“Silly milksop,” she chided. “Quit sobbing in your ale. You’ll be glad to be rid of me, and you know it.”
“Glad?”
“Aye.” She gave him a wink. “You’ll tire of me constantly outwitting you at Fast and Loose.”
Nicholas gave her a rueful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. By the saints, he’d gladly let the lass win every game if only she were there to play him each night.
It wasn’t fair, of course. Desirée had come into his household out of desperation, not choice. Given the choice, she’d certainly never have picked a lawman for company.
Besides, she had a promising future ahead of her. She was young and beautiful, charming and witty. What bachelor of honorable means wouldn’t pursue her like a hound after a vixen?
Nay, she would leave him. Maybe not this week, if he were lucky, but soon. Still, she was right. There was no point in sobbing in his ale. He might as well enjoy her company while she was here.
It was pleasant company indeed.
The saucy maid raised an enticing brow and dipped a spoon into the custard. She lifted it to his lips, and he took a bite, closing his eyes to savor the taste.
“Mmm.”
It was rich and sweet, as smooth as velvet. He opened his eyes to tell her so, but the words caught in his throat. Desirée was staring at his mouth, and there was unmistakable hunger in her eyes. He lowered his gaze to her lips, which were parted in a smile, and for a wicked moment, he wondered if they tasted as sweet as the custard.
Before he could do something he might regret, he took the spoon from her and scooped out a generous portion of custard to share with her, slipping it between her lips.
It was too large a bite, and she laughed as it oozed out between her teeth. But the taste made her moan softly with pleasure, and that sound, as innocent as it was, sent a rush of desire into his loins.
With a scheming grin, she grabbed the spoon and dished out an enormous bite. He shook his head, but she advanced anyway. “Open wide,” she teased.
Unable to resist her wicked challenge, he complied, and she shoved the overloaded spoon into his mouth. Custard seeped out the sides of his mouth and dribbled down his chin.
She laughed and leaned toward him to scoop the spill from his chin with her finger. Then she popped her finger in her mouth, sucking off the custard.
He nearly groaned aloud. Did the naughty lass know what she was doing? Or was he so starved for a woman’s attentions that he’d melt at the slightest provocation? He swallowed down the custard, licking a bit of honey from the corner of his mouth.
She must have glimpsed the lust in his gaze, for she suddenly froze with her fingertip still at her lips.
They were so close, inches apart. He could see the candlelight dancing in her green eyes, smell the subtle fragrance of the rain on her hair, feel her soft breath. He need only ease forward a little to capture her lips with his own.
It was such a temptation. Her mouth would be yielding, he knew, and she would taste of honey. It had been so long since he’d felt the sweet pressure of a woman’s kiss.
But, God help him, he didn’t dare.
Desirée stared at the stray drop of honey on his lower lip. She felt the most wicked urge, and she’d had just enough ale to bolster her courage. With a mischievous giggle, she inclined her head toward his and lapped up the drop with her tongue.
His soft groan did something delicious to her insides, and she suddenly felt reckless and playful and impulsive. Instead of pulling away, she licked his lip again. And again.
“Mmm,” she purred, rubbing her mouth over his, “you taste like—“
He cut off her words, suddenly seizing the back of her head and slanting his mouth over hers, kissing her with a fierce longing that was both tender and powerful.
She gasped in surprise. For a moment, panic gripped her, as if she’d dived into waters far deeper than she’d expected. After the first breathless moment, as he continued demanding kisses from her yielding mouth, the panic faded, only to be replaced by an even more dangerous sensation.
Desire.
In Desirée’s line of work, she’d learned early that kissing was one of the most effective forms of distraction. She’d kissed hundreds of men in the name of profit.
None of them had made her feel like this.
His breath blew hot upon her skin, igniting her senses. His lips closed over hers as if claiming her, devouring her, and she shivered with the yearning to respond in kind. Liquid lust filled her veins.
She tangled her hands in his shirt, dragging him closer, deepening the kiss, never wanting it to end.
But with a growl of frustration, he tore his lips from hers and pushed her gently away. Reeling in surprise, she plopped with bone-jarring force back onto her bench. Her elbow caught the pot of custard, and it tumbled upside down into her lap.
“Oh!” She shot to her feet again, watching in horror as the sticky mess oozed down her kirtle.
Nicholas reached across the table to offer his napkin. “Oh, hell. I’m sorry. ‘Tis my fault.”
She glanced up. His eyes were still glazed with yearning, the same yearning she felt in her breast. God help her, but she wanted to forget the custard and kiss him again.
“I should never have—” he started.
“Nay. ‘Tis my—“
“I had no right to—“
“You didn’t—“
Their eyes met one last time, uncomfortably, then they both looked away. Whatever current had passed between them had dimmed, and they were left with only embarrassment and awkward silence.
“Damn,” she said to break the tension as she dabbed at her sticky skirts. “I just did the laundry.”
“Wait.” Nicholas scraped his bench back and started toward the door. “I forgot. I brought you something from Chartham. A gift.”
“A gift?”
He unwrapped the bundle he had left by the keg and held up the gift. It was a kirtle of smoky green, the most beautiful shade Desirée had ever seen, and for a moment, she could only stare in wonder.
“For me?” she asked.
He nodded. “Your favorite color, aye?”
“Aye.” She was overwhelmed. Preparing a savory meal for him was nothing compared to the purchase of a new kirtle. Surely he didn’t mean to simply give it to her. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. ‘Tis a gift.” He glanced down at her soiled clothing. “And a timely one, ‘twould appear.”
She advanced slowly, taking the garment carefully from him, then rubbing the soft fabric against her cheek. It had been so long since she’d had a new kirtle. She couldn’t believe Nicholas had been so thoughtful.
Then she froze. A sudden, horrible thought crossed her mind, morbid enough to make her blanch.
“What is it?” he asked. “You don’t like it?”
She held the garment away from her now. “Where did you get this?”
“In Chartham. I told you.”
She bit her lip. She couldn’t think of any polite way to ask. “Did you get this off the woman in the stocks?”
CHAPTER 17
Nicholas’s eyelids flattened. Of course, Desirée had every right to expect he’d taken the kirtle from a helpless woman. He was a fool to think otherwise. Just as he’d been a fool to kiss her. For a moment, he’d forgotten who he was.
“I don’t steal from my victims,” he said tightly. “Nor do I accept bribes.”
“Oh.” She blushed. “I’m sorry. Of course you don’t. ‘Tis only—“
“I know. I’m a shire-reeve. They’re a corrupt lot. Naturally, you’d assume—“
“Nay! Nay. I should have known better.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “You’re not an ordinary shire-reeve.”
“I assure you,” he told her solemnly, “I purchased this with my own coin. If, however, it offends you to wear garments bought with a lawman’s wage...” He reached out to take the kirtle back.
She gasped, pulling it out of his reach and
holding it defensively against her breast. “I...didn’t say that. Not at all. Indeed...I think I’ll put it on now.” She hurried toward the bedchamber, afraid that if she hesitated, he might take the kirtle away.
While she undressed in the next room, Nicholas sat and stared into the flames of the hearth, trying not to think about her undressing in the next room.
“’Tis a beautiful color,” she called to him.
“It matches your eyes.” He winced. He shouldn’t have said that. Did he really want her to know he’d memorized every feature of her face?
“I haven’t had a new kirtle in two years.”
Maybe he’d done something right after all. “This one should last as long, if you don’t make a habit of dousing it in custard.”
“Oh, shite!”
“What?”
“I just snagged my underskirt on one of your cursed...torture...things.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn’t get the vision of her in her underskirt out of his mind. He wondered if the sheer linen clung to her curves, pulling taut across her breasts, draping seductively between her thighs.
“That’s how you interrogate women, isn’t it?” she called. “You threaten to shred their favorite garments with these...these hooks and knives...and they sing like sparrows.”
He chuckled. She wasn’t that far from the truth. “Usually I threaten to cut their hair. Women hate that.”
“I can see why, once they glimpse what you’ve done to your own.”
He frowned.
“Speaking of which,” she said, “you promised you’d let me trim your hair after supper.”
“That I did.” He stared over at the cat, who took a moment from his fat-bellied dozing to lift his head. “What do you think, Azrael? Am I putting my life at risk?”
Desirée emerged from the bedchamber with a brilliant, dimpled smile, holding aloft two pairs of shears, snicking them like a crab as she twirled in her new kirtle.
Lord, she was adorable. The gown fit her perfectly. The soft fabric settled low upon her creamy shoulders, hugging her breasts and narrowing at her waist, then flaring over her hips in graceful folds that brushed the floor.
“What do you think?” she asked.
What he thought was that he’d like to strip the kirtle back off of her. “You look like a queen.”
“Queen of the Shears,” she announced, dancing playfully toward the table.
It was a curiously disturbing sight, the lovely lass spinning about in sparkle-eyed innocence while she wielded scissors designed to lop off ears and noses. Not that he’d tell her that, of course.
“Come close to the fire,” she beckoned, pulling the stool to the hearth.
“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?” he said, eyeing the oversized shears.
She grinned. “I’ve got stanch-weed nearby so you won’t bleed to death.”
He shook his head at her grim humor. “You’re a wicked lass.” He rose to take a seat by the fire anyway, never imagining how truly hazardous a position he was putting himself in.
From the moment Desirée ruffled her fingers through his lush hair, she knew the task would be nothing like cutting Hubert’s sparse wisps. Despite Nicholas’s savage appearance, his thick locks were deceptively soft and silky, and the loose curls wound seductively around her fingers.
“Most women would kill for hair like this,” she murmured.
He frowned dubiously up at her. “Not a thing to say when you’ve shears in your hand, lass.”
“You are at my mercy now, aren’t you?” She taunted him with teasing snips of the scissors.
He sighed, admitting, “For partridge that tasty, you can clip me bald as a pilgrim.”
She chuckled. She’d do no such thing. His mane, though unruly, was luxurious. In fact, it was tempting to save up all the snipped locks and make a pillow out of them.
She started behind him, judiciously trimming away only the longest strands that straggled down his back, so his hair still curled sinuously at the nape of his neck. Humming softly, she worked her way up, each snip of the scissors adding buoyancy as she cut the weight off his hair.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“What’s what?”
“That song.”
“Oh.” She’d hardly realized she was singing. She thought for a moment. “Tempus es iocundum.”
“Indeed?” His voice cracked over the word.
Suddenly she realized she’d chosen a bawdy song proclaiming that she was burning with lust. “’Tis a song about...ducks, I believe,” she lied. “I heard it from a...duck herder.”
“A duck herder.”
She could tell by his voice and the twitching of a grin at his lip that he recognized the song. And he knew it wasn’t about ducks. “Or so I was told,” she hedged.
She continued trimming, this time in silence, cutting carefully over the tops of his ears, leaving a short piece in front of each to accentuate the hollows of his cheeks. As she worked on the sides, she glanced occasionally at his face. There was a slight furrow between his brows, and when she slid the hair through her fingers, his eyelids dipped and his nostrils flared.
She was in a powerful position, she realized, for Nicholas was a man unaccustomed to touch. No one embraced a lawman or held his hand, caressed his cheek or cut his hair. That made him exceptionally vulnerable. With the right touches, she thought, she could easily make him melt like butter in the palm of her hand.
It was a wicked game, one Desirée had played a thousand times in order to soften up targets for Hubert’s fleecing.
But with Nicholas, she quickly discovered it was an entirely different matter. The emotional distance she always maintained between herself and the targets was absent. As she slipped her fingers through his tresses, the mere sight of Nicholas’s lusty expression ignited her own sensual fires. She licked her lips, recalling his kiss. Her breath quickened, and her breasts began to tingle with longing.
That desire only worsened when she moved before him to cut the front of his hair. He averted his eyes, lest he stare directly at her breasts, but she could tell, by the rapid rise and fall of his chest, it was a strain for him.
The knowledge that she could make a man want her had always given her a certain heady pleasure. But the knowledge that Nicholas wanted her left her perilously giddy.
She should have recognized the danger. It was foolish to lose control. She’d already come close. Yet even her own swiftly rising desires couldn’t stop her from playing with her newfound power over the formidable Nicholas Grimshaw.
Dipping her eyes in sultry invitation, she murmured, “Spread your legs.”
“What?” he croaked.
She gave him a coy smile. “I can’t get close enough to reach your brow.”
Clenching his jaw, he reluctantly did as she bade him, and she slipped between his knees.
Heat seemed to roll off of him as she stood in that intimate position, and she felt an intoxicating sheen of sweat rise upon her own skin.
His eyes were squeezed shut now, and when she raked her fingers back through his hair, she saw his brow was set in a deep scowl.
She took her time trimming the front, weaving her fingers through his locks, gently blowing away snippets of hair when they fell upon his face, bending close to make sure her cuts were even. When she glanced down, she saw the white knuckles of his fists resting on his spread thighs, as if he fought some silent internal battle.
The sight made the breath catch in her breast. She suddenly felt like a tasty mouse, recklessly teasing the cat between whose paws she played.
Yet she couldn’t stop herself. She craved the thrill of danger, the risky possibility that something untoward might happen, that Nicholas might impulsively kiss her again.
His eyes were still tightly closed, so she could inspect him at her leisure. With the weight gone from his hair, sensual waves framed his face, accentuating its lean planes. His nostrils flared again, as if to catch her scent, while his
lips compressed with increasing unease.
Deliberately taunting him, she stepped forward another inch, brushing the insides of his thighs with her own, placing a finger under his chin to tip his head back, ostensibly to gain better access to his hair.
His frown intensified as he clenched his fists even tighter, and she felt as if she grew drunk on his sweet torment, drinking deep an intoxicating brew of command and lust. It was cruel, she knew, to tempt him so, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
She let her gaze drift down over his massive shoulders, his heaving chest, his muscular thighs, and then she saw a slight movement below his hips. She caught her lip beneath her teeth. He might be able to hide his desires with a clenched jaw and fisted hands. But there was no denying the lusty beast roaring between his legs.
She wickedly wondered what would happen if she nudged forward just a few more inches, let her knee come into contact with...
Suddenly his knees clamped together, trapping her. She gasped, glancing up into his narrowed eyes.
“Don’t even think of it, wench,” he whispered.
She opened her mouth to issue an indignant denial, but none would come out.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
She reluctantly nodded.
He rose, picking her up by the waist and setting her away from him, then shaking his head vigorously to dislodge the loose cuttings.
“And they call me a master of torture,” he muttered.
CHAPTER 18
Nicholas had gotten very little sleep. Between the physical torment of his unquenched desire and the mental anguish of knowing his time with the tempting lass was limited, he’d thrashed between lust and loss all night.
Yet already Azrael nagged at him to rise, meowing relentlessly beside the pallet.
“Hush, cat.”
Surely it wasn’t morning yet. It was too early.
Azrael disagreed. He resumed his persistent meows until Nicholas opened one eye to scowl at him.
Then he opened the other eye. “What in the—?”
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