Re: Second Class; Theater - Smoking Room
That hiss made him grin instead of starting. A gunslinger rode around long enough and he knew animals well enough that hissing wasn’t anything to get scared over, but he eyed the long nails as the gusting smoke peeled apart just long enough for light to permeate, to pick her out all black silk and skinny pale against the cushions. He knew plenty about that, and that went a way toward warning that the hissing didn’t. He didn’t plan on touching the woman without her say-so, hell, without a red carpet invitation. A man who got in trouble often enough to cover himself up had an eye for doing right at a party like this and those glinting points of teeth would make any man uneasy. He sat with his knees spread and his elbows slack on his thighs and his glass cupped in both hands, and he leaned back like he was comfortable there, even if she’d curled herself up tight like he offended her just by sitting there.
He was used to being looked at that and it didn’t make him fuss one bit. He sat calm, and he sat relaxed, looseness in his shoulders and spine but he pinched the corner of the scarf at the left side of his jaw and he tugged it up like he was concerned about it falling down, just the once and he looked right back, because a woman all slim limbs and part kitty was a hell of a thing, even if she sounded woman rather than cat, sex and smoke mingled up together.
When he laughed, it was easy too. He was a man who laughed a lot and it was strong as if he laughed more with men where sound did not need tempering. “Maybe they don’t. But I don’t keep a cat and a cat doesn’t keep me so I have no presents or compliments to go giving.” He’d never wanted one, cats went off by themselves and they did their own thing and maybe they were too similar in that. A dog was right, a dog would run at your heels to the end of the world but a cat had to be coaxed and the gunslinger didn’t do much coaxing. The leather of his belt and his boots creaked as he settled, and he touched the brim of his hat with forefinger and thumb because she was a lady somewhere in there along with the kitty parts but he didn’t take it off and he didn’t apologize for it.