As he sat on the sofa, book in his lap, he watched her efforts. The light from the flames danced over her hair, turning it from moonlight into wheat into pale yellow. What the devil was wrong with Hollingsworth to have her cover up something so mystifying? Why would he prefer black when he could have all the various shades of gold?
As he’d predicted, her cheek and the area around her nose looked worse. It would be another day or so before there was even a hint of the bruises going away, the scrapes healing, and yet she’d appeal to him no more then than she did now, because at the moment nothing on earth held more beauty.
She was so intent on her task, and he imagined she gave as much, if not more, attention to the man warming her bed. Just as she’d been fixated on the rainbow that afternoon. Whatever she focused on earned her undivided attention.
For a while, as she’d been telling her tale, her focus had been on him.
And his on her.
Now, when he should be falling into the words of the story, he seemed capable of only desperately searching for those rare moments when he could fall into the blue of her eyes.
When her gaze would dart over to him, he tried not to be caught staring at her, but suspected he was failing miserably. He’d come here to be alone, always came to be alone, but was having a difficult time imagining the place without her in it. He wondered how much time would pass before he’d no longer see the shadow of her presence wherever he looked. Somehow, he knew she was leaving an indelible mark in her wake. Just as she had that night at the Dragons. He couldn’t visit his favorite club without being reminded of her.
From his position slouched on the sofa, he could detect myriad tears in the fabric. It would take her weeks, months, years to set it all to rights. To him, it truly appeared to be an impossible task and yet there she sat, one hand constantly in motion, poking needle and pulling thread through cloth. He had to admire her determination when he’d expected to never admire anything about her.
Quite suddenly the distance between them seemed far too wide. That he wanted to be nearer to her was unsettling. On the morrow he would deliver her to the opposite shore, no matter how unfriendly the water, because he was coming to like her, to desire her company and no good would come of his spending additional time with her. But at that precise moment—
Silently grounding out a curse at his own weakness and inability to resist her, he set aside hisbook and came to his feet. To avoid stepping on her precious find, he skirted the edge of the room until he could feel the increased warmth of the fire and detect her faint unique fragrance. It reminded him of honeysuckle. He wondered if she normally bathed in the perfume and its scent had become immersed in her skin.
When he dropped down beside her, she didn’t seem at all surprised, reacted not at all, as though she could hardly be bothered by his presence. Strange how it made him want her more than if she’d been fawning over him. The sewing basket served as an ineffectual barrier between them. He scrounged around in it until he located a needle and thread. He cut off a length of thread and tried to poke one end through the eye of the needle. His fingers were too damned big and clumsy, making him appear to be an oaf as he kept missing his target.
“Here, let me,” she said, taking both from him, her fingers grazing over his knuckles, causing his breathing to seize up. What the devil was wrong with him? “Do you even know how to sew?”
She closed her mouth around the end of the thread he’d been striving to slip through the needle eye, and he was hit with images of her closing her mouth around portions of his body: his finger, his earlobe... his cock. Christ.
He cleared his throat, and yet still the words came out raspy. “How hard can it be? You jam the needle into the cloth and yank the thread through.”
Her smile spoke of indulgence, and damned if he didn’t want to kiss those lips. Then she pulledthe thread from her mouth and slipped the end of it through the center of the needle eye—in one go. What sorcery was this?
She extended the seamstress’s tool toward him. “You need to make the stitches small and taut so as little air as possible can escape.”
He placed his thumb and forefinger above hers on the needle. They held still. Their gazes locked. His hand drifted around to cradle hers. Warm and silky smooth. He watched as the muscles at her throat worked while she swallowed. Even though no cleavage was visible because she wore his shirt, he could make out the slow rise and fall of her chest. It was uncanny how attuned to her he was. Nor could he believe how intimate the moment seemed. He’d bedded women and not felt as engaged.
The woman was sex personified. He wondered if she’d even had a choice at becoming a gentleman’s plaything or if her destiny had been written on her bones the moment she’d been born.
Breaking eye contact, ducking her head, she finally released her hold. His hand itched to go after hers, but he held his desires in check, turned his attention to a small rip, and began weaving the needle and thread through the torn material. Blue. Hers purple. It was like having a rainbow spread out over his floor. He very much suspected that it was the various colors that had drawn her to this particular balloon. He couldn’t envision her being content with a solid color carrying her into the sky.
He found himself taking extreme care with his stitches because he didn’t want to be responsible for her crashing back to earth. His stomach tightened abit at the thought of her—reckless and wild—daring to go back up in another storm. Yet he couldn’t seem not to admire her courageousness, even if it was foolhardy. The woman was a series of contradictions and he wanted to explore each one.
“Based on the image you project in London, I wouldn’t have thought you’d be content with something ruined.” Something like him, broken and yet unable to fully heal. Not fixable with needle and thread.
“What do you perceive as being ruined, my lord?”
He snapped his gaze over to her quickly, before he’d finished with his latest stitch, and immediately felt the prick of pain. “Damnation!”
Hastily she moved the sewing basket aside, scooted nearer to him, and took his hand. He could see the blood pooling on the tip of his finger. Before he could tell her that it would be fine, she’d closed her mouth around it. His gut couldn’t have tightened more if he’d taken a punch to it. He’d grown painfully hard. He could barely breathe. He certainly couldn’t fashion a coherent thought. He seemed capable only of feeling her tongue traveling over his skin.
Then she lifted her gaze—heated and erotic—to his, and he feared he might burst right there on the spot. The most expensive woman he’d ever been with hadn’t mastered that look of hunger, of need. He couldn’t recall any other woman studying him as if she could devour him in a single bite but was contemplating the enjoyment to be found in nibbling him slowly, luxuriously, leisurely.
Marlowe might possess the power to drive him truly and completely mad.
Just as she had with the thread, she kept her mouth closed as she drew his finger from between her lips. “My mother would do that whenever I had a scrape. She claimed the wetness from a mouth had the power to stop the bleeding. It seems to have worked... in this case anyway.”
She took away her hands, but his stayed where it was, hovering a few inches in the air, as if it had lost the ability to move without her assistance.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said softly.
What bloody hell question was that? The one reflected in her eyes as she’d licked his finger: Do you desire me?
