Her tone was as level as she could make it. “I do.”
A faint light flickered in the one eye visible to her. “Then remove it.”
Despite her banter, her heart was already pounding hard, almost painfully. She started to reach for the tie fastened at the back of his head.
He shook his head. “Not that way,” he said.
Bemused, she frowned.
He bared his teeth, a gleam in his eye. A most challenging gleam.
For a heartbeat she didn’t understand…Her heart began to thunder. She couldn’t back down. She wouldn’t, no matter how much she wanted to.
Her heart was pounding madly. “Ah,” she murmured playfully, “you may regret this, Scotsman. I might nip you.”
“Please do,” he invited with a rakish grin.
With a kittenish growl, Maura half raised herself and caught the end of the string in her teeth. Her breast brushed his jaw and her pulse leaped. But then his scent seemed to envelop her—soap and the fresh woodsy fragrance of his cologne. She gave a little tug on the string. Rats, she’d pulled the tie into a knot! Now she was forced to catch it fully between her teeth and tug it clumsily up over his head.
A tremor shot through her. His hair was soft. Silky. Somehow she hadn’t expected that. And it appeared her effort was futile, for now that cursed patch was half on, half off. It took three tries before she succeeded, and by then she was laughing.
The patch fell to the floor. Maura plopped down on his knee again.
Her laughter faded.
For now she beheld a face that was starkly masculine, yet utterly striking. So striking that for one heart-pounding moment it stole every last breath from her lungs.
He gazed at her steadily, with nary a blink, as if nothing in the world were amiss. Perhaps nothing was amiss in his world, she thought with an aching twist of her heart. Had his people gone hungry? Watched as their world—their livelihood—withered and died with every year that passed?
Every emotion roiling in her breast was fraught with conflict. Her hands had fisted, falling awkwardly on the broad width of his shoulders. Slowly, she uncurled her fingers. She didn’t want to touch him. She didn’t want to look at him. She wished that he was disfigured—that he was one-eyed, the ugliest of men, the most vile creature ever to walk the earth.
Yet never in her life had she seen eyes so beautiful, the color of blue crystal. He looked different without the patch. Not quite so…dangerous. Ah, but she had to remind herself this was a dangerous game she played.
No, she thought vaguely, that wasn’t right.
It wasn’t a game at all.
The risk to herself was as nothing compared to her goal. Everything depended on her. On recovering the Circle of Light and bringing it home. The thought brought with it a bounding resurgence to attain her goal. Her promise to her father.
And a reminder of the cost.
One mistake and all might be lost. There might never be a chance like this again. But she couldn’t deny what she felt.
She found him daunting.
But she must remain undaunted.
She longed to snatch her hands away from their perch on his shoulders. His skin seemed burning hot. She felt seared clear through to the very marrow of her bones.
Yet her hands held steady.
It wasn’t that she was afraid. Oddly, she was not. Not in the sense that he might hurt her. He was a gentleman, albeit a very amorous one at the moment.
A tremor shot through her. She fought the irrational flutter of her pulse. Oh, who did she fool? She liked the feel of his hands, so large and strong, circling her waist. Outside, on the terrace, she’d liked it when he kissed her, the heat of his lips, warm and smooth against hers. She wasn’t supposed to like it. Any of it.
“It’s your turn now, Irish. Off with your mask.”
Maura pulled her hands into her lap, folding them as if in submission. “I pray you, good sir, do not bite hard. I’ve tender flesh, you see.”
