Page 13 of Again, Scoundrel

Violet walked toward him, telling herself it was only pragmatic that she did. No matter how much of a boor he was, it would be easier for him to clean and bind her wound than for her to do it herself.

That thought lasted precisely until the moment he gently cradled her scratched wrist in his warm fingers and brushed his thumb against the back of her hand.

“Damn that cat,” he said, and she felt herself lean closer to him. “I’m afraid this will hurt.”

He pressed the whisky-soaked cravat to her scratches, and she winced. It hurt like the devil, but he kept her hand held tightly in his so she couldn’t pull away. And then he leaned forward and blew a gentle breeze of air onto her wrist. “Is that better?” he asked.

“Better,” she managed, feeling her knees quake from the dual sensation of his soft, cool breath on her skin and the stinging fire of the scratches.

“Good.” He still held her hand in his. “Don’t take it too hard, all of us have been caught in Raspberry’s trap at one time or another. He enjoys it.”

At the sound of his name, the cat jumped up on the desk beside Alistair and head-butted him for attention.

“See?” Alistair ran his thumb absentmindedly across her palm. “Nothing but a trickster and an arsehead.” He grinned. “Or should I say asshead?”

His thumb kept moving back and forth across her skin until it reached the hard ridges of her calluses. As soon as he felt them, he stopped abruptly. And then he re-traced his movement in a slow caress. As if to be sure they were what he thought they were.

He said nothing as he dropped her hand and reached over to idly scratch the cat’s chin.

“Where are your gloves?” he asked. “They’ll hold the linen in place.”

“In my reticule.”

She turned to get them, trying to ignore the sinking sensation in her stomach.

It shouldn’t bother her that he’d dropped her hands as if they were hot coals the moment he felt her calluses. She really shouldn’t care at all. Yet she did.

Those rough patches were the physical vestiges of her life’s work and purpose, and they had revolted him. And no scratching of that arsehead cat, to use his silly English word, would cover his reaction.

Oh–

She turned back to him.

“You do remember,” she said, and her traitorous heart gave a little jump at the notion. “I thought you’d forgotten me.”

“I remember.” He leaned against the desk, crossing his long legs at the ankle just as he had on that balcony railing so many years ago.

“So, you were just pretending at dinner not to know who I was?”

“I am not a man who pretends.” His voice dropped down several notches. “I wouldn’t see the point.”

“It can only be one or the other. You remembered and pretended you had not. Or you didn’t remember. Which would mean you forgot.”

She took her gloves from her reticule and held out her hand for the cravat. “Silk, please,” she said. She could bind her wrist herself.

“It’s true I did not place you at first.” He approached her but instead of handing her the cravat, he paused just a hair’s breadth away, so close their chests were nearly touching. “By the time I did, we were seated, and it was too late to catch your attention. You must have noticed that I tried. You refused to look at me.”

He was so close she could see his pulse thumping at the base of his neck, inside the little golden vee where his cravat should be.

He reached for her chin and turned it up to him. “Look at me now, Violet.”

She turned her face to his and tried to keep her heart from pounding. His eyes had gone hooded and so dark they were black, the way she remembered them from those moments together so many years ago. When their lips had been inches apart, as they were now, and their hearts had been beating with the same sense of shared anticipation. The same desire she’d felt when she’d placed her hand on his chest.

Her fingers itched to do it again, just as the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexed. She could see the ripple of movement through his evening coat, and it called to her. All he had to do was dip his head a little further and press his lips to hers. She wanted him to do it, despite the promises she’d made to herself to leave such foolishness behind her.

She closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting.

But the dratted man made some kind of coughing noise and stepped away from her instead.