A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

Vocabulary

Harry actually flinched at the bite in his voice. Wordlessly, he got up and gathered their empty glasses and took them into the kitchen, alarmed by this new side of him, the streak of ruthless finality that enabled him to cut people out of his life without a backward glance. It wasn't so much what he'd said, it was the way he'd said it and the look on his face! When he'd first taken Harry hostage, all his actions and words had been motivated by necessity and desperation, never unwarranted harshness, and he'd understood that. But until these last few minutes—when he'd heard the menace in Zayn's voice and seen it on his face—he'd never been able to understand how anyone could possibly think Zayn Malik was cold-blooded enough to commit murder, but if other people had seen him this way, Harry could well imagine. More clearly than ever before, Harry realized that although they were intimate in bed, they were still virtual strangers. Harry walked into his room to get something to sleep in, turned on the overhead light, and changed in his bathroom. He was so preoccupied that instead of immediately going to Zayn's room, he sat down on his bed, lost in thought.

Several minutes later, he jumped and jerked his head around as Zayn issued a warning: "This is a very unwise decision on your part, Harry. I suggest you reconsider it carefully."

He was standing in the doorway, his shoulder propped against the frame, arms crossed over his chest, his face impassive. Harry had no idea what decision he was referring to, and although he still looked distant, he did not look or sound like the sinister spectre he'd seemed in the dimly lit living room. Harry almost wondered if much of what had alarmed him had been a combined trick of imagination and firelight.

Harry stood up and started slowly toward him, uncertain, searching his face. "Is that supposed to be your idea of an apology?"

"I wasn't aware I have anything to apologize for."

The arrogance of that was so typical of him that Harry almost laughed. "Try out the word rude and see if that touches a nerve."

"Was I rude? I didn't mean to be. I warned you that the discussion was going to be extremely unpleasant for me, but you wanted to have it anyway."

He looked as if he honestly felt that he was being unjustly vilified, but Harry persevered anyway. "I see," he said, stopping in front of Zayn. "Then this is actually all my fault?"

"It must be. Whatever 'this' is referring to."

"You don't know, is that it? You are completely unaware of the fact that your tone of voice to me in there was..." he searched for the right words and settled for something that didn't quite fit, "...cold and callous and needlessly harsh."

Zayn shrugged with an indifference that Harry suspected was partially feigned: "You aren't the first person to accuse me of being all those things and a lot more. I'll defer to your judgment. I am cold, callous, and—"

"Harsh," Harry provided, bending his head, trying not to laugh at how ridiculous the whole debate sounded now. Zayn had risked his life to save him and he had wanted to die when he thought he'd failed. He was anything but cold and callous. Those other women had been wrong. His laughter faded abruptly, and he felt an aching remorse for what he had said and what they had all said.

Zayn could not decide whether he'd actually intended to retaliate against him for some imagined slight by sleeping in here alone, which was what had originally angered him, or if he were innocent of that nauseating ploy. "Harsh," Zayn agreed bluntly and belatedly, wishing he'd look up so Zayn could get a good look at his face.

"Zayn?" Harry said to his chin. "The next time anyone tells you you're any of those things, tell them to look much closer." Harry raised his eyes to his and said softly, "If they do, I think they'll see a rare kind of nobility and an extraordinary gentleness."

Zayn slowly uncrossed his arms, completely taken aback, feeling his heart turn over exactly the way it always did when Harry looked at him that way.

"I don't mean to imply that you aren't also autocratic, dictatorial, and arrogant, you understand—" he added with a choked laugh.

"But you like me anyway," Zayn teased, brushing his knuckles over his cheek, disarmed, defused, and absurdly relieved. "Despite all that."

"Add vain to my list," he quipped, and Zayn pulled him tightly into his arms. "Harry," he whispered, bending his head to kiss him, "shut up."

"And peremptory, too!" he stated against Zayn's lips.

Zayn started to laugh. He was the only one who'd ever made him feel like laughing while he was kissing. "Remind me never again," he said, deciding to kiss Harry's ear instead because it couldn't move out from under his lips, "to go near another man with a vocabulary like yours!" Zayn traced the curve of his ear with his tongue and Harry shivered, holding him close as Harry whispered another breathless summation of his character:

"And incredibly sensual ... and very, very sexy..."

"On the other hand," he smilingly amended, kissing Harry's nape, "there is just no substitute for an intelligent and discerning man either."