Shameless

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  “Amazingly enough, I feel precisely the same way about stupid, stubborn males. Which makes it most fortunate that I am not concerned with finding you attractive, only with preventing you from dying before you can get us out of this devilish maze of caves.”

  “I repeat, I’m in no danger of dying.”

  “Weakening from blood loss, then. You’re putting me out of all patience with you, you know. Give me the candle and have done.”

  “You’ll faint, or worse.”

  “I never faint.” Beth took the candle from his unresisting hand. “I’m quite strong-stomached, believe me.”

  “Now that I believe.”

  “Well, then.” Moving over to the fire, she held the candle to the flame. The wick caught. Protecting it from drafts with a cupped hand, she returned to stand in front of him. When he continued to look at her without moving, she added in an encouraging tone, “It would probably be best if you were to lie down on your stomach. That way, if you should feel faint, there will be no chance of you falling and injuring yourself more.”

  The derisive sound he made told her his opinion of that. He eyed her a trifle grimly, then appeared to see the sense in letting her do what he could not, because he moved sideways, lifting his right shoulder away from the stone and turning so that she could see his back. Here the bullet had exited just above his shoulder blade. Untreated, it was a jagged-edged hole the approximate diameter of the end of her thumb, and dark around the edges with dried blood; more blood oozed from the center to run in scarlet rivulets down the sleek planes of his back.

  “Do it, then,” he said.

  “Certainly. Pray hold still.”

  Hitching the blanket more firmly into place, laying a hand on his wide shoulder (which was as disconcertingly warm, smooth-skinned, and heavily muscled as his arm) to steady herself, she gritted her teeth and put the flame to his flesh with no more roundaboutness. There was a horrible sizzling sound and a smell like some sweetish meat being cooked as the hole was sealed and the blood bubbled and stopped flowing. He stiffened and, she thought, caught his breath. But he made no sound and, except for the steel-like hardening of the muscles of his shoulder beneath her hand, gave no other sign of the pain she knew he had to feel.

  “There, it is done.” Blowing out the candle, she bestowed a comforting pat on his shoulder. Her voice was perfectly steady, just like her hand had been throughout the whole nerve-shredding ordeal. But her heart beat faster, and a surge of nausea made her grimace and swallow; fortunately, with his back to her, he could not see.

  “Thank you.” His voice was a shade grittier than usual, and there was a new hardness around his eyes, she saw as he shifted around so that he was once again facing her. He was careful to keep the injured portion of his back away from the wall even as he leaned against it for what she guessed was badly needed support. Once situated to his liking, he looked at her from beneath half-lowered lids. “I make you my compliments: you ministered most admirably.”

  “And you were very brave,” she replied. He made a sound that might have been an aborted laugh, grimaced, and reached for the bottle of spirits. Laying the candle on the stone beside him as he put the bottle to his lips and took a long drink, she forbore to give him so much as a disapproving look. Instead, she took in the beads of sweat that had popped out on his brow, the whiteness around the corners of his mouth, and the overall pale tinge to his skin, and felt sorry that she’d had to hurt him.

  He might not show pain, she thought, but he felt it.

  “Don’t concern yourself, there isn’t enough left in this bottle to make me even the slightest bit bosky.” Lowering the bottle, he encountered her frowning gaze and put his own interpretation on it.

  “I wasn’t thinking about that. I was wondering what to use for bandages.” Having spied what she needed, Beth busied herself gathering it up. First his neckcloth, and then the slender knife that was lined up with a pair of pistols within easy reach of his hand. Remembering the use to which the knife had most recently been put, she picked it up with some reluctance, but pick it up she did. The circumstances were such as to preclude any tendency she might feel to indulge her sensibilities.

  “Bandages?”

  “The wound has been sealed, but it might very well open up again if it is subjected to friction from, for example, your shirt. Protecting it with bandages seems only prudent.”

  “You may be right, but—hold, are you cutting up my neckcloth?”

  “Since I see no bandages about, it seemed the best choice.”

  “I should perhaps point out that it’s the only one I possess.”

  “It was that or your shirt. And your shirt is wet, and liberally stained with blood besides.”

  He made no reply, but watched her in silence as, having begun by slicing into the fine linen, she proceeded to rip it to shreds. He once more rested against the wall in the position in which she had found him, and from his very stillness she guessed that he was feeling much worse than he was willing to let her see. The notion made her anxious, and not only because she and the other women would find themselves in the basket if he were to be incapacitated or worse. She was also, she was somewhat surprised to discover, genuinely concerned about him. Fashioning the torn cloth into two small pads and then knotting the remaining strips together until she judged they were long enough to serve the purpose, she moved to stand in front of him once more.

  “This won’t hurt a bit,” she promised as he looked up at her with a frown, and his mouth twisted in wry response. “’Twould be better if I had some basilicum powder, but there is none, so we must hope the spirits did the trick. If you could just hold this in place for a moment?”

  Having gently placed the pad over the wound in the front of his chest, she waited until he obediently covered it with his hand. Then she wrapped the strip of linen across his chest, over his shoulder, and, as he shifted to accommodate her, around his back, inserting the pad over the exit wound as she did so. He said almost nothing during this operation, while she, most uncharacteristically, ended up chattering nonstop, finally describing every step of what she was doing in a too-bright tone that was meant to disguise the growing discomfiture she could not help but feel. She only hoped her nonsense didn’t sound as artificial to his ears as it did to hers.

  “ . . . and I will just loop this around one more time, if you will but lift your arm again . . . ”

  The operation required that she get very close to him, far closer than she had ever been to any unclothed male, wrapping her arms around him, ducking under his, touching him with a degree of intimacy that, to her own annoyance, left her flustered in the extreme. Everything about him, from the truly impressive width of his bare shoulders and chest to the flexing muscles in his arms and back when he shifted position in response to her prompting to the very scent of him, was unmistakably, rampantly male. Although she tried to remain as mentally disassociated from her task as possible, and carefully refrained from meeting his eyes when they would have normally made contact, there was no way not to be acutely, even embarrassingly, aware of him.

  “I will just thread this between the folds of the pad so it will not shift, or at least so we must hope . . . ”

  Her fingers could not avoid brushing the thicket of hair on his chest, and unwillingly she learned that it was crisp to the touch and wanted to curl around her fingers, and did not quite hide a pair of flat nipples. His skin was warm and sleek over well-honed muscles, and his abdomen was muscular, too, and firm above a too-large waistband that would have allowed her gaze to follow the narrowing trail of black hair down to his belly button, and perhaps even beyond, had she not refused to look. Finishing off with a sense of relief the knot that would hold the bandage in place, she straightened away from him only to discover that he was looking at her quite expressionlessly.

  “You’re blushing,” he observed as their eyes met.

  To her horror, Beth realized that she was indeed. She could feel the heat burning in her cheeks. To cover up, sh
e looked around for something else with which to occupy herself, and discovered the bowl and rag within easy reach. The dried blood on his chest and side she could leave for him to deal with, but he wouldn’t be able to reach the blood on his back on his own. Wiping it away would also provide a convenient excuse to look away from him while she recovered her countenance.

  “’Tis the curse of all redheads,” she said lightly, knowing that a denial would only make the condition, and possibly its cause, more obvious. Picking up the rag, she dipped it in the water in the brass bowl and wrung it out. “Anything, the least exertion, an overwarm fire, even a too-spicy dish, and we turn rosy as pigs. I would wipe some of the dried blood away for you. Would you turn your back, please?”

  “You must find that most inconvenient at times.” He shifted his shoulder away from the wall so that she could reach the dried smears on his back.

  “I’ve learned to live with it.”

  Rubbing the damp rag over the smooth contours of his back was not as disconcerting as practically wrapping her arms around him to bind up his chest had been, but it was still not a comfortable experience, she discovered. She was too acutely aware of him, which she did not like. Even his back was breathtakingly attractive. Wide at the shoulders and tapering to a narrow waist and lean hips, it was heavy with muscle and straight of spine beneath smooth tawny skin, and so foreign in comparison to her own pale, slender back that it might have belonged to another species altogether. Finishing the task quickly, conscious that her pulse had quickened and little curls of something she refused to put a name to had taken up residence deep in her stomach, she took a moment to press her damp fingers to her still-warm cheeks in the hope of cooling them before saying in a decided tone, “There, that’s done. There is still some water left if you wish to wipe the rest of the blood from your chest.”

  Returning the rag to the bowl, she glanced up to find that he was looking at her again even as he eased back into his previous position.

  “And your face is almost its normal hue. I own, I wonder that you would put yourself within my orbit if the sight of me without a shirt disturbs you so.”

  He said that casually, as if it were the most commonplace of observations, but there was a glint to his eyes that made her almost as uneasy as touching him had done. Lying was useless, Beth saw clearly. Anyone of the meanest intelligence—which he decidedly was not—must guess what had brought on her blush.

  “All right, I confess it: I am not in the habit of dealing with gentlemen who are at best only half dressed and I found it a trifle embarrassing. Although I am quite recovered now.” In an effort to turn his thoughts in another direction, she glanced around and added, before he could reply: “Have you no blanket, or at least a dry shirt to put on? At this juncture it is important that you stay warm.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He wiped the dried blood from his chest and abdomen as he spoke. Beth could not help but watch, then felt her cursed cheeks heat all over again as he glanced up and caught her at it. His eyes narrowed on her as, the job done, he returned the rag to the bowl. “You should run away now, and this time stay away. Did it not occur to you that you might be putting yourself very much at risk by coming to me as you did?”

  “It might have occurred to me, had I thought there was the least need to be wary of you, but I don’t think that. I trust you.”

  “You should not.”

  Before Beth realized what he meant to do, he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her down into his lap.

  “Oh!” she gasped, but she didn’t scream, and mindful of his injury, she didn’t struggle beyond a compulsive grab at his waist—which she quickly released because the feel of warm smooth skin over sinewy muscles was far too disconcerting—to steady herself. Instead, she sat where she had landed on his taut thighs. Re-securing her blanket, which had slipped most lamentably, she lifted her chin and glared at him as he held her easily in place.

  “Really, you are behaving like the veriest child,” she said in a scolding tone, keeping her composure even though her heart was suddenly beating way too fast. “I am not frightened of you in the least, so you might as well let me up.”

  “You should be frightened of me.” His voice was thoughtful rather than threatening as his eyes slid over her face. There was a glint in the hard, black depths that made her breath catch. “Believe me, ’tis not to your credit that you have not the wit to see it.”

  At that, she stiffened.

  “Did you just call me a want-wit, sir?” she demanded, outraged.

  He smiled.

  “A want-sense, rather,” he said, and kissed her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  AS HIS MOUTH TOUCHED HERS, Beth went very still. His lips were warm and caressing, tender even, and the hand that cradled her jaw was gentle. He tasted of spirits, a taste that she would have said she abhorred, but not in this case. The hint of it on her lips made her feel almost dizzy. She could easily pull her mouth away, and even jump off his lap with scarcely more required than a shove on her part. He was not holding her in such a way that she could not escape if she chose. But as his mouth moved on hers, coaxing her, and his tongue feathered between her lips, she didn’t move at all, because she couldn’t. Her pulse raced, and her heart pounded, and her blood heated. The little curls in her stomach tightened and twisted wildly. It was all she could do to remain upright and breathing. His kiss awakened the most exquisite sensations she had ever experienced in her life.

  He kissed her only briefly, then drew back to look at her through hooded eyes. Dreading to think what she must look like—she was once again flushed, she knew, because she could feel the heat in her face; her breathing had quickened, and no telling what he could read in her expression—she kept her composure as best she could, returning his gaze with a coolness she was far from feeling.

  “Tell me,” he asked in the tone of one engaging in the most idle of conversations, “do you ever kiss back?”

  Beth bristled. “Certainly I kiss back—when the gentleman is someone I want to be kissing.”

  “Ah. Like your former fiancé, for instance? Or should I say, your three former fiancés?”

  “Though it is very unkind of you to bring that up again, I will answer: as a matter of fact, yes.”

  “You kissed them all back.” Skepticism was plain in his voice.

  “Who I kissed—or did not kiss—is no concern of yours.”

  “But I am curious. Did you kiss them back? Or more to the point, did you enjoy kissing them back? Any of them?”

  “Again, that is none of your concern.”

  “Then I am left to draw my own conclusions. Obviously you did not, or you would have wanted to take kissing a step further—several steps further, in fact—and, being a gently bred lady, that would have required you to marry the fellow. As you did not marry any of them, I must conclude that you had no desire to venture beyond the kisses you must have exchanged. Ergo, you could not have enjoyed them.”

  “You may conclude anything you like.”

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Telling me lies is a waste of time, you know. I can read the truth on your very expressive face. You, my girl, are a hardened flirt who cannot handle the passions you provoke in the breasts of susceptible males. You do not enjoy kissing, or anything else of that nature.”

  He had hit on the truth, but she would die before she let him know it.

  “I’ll have you know that I am not a flirt—and I am extremely fond of kissing,” she said haughtily.

  “Are you indeed?”

  It occurred to her that she was still sitting on his lap. His thighs were firm beneath her. His bare chest was so close that her shoulder would have brushed it had she not been protected by folds of blanket. His arm encircled her waist only loosely, and he was leaning back against the stone and regarding her with a lazy interest that she found most provoking. What she should do, she knew, was get up at once and take herself back to her side o
f the barrier. He would not prevent her. But the sad truth was, no matter how shocking it was that she was sitting on this dangerous near-stranger’s lap, she did not want to leave.

  “In any case, this is a most improper conversation to be having,” she said, cross at herself for not doing what she knew she should do.

  “Sweetheart, we have by now gone so far beyond the point of what is proper that I recommend that you not concern yourself about it.”

  That was so true that she was left with nothing to say. She frowned at him instead, and he smiled.

  “If you are extremely fond of kissing, as you claim, then please feel free to indulge yourself: kiss me.”

  “I have not the slightest wish to kiss you.”

  “Then there’s where we differ: I find I have an almost overwhelmingly strong desire to kiss you. But I won’t if you don’t wish it, of course.”

  With the best will in the world to do so, Beth found that she could not find the words to tell him to stop as he moved his shoulders away from the stone and leaned toward her, watching her all the while, clearly intent on kissing her again. Feeling a little helpless, and more than a little excited and nervous, too, she made no effort at all to evade him. Instead, she sat perfectly still with her hands in her lap while her breathing quickened and her mouth went dry. She did not tell him no or make any attempt to get away because she wanted him to kiss her, and as she faced the truth of that, her heart pounded a mile a minute and her blood heated until she was sure it must steam. Their eyes were still locked as his mouth found hers.

  Then she closed her eyes.

  This time the pressure of his lips was firmer. His hand came up to cradle her jaw, caress her cheek, and at the same time tilt her head so that their mouths fit together perfectly. The slightly roughened texture of his fingers and the rasp of his stubble against her own soft skin made her go all light-headed. He kissed her with a slow, unhurried finesse that erased the thought of everything else from her mind. When his tongue came out to trace the line of her closed lips, she parted them for him. As it slid inside her mouth, she met it shyly with her own. Fire shot through her most unexpectedly at the hot, slick contact, and she made a little sound of pleasured surprise. When his grip on her tightened and he took total possession of her mouth in response, she instinctively slid her arms around his neck and leaned into him and kissed him back as passionately as if she liked kissing after all.