“Never heard of it.”
She blinked, shaking off her erotic memories. “You’ve never heard of The Walking Dead? Where’ve you been? Under a rock?”
“Just prison.”
“Oh.” Her face burned. “There are TVs in prison,” she reminded him.
“I never spent much time in the rec room watching TV.”
No, from the looks of him he had spent all his time working out, honing his body into a weapon that could protect him while he was in there. And me. The reminder of what he had done for her, how he had saved her, was never far, but right now it went a long way in softening her toward him.
He moved ahead of her, sinking down on her couch. He seemed to dominate everything, making the space of her living room somehow tighter, but not in a bad way. It just seemed cozier. It felt more like a home with him in it. Dangerous thinking.
She fetched two spoons from the kitchen and returned, sinking down on the couch beside him, careful to leave space between them. “Well, c’mon. It’s a marathon. We’re halfway through season two but I’ll catch you up.”
She pulled the carton out of the bag, pausing when she looked at it. Her face warmed. “Cherry Garcia,” she murmured, easing off the lid. “My favorite.”
“Yeah. I remember.” His voice had gone all gravelly. Her gaze cut to him. His bright blue eyes went dark as they stared at her face, then lowered, dropping to her chest. Her breasts grew aching, straining against her T--shirt, nipples hardening as she remembered his fingers rubbing cold ice cream on her, followed by the hot swipe of his tongue. The nip of his teeth. The squeeze of his fingers. Oh. God.
She dug her spoon into the semisoft ice cream and shoved it into her mouth, hoping that would cool off the sudden heat of arousal swamping her.
She handed him a spoon and he dug in, taking a big bite. She pointed her spoon at the TV. “That’s Rick and that’s Shane. They used to be best friends . . . but at this point Shane has gone kind of bonkers.”
They watched the drama unfolding on the screen for several more moments. She inserted explanations when necessary. Even though she’d seen it before, she gasped when Rick stabbed Shane.
“Well, that was coming,” Knox declared.
She snorted. “Oh, like you absolutely knew that was going to happen.”
“He wanted Rick’s wife for himself.”
“So?”
“Rick was gonna kill him,” he answered, as if it were the most simple explanation in the world.
“How do you know that? You’ve just started watching—-”
“It’s a zombie world, right? Normal rules of society don’t exactly apply.”
She looked at Knox, studying the hard set to his features and realizing that he had lived in a place where the normal rules of society didn’t apply. When he’d come to her rescue in the HSU, he had been primitive. An animal uncaged.
He had lived in a place void of civilization. Maybe, in his mind, he still lived there. That’s what set him apart. He had an edge to him even out here. He always would.
They were still staring at each other when he calmly added, “A man has to defend what’s his.”
Had he seen her as his then? Even in that prison? It was crazy. He certainly didn’t view her like that now. He might be here, but it was just because he felt sorry for the way things went down between them at Roscoe’s and wanted to make amends.
She looked back at the TV, just in time to watch as a full--scale zombie herd started attacking everyone.
“Wow,” he announced at the end of the episode. “That was pretty intense.”
“Good, right? Want to watch the next one?”
He nodded, and she settled back down on the couch, not minding anymore that their shoulders touched. It actually felt . . . companionable. For a fleeting moment she wondered if this could be the start of a friendship between them. Was that even possible? Could they be friends after everything?
She focused on the TV screen. Of course, it didn’t escape her notice that they were starting the season where the group took refuge from the zombies in a prison. Apparently Knox noticed that plot point, too.
“You’d never see me back in a prison,” he said after a while.
“But it’s fortified. It has walls and fences. Makes sense that they can keep the zombies out of there,” she argued. “Otherwise they’re risking themselves out in the woods—-”
“I wouldn’t care.” He shrugged and she let the matter drop. Obviously he would feel that way, but then she couldn’t help the next question from slipping out of her mouth.
“Do you regret it?” She felt his stare on the side of her face, and forged on, fixing her gaze on the screen as she asked what had always been in the back of her mind, lurking, a shadow that wouldn’t fade. “What you did . . . do you regret it?’
“Do you know what I did?’
She shook her head.
“I served out my sentence,” he responded, his tone revealing nothing.
“That’s not an answer.”