to add. “And have you ever been to France?”
“I intend to. I just need to find the right girl to accompany me. I’m planning to visit my old family seat near La Rochelle. There’s some distant cousins of mine still living there. They’re dairy farmers now. We can trace our common ancestry all the way to Raphael, who was a painter in the late seventeenth century. Once I’m in the old country, I will finally be able to dive into records that haven’t been scanned and published online and find out more. Would have made a cool, romantic trip for two.”
“Oh.” Star smiled, but her gaze seemed to drift off. It reminded Knight of the time Knight had told Elliot about La Rochelle. Elliot had quickly picked up that if they went together they could visit the United Kingdom as well and discover where Fane had come from. They had looked at maps and walked through Knight’s ancestral town on Google Streetview, exchanging comments about some of the older-looking buildings that could have been there in the early nineteenth century.
Elliot had asked so many questions about Georges Mercier that even Knight didn’t have all the answers. They’d spent the whole night looking shit up on the Internet and making a list of things they couldn’t find. Elliot had actually been interested, not just used family history as a pretext to stay in Knight’s bed.
Then again, Knight could always fuck Star and then chat to Elliot anyway. That could work.
“Knight, you have a sec?” Jake asked, approaching him with a tense expression. “We have a situation.”
Knight exhaled, glaring at him, but he knew Jake wouldn’t break up a good thing with a woman over something unimportant, so he ended up promising Star to join her later and followed Jake to a quiet corner.
“What’s up?”
“It’s Elliot. He’s stolen a six-pack.”
Knight frowned and slumped against the wall. “Really? That’s the serious issue that’s taking me away from this new pretty flower? So he wants to have a bit of fun with the girls, or something, big deal.” Though Elliot was pretty weak-headed when it came to alcohol, so Knight could only hope Elliot wasn’t set on drinking six beers on his own.
Jake shook his head. “I know. I’d usually report something like this after the party, but he’s taken it and gone off toward the garages. I wasn’t sure if it matters, but I thought you might want to know that he’s taken our booze and wants to go off the premises. That’s not really on, is it?”
It wasn’t such a big issue, since a six-pack of beer wasn’t exactly a wholesale amount, but it did cause some worry to flare up in Knight’s mind. Elliot hadn’t contacted any friends since he came to stay at the clubhouse. He was such a lightweight that a single beer made him somewhat giddy, and if he had the six-pack by himself, he’d probably need his stomach pumped. What if, under the influence, he got the brilliant idea to drive somewhere and crashed or drove off a cliff, straight into the ocean where no one would find his body until it bloated and started rotting in the saltwater? Knight was regretting that he’d had Jake tow the piece of junk to the clubhouse and repair it for Elliot.