“I have been to battle every day since I chased you away,” he said, wanting her to hear it. “What is one more fight? What are a thousand of them?”
He would suffer the blows of Covent Garden every day if there was a chance for forgiveness there. For it here.
She ran a thumb over his scar, finally, and he went cold with the sensation, not knowing what she would do in the face of his words.
Another risk.
“Why did you come here, tonight?” he asked again.
She pointed in the direction of the chairs at the far end of the room, where a fireplace might have been lit if the night wasn’t so warm. “Sit.”
He did, lowering himself into the chair, wincing as he did so, hating to show her his weakness even as he reveled in the intimacy of it. In the history of it.
All the times when they were children, and the days after the explosion on the docks—she had cared for him, then. He knew it. He’d felt her there, even as she’d prepared to send him away forever.
As though he could stay away.
They were planets, drawn to each other.
No. He was a planet. She was the sun.
Keeping the little ceramic pot in hand, she collected her bag and his basket of bandages and came for him, her long legs claiming the carpet as she approached. He watched her, the sound of her boots on the floor filling him with pleasure and warmth and want—a desire like nothing he’d ever felt before, for this to be a commonplace occurrence. For them to tend to each other.
To know each other.
More.
She set her items down on the low table next to his chair, her gaze taking in the assorted things collected there: a bottle of whisky and an empty glass atop a tall stack of books. A smile played over her lips.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Only that I feel as though I’m catching a glimpse inside the lion’s den.”
“Mmm,” he said, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck, something like embarrassment coursing through him, though he couldn’t say why. “This lion is very exciting, what with all the drink and books.”
“So this is what you do when you are not out, doing ducal duty?” She turned away, crossing the room toward the mirror.
“I don’t do ducal duty,” he said, grateful for the change in topic, watching as she selected a candelabrum and returned.
She watched him for a moment, and then, as though standing above him like royalty, tall and stunning in her regalia, wasn’t enough, she lowered herself to her knees before him, and set back to work.
The picture of her there, at his side, threatened to destroy him with the pleasure of it. He willed himself still, forcing himself not to reach for her. Resisting that singular word that coursed through him as he watched.
Mine.
She reached into the basket, removing another long strip of linen, and guided him forward to bandage his shoulder. “Next time you haul crates in the Garden, use a hook.”
“Mmm,” he grunted. “Do you know where I might find one?”
She chuckled at the words, and he turned to catch the glimpse of her amusement—like sunshine and air. “They don’t issue dukes box hooks?”
“Nor ice tongs. Would you believe it?”
“You should take it up with the House of Lords.” She pulled the bandage tight over his shoulder and he sucked in a breath. “You’ll need a fresh one tomorrow.”
“And will you come back to give it to me?”
“No.”
He turned to look at her, their faces scant inches apart—and he said, softly, “Why not?”
She met his eyes. “I shouldn’t be here tonight.”
“Which brings me back to why did you come?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
And the words, the echo of the ones she’d spoken earlier in the afternoon, unlocked him. He knew why she had come. He knew what she needed.
What they both needed.
He reached for her, touching a beautiful red curl, clasping it between two fingers and pulling it straight. “Why did you come here, tonight?” he repeated, the whispered question coming soft and aching.
Show me, he willed her. Trust me.
She met his eyes. “Why did you come back?”
He answered, knowing that he took a risk. As ever. He would never not take risks for her—that much was clear. “For the same reason I have done everything, from the start. For you.”
She reached for him then, her hand sliding along his jawline, her touch still like heaven. She drew him close with her gentle, perfect touch, hovering a hairsbreadth from his lips, as though she was not sure if she should close the gap. “I told you not to.”
“What do you need?”
She didn’t answer. She acted.
Chapter Seventeen
He was back for her.
It shouldn’t matter why he was back, or how he was changed, or that he was changed at all. And it should not matter that when he kissed her, she lost all capacity for reasonable thought.
But he hadn’t kissed her. She’d kissed him.
And the low growl of pleasure in his throat had sent a matching thrum through her, feeding an already burning flame. Bandaging him had made her wild, fairly vibrating with want, especially as she’d felt his muscles tremble and tighten beneath her touch, his breath quickening—as though he were a predator, ready to spring. But he hadn’t.
He’d held back. For her.
Waiting. For her.
Wanting her.
And once she kissed him, she’d freed him. He was turning to capture her, to pull her up and into his lap, his hands at her hips and then inside her coat, running up along the sides of her body to her breasts, encased in layers of silk and steel, straining for him.
Had his kisses always been so well crafted? Had he always been able to steal a woman’s thoughts? Or had he spent two decades preparing himself to deliver the precise kind of kiss that made Grace forget where she was and with whom, along with every sensible reason why she should absolutely not kiss him back?
It was not an impossibility, she thought as she met his kiss with equal desire. With equal enthusiasm.
Just this once, she lied to herself. Just this once, and then never again.
She pressed deeper, wanting the kiss to go on forever, and he sucked in a breath that was not pleasure, but pain. She pulled back at the sound to study him, her own breath coming fast, as though she’d just scaled a wall.
His lower lip was wickedly swollen, and she immediately reached to touch it, gently. She stroked the bruise there, then ran her fingers down the line of his nose, equally bruised and certainly painful, and the high bones of his cheeks. “You’ll be black and blue for an age. They got you, and well.”
“I don’t care,” he said, his hand sliding up over her shoulder, pulling her back down toward him. “Come back and kiss me again.”
The low command licked through her, and she nearly obeyed—she wanted to, but instead, she leaned over to fetch her sack from beside the chair, his hands coming to her bottom as she moved against the steel ridge of him, large and impossibly warm through her trousers.
“Mmm,” he grunted as she sat up, and she looked to him, his gaze on her, lids low, the look capturing her for a moment.
Ewan had always been handsome, tall and blond and with the kind of flawless face that didn’t seem possible outside of marble. Devil had broken his nose during a bout at Burghsey, and the imperfection had only made him more perfect. But now, bruised and battered, with a swollen lip and a collection of scrapes beneath his eye, he looked like a gift, delivered to her from that place that had been his before it was hers.
Ignoring the hot thrum of desire within, Grace focused on the task at hand, opening her bag and extracting a clean white cloth and a small metal box. His heated look turned curious, and she opened the box to show him the contents.
He raised a brow. “One of the blocks I hauled today?”
She gave
him a little smile as she filled the cloth with ice and tied it off neatly before placing it to his eye, her other thumb stroking over his bare cheek.
“I don’t need it,” he grumbled.
“You do, though.”
“You did that very well,” he grumbled. “Made the ice pack.”
“I’ve made them before.”
“I gathered that from the special box.” His eyes found hers, serious. “How often?”
She swallowed, knowing what he was really asking. She shrugged one shoulder. “When we got to the Garden, one of us was fighting every night. Even if you’re good—like us—like you,” she added, remembering the way he’d fought, working to quiet enemies without destroying them. “Opponents get their knocks in.”
The muscles of his jaw tensed beneath her palm. “I hate that you had to fight.”
“Don’t,” she said, and she meant it. “Fighting is like breathing in the Garden, and I had enough rage in me to make me good. We were lucky we were all good, and we were even luckier we could get paid for it.” She looked to him. “You made sure we were good, you know that, right?”
“I shouldn’t have had to.”
No, he shouldn’t have. They should have been able to have childhoods, with their mothers who loved them and fathers who were proud of them. And instead, here they were, battered and bruised in a thousand different ways.
Grace did not linger on the fights. “That’s how Devil and Whit got involved in ice. We quickly learned the difference between a fight with it and without it, and they found a way to make certain we were never without it.”
One of his blond brows rose. “I suppose the smuggling is just for fun, then.”
She gave a little laugh at that. “No, the smuggling is for money, and to stick it to the aristocracy.” She paused, then, “Which is a bit fun, I suppose.”
He huffed a little laugh, and lifted his hand to press it against the back of hers. “And you, the resident doctor.”
She nodded in the direction of the books on the table. “I’m no Dr. Frankenstein.”
“Do not underestimate yourself.”
“Shall we bring you to life after I am through? See what kind of monster has been made?”
Was it a flirt? Or was it a nod to their past? To the night he’d become the monster from which she’d run? To the years of her looking over her shoulder, worrying about the monster she believed him to be?
He took the ice from her hand, lowering it as he reached for her. “Grace,” he whispered, pulling her close, sending warmth and something she didn’t dare name spiraling through her. He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “Whatever monster I have become . . . It is not you who made me.”
She heard the anguish in the words and hated it.
And then she hated the confusion that came with the realization that she was beginning to think, perhaps, that he was not the monster they had all believed him to be.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to resist the way the memories of the past were colliding with the realities of the present—memories of him, on her turf. Taking his knocks in her club. Doing the wash with the women of the Garden. Paying his dues to the men of the Rookery. His humor.
And then, this afternoon, the way he fought, like he’d been built for it. So he had.
The way he’d come for her, like he’d been meant for it. So he had.
But most of all, she hated how much she ached for him, this new, changed man she had not expected to find when he came to. Hated how much she seemed to want him, despite the fact that he had given her a lifetime of pain.
Hated how, even now, as he suffered the effects of the bout earlier in the day, all she wanted to do was care for him.
Even though he did not deserve it.
She’d made the decision to come here to tell him just that—that he did not deserve her attention, or her protection in the Garden, or anything else he wished from her. He certainly did not deserve her care—she’d given him more than enough of that and watched him toss it away.
She’d only intended to answer the question he seemed so keen on asking her. What did she need? She needed him gone. She needed him to find the future he was looking for or the penance he required, and live his life. Far from her.
She’d only intended to leave the salve.
She’d only intended to know what she needed, finally.
And then she’d arrived in this dark room full of candles and mirrors and the scent of him, tobacco and tea, that combination she’d never been able to smell without aching for him.
Even as she hated him for his betrayal.
She should have left then. Should have ignored this room that seemed ripe for sin and sex. Should have ignored him.
But instead, she’d been lost to another memory, made without her consent. A memory that did not come with fear or pain or heartache, but with desire. Him without clothes—his trousers not even properly buttoned—not looking a thing like he did the last time she’d mended his wounds, doused in candlelight, fresh from a bath and covered with the badges from his earlier bout—a bout he might have won if he’d fought the way he should have.
He hadn’t. Because he hadn’t wanted to hurt the Garden any longer.
She loved and hated that in equal measures.
And so, now, when she thought of telling him what she needed, the most pressing need was no longer his leaving and never returning. Now, it was infinitely more dangerous, because it was the same thing she had needed the last time they had met in the darkness.
It was another kiss.
Another touch.
Another night.
One more.
And it did not matter that he might be a more terrifying monster than anything one could find in books.
He sensed the change in her as she took his face in her hands and stared down into his eyes—those amber eyes she’d loved so much and so well and so long, until she’d closed herself off, for fear that they’d haunt her forever.
But they were here, now, and for this night, they were hers.
“Take it,” he said.
Everything you need.
She kissed him again, her hands moving, no longer healing. No longer soothing. Wanting. Claiming. He sucked in a breath as she smoothed her hands down over his chest, gentling as she tracked past the bandages on his abdomen, his muscles rippling and tightening enough to remind him of his wounds.
He hissed at the ache, and she lifted her hands as though he’d burned her. “Did I—”
Ewan shook his head instantly. “Don’t stop.”
She watched him for a moment, unmoving. Uncertain.
“Don’t stop.”
She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to start and never stop. And hold this moment, this night, forever, keeping the past and the present and the impossible-to-ignore truth of them at bay.
A single word shattered through her.
Mine.
He reached for one of her hands and set it to the flat plane of his stomach below the bandages and above the line of his trousers, where muscles cut deep in a V and a trail of dark brown hair disappeared.
She swallowed at the image they made, her fingers on his skin. “I shall be gentle.”
“I don’t want gentle,” he said. “I want you.”
She gave him what he asked, her fingers grazing over him, toying and tracing a path down to the place where the falls of the trousers remained unbuttoned, forgotten after his bath. He sucked in a breath as she lingered there, transfixed by the shadowy spot and the thick, impossible-to-ignore ridge directly below, knowing that all she had to do was slide her fingers a touch farther and claim him.
Mine.
What a word. What a wicked, wonderful word.
Ewan lifted a hand to her hair, stroking over it, his fingers tangling in the riot of red curls. “Tell me.”
Her lips parted, plump and perfect. “Tonight.”
His throat worked, and she knew what he wanted to say. It wasn’t en
ough. She knew it. But she would worry about that tomorrow, when she would reinforce the walls she had built to keep him out, and return to the world she had built without him.
He nodded, the movement stilted, an agreement she knew he did not want to give. And one that freed her nonetheless.
She took it. And then she took him, sliding off his lap to come to her knees before him, loving the way his head tipped back on the chair as he let her go, his eyes going dark and hooded as he watched her, the straining muscles of his neck matching the straining muscles in his hands where he clasped the arms of the chair with white knuckles, refusing to reach for her.
Letting her lead.
And below, his straining cock, hard and glorious.
Mine.
Her hands traced down the placket of his trousers, measuring the outline of him, and she reveled in the way her touch undid him, the way his whole body drew tight like a bow. He was desperate to touch her. She could see it. But still, he held back. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and in that moment—in the revelation of his sheer will to let her control the moment, to let her claim it for her own—something woke inside Grace. Something that she knew would bring pain as much as it brought pleasure.
But tonight was for pleasure.
She came up on her knees, the movement adding pressure to her touch as she leaned in and placed a kiss on his pectoral muscle, turning her face and sliding her cheek over the warmth of him before setting another kiss at the base of his neck, where it met the long line of his collarbone.
She pressed one at the center of his chest, his heart pounding beneath her kiss.
Another, a few inches lower.
He cursed, low and dark, the filthy word sending desire pooling through her. “I’ve waited for this for so long,” he whispered as she followed the line of his bandages with soft, full caresses that set them both aflame.
“Tell me,” she repeated his words to his skin as her fingers worked the buttons of his trousers, spreading the fabric wide, revealing the stunning length of him.
Even here, he was perfect.
Daring and the Duke EPB Page 20
