Blood Kin (24 page)

I managed to smile back while Guy made a noise suspiciously like a laugh hastily turned into a cough and tucked his arm around my waist. “I’m sure she will,” he said with a half bow at the boys. “You heard the man, Holly darlin’, time’s a-wasting.”

Play the game
. “No good ever came to a girl from a man in a rush,” I said, tapping him on the nose with my fan. As his expression turned indignant, I wriggled out of his grip and beat a hasty retreat through the door.

Unfortunately, the first person I saw was Fen. Who frowned thunderously, put down his glass of brandy, and stalked toward me.

“We need to talk,” he said, taking my arm just as Guy came through the door behind me and joined us.

Guy looked at my arm, then at Fen, and scowled. Fen scowled back. Wonderful. The last thing I needed right now was the two of them butting heads in the middle of the Swallow.

“Not now, Fen,” I said.

His hand stayed firm on my arm. “Yes, now.”

His tone was so flat I glanced involuntarily down to his wrist. The chain was still in place. Still, had he had another vision? If he had, I needed to hear what he had to say. “All right,” I said.

“No,” Guy said firmly.

Fen and I both looked at him.

“I said no,” Guy said, blue eyes chilling rapidly. “It’s late. And you’re tired. You need to sleep.”

He and Fen glared at each other. Just what I needed.

“She won’t admit she needs to rest, she’s stubborn,” Guy said. “You know that.”

Fen nodded. “All right, tin man. In the morning, then.”

He and Guy exchanged another long inscrutable-male look and I knew fought the urge to knock their heads together. Guy held out his arm and we left Fen behind.

Chapter Fourteen

HOLLY

“You’re
making me dizzy,” Guy said. “Stand still.”

I paused in my pacing. Guy half sprawled on the edge of the bed looking far more relaxed than I felt. Then again, he was probably used to shooting people.

I wasn’t. Every time I stopped pacing, I saw Henri’s face again and felt ill. And when I did pace, my brain was a whirl of Cormen and my mother and Adeline and the geas and—

“You’re thinking so hard your head might explode. How am I supposed to explain that to Fen?”

The lazy drawl was back in his voice. The extremely sexy lazy drawl. The one that did nothing to ease the tension driving me to pace in the first place. It did, however, refocus it slightly on him.

“This isn’t a joke, Guy. What we did could cause trouble.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“It’s not just me!” I heard my voice go shrill and clamped my teeth together.

Guy frowned. “You’re overreacting.” He studied me for a moment. “Oh, hell’s balls, you’ve never shot anyone before, have you?”

“N-no.”

“Fuck.” His tone was gentle despite the language. He stood and crossed to the mantelpiece, poured a glass of whiskey, came back, and held it out. “Drink this. It will help.”

I looked down at the whiskey. What the hell, it couldn’t hurt. I tilted my head back and drained the glass. The whiskey hit my stomach in a fiery rush, making my eyes water even as warmth bloomed through me. I coughed.

“I didn’t say drink it all at once,” Guy said, still using that gentle tone. He led me over to the bed. “Here, sit.”

I sat, leaned into him. He was warm, like the whiskey heat spreading through me. “How many people have you shot?”

“Too many,” he said. “Don’t think about it.”

“How do I do that?”

He laughed, a soft rumble. “More whiskey?”

“Not a good idea.” Whiskey had never been my drink. Spending half the night vomiting wasn’t going to make me feel better about what I’d done.

What
we’d
done. I closed my eyes, trying not to think. The scent of warm male mingled with the faint scent of the liquor and the lingering traces of the perfumes and greasepaint smell I associated with a night at the Gilt floated up around me, soothing somehow.

Not just soothing. Enticing.

I moved a little closer to Guy, felt him tense.

“Darlin’, unless you want a whole different kind of distraction . . .”

My eyes flew open. Something wary yet wicked glinted in Guy’s eyes. Did he mean what I thought he did?

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Was he flirting with me? Here where there was no need for pretense? Flirting deliberately? Surely he hadn’t had enough champagne at the Gilt to make him do something crazy? Or was he reacting to the aftermath of the fight as well?

Or just to me? My pulse stuttered.

Guy cocked his head. “Do you really want to know?”

My heart bumped.
Don’t be stupid, Holly girl
. But it seemed I wasn’t listening to myself. “Yes.”

“You really want me to . . . distract . . . you?”

I froze again. There was no mistaking the invitation in that sentence. I knew the sound of a man who was asking to put his hands on you. Perhaps he was drunk after all. And maybe I was because I wanted to accept the invitation. “Yes. But it’s not a good idea.”

“Right now it sounds pretty good to me.” Smoke and night and heat tinted his drawl now. It made my skin prickle hotly.

“After all, everyone thinks we’re sleeping together. If our reputations are going to be ruined, we might as well enjoy it.”

“You think sleeping with me will ruin your reputation?”

He laughed, then shook his head. “Darlin’, I think it can only improve my reputation. You know what I meant.”

I bit my lip. “I don’t know—”

He pushed off the bed. “Neither do I. But it seems today’s the day for the world to be a little crazy. And I don’t see why that crazy has to be all bad.” He stopped when he was maybe half a foot away, so that I had to tilt my head to keep watching his face. “Want to make the bad things go away?”

I swallowed as a shiver ran down my spine. Actually I did. Quite desperately. Wanted to let him take me over to the bed and then just take me over. But I didn’t know if I wanted all the associated complications that would come with that choice.

“Holly . . .” He reached out and drew one of the pins from my hair. “It’s been a hell of a day. And you’ve been the only good thing in it.” Another pin and a lock of hair fell down against my shoulder. The shiver in my skin blossomed into a shudder as his finger traced the place where it lay. “Come to bed.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be.”

I looked away. Ah, it would be easy to let myself believe that, but Guy wasn’t the usual sort of man I took to my bed. And I wasn’t the sort of woman he took to his. Not for more than a night anyway.

I wasn’t fooling myself that one night with him would be enough for me. Which was exactly why I should be running in the other direction. If I wanted him again before I’d even had him the first time, what hope did I have of keeping my head around him?

How to explain what I was feeling? “Guy—” I lifted my head.

Then he kissed me and I forgot.

Forgot anything but the feel of his lips on mine. Sweet lords of hell, the man could kiss. A bloody Templar knight and yet he kissed as if he’d done nothing but practice kissing women all his life.

Sweet, hot, drugging kisses that stole through my veins as though he were the whiskey I’d poured into him. Making my skin heat and my resolve melt until I was pressed against him, hands pulling him closer, one word swirling through my head.

Inevitable
.

That’s what we were. I’d known it from that first time I’d kissed him at St. Giles. I wanted him in my bed and he wanted to be there. If I was going to have to watch him walk away from me when all this was over, then at least I wanted to have the memory of him to keep me warm.

I pulled my hands from around his neck and pushed on his chest. Back toward the mattress, trying to slow my breathing and the reckless ache under my skin. I could sleep with him, but I couldn’t let myself think it was anything more than that. I needed to keep some last piece of control. Anything else would be true madness.

“I’m your one good thing?” I asked as he broke off the kiss in response to my hands.

He nodded slowly.

“Well, I think we can improve on that score.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

I let myself smile at him, at the heat in his eyes and the way it made my stomach curl and twist in time with the ache that was starting to beat lower down. “Do you need me to spell it out?”

His smile widened even farther. “I think a gentleman should always make sure that he understands what a lady desires.”

My smile widened. “Is that so? Well, then. How’s this? You helped me into this dress. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to help me out of it now?”

“How attached are you to it?” His voice was no longer a drawl, more like a purr.

“It’s silk. Expensive.”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

I laughed and felt my heart crack a little that he could make me feel so giddy amid the chaos. Then I ruthlessly pushed my doubts away. No more thinking. “It’s a one-of-kind design. Besides, patience is a virtue. Aren’t gentlemen meant to be virtuous?”

He laughed then. “Not when they’re removing a woman’s clothes, they’re not.”

“Touché. But perhaps I’m in the mood to take things slowly.”

“You’re in the mood to kill me.”

“No.” I let my smile widen, and then stood, turning slowly so he could reach the fastenings on my dress. “If you die, then we won’t get to have any fun at all.”

“But I’d die happy.”

“You’d be happy. But where would I be?”

His hands moved to the first button, then paused and stroked my back. “True. A gentleman is meant to see to the well-being of others before himself.”

I laughed again, a bubble of delight rising within me. I’d known I’d wanted him, known the physical yearning for him, but this new playful side of him was as enticing to my mind as the rest of him was to my body. I’d never imagined that a laughing lover might lurk beneath the steel and serious nature.

But apparently I was lacking imagination, because with each silly, teasing exchange I could feel my worries dissolving and a bubble of happiness rising around us where we could just be. Worries could be dealt with in the clear light of day. Right now I wanted the laughter and the pleasure.

Maybe that was selfish but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“Not too slowly,” I admonished as he started on the buttons, his fingers moving with infinite care on the silk.

“Bossy little thing, aren’t you? Why don’t you just relax and let me take care of this?”

“I. Am. Not. Bossy,” I said, only half pretending outrage.

“Oh, really? That’s not how it seems to me. You’ve been ordering me around all day. You like being in charge, don’t you?” The last of the buttons slipped free and he pushed the dress down off my shoulders so it pooled at my feet. His mouth drifted down to my neck, alternating kisses with wickedly gentle bites that set my nerves alight. “You’d probably like nothing better than tying me to the bed and having your wicked way with me.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but somehow my tongue was frozen as the image of Guy naked and bound on my bed sprang to mind. All that muscle and hardness mine to do with it as I wished?

Oh
my
.

My nipples went hard against the silk of the corset, the restrictive pressure making them almost painful. Almost, but not quite. I sucked in a breath, shook my head to clear it.

“Thought so,” he said with a chuckle. “Not tonight, though. Tonight, I think we’ll start with something simpler before we start deciding who gets to be in charge. Like me inside you. How does that sound?”

I wasn’t sure I could answer as his words echoed around my head and my body tightened in response. His fingers worked the laces of my corset and before I knew it I was left wearing my shift and stockings while Guy circled around me. “Very nice,” he said, taking me in.

I wondered if he was expecting me to blush and shield myself as a polite and proper lady might. If he did, he was going to be disappointed. I enjoyed the expression on his face as he studied me. Though, I had to admit, if he kept looking at me that way for too much longer, I might do something pathetically proper-lady-like and collapse because my knees had given way.

I tossed my hair back over my shoulders, knowing that the thin silk of my chemise wasn’t concealing much at all. “Surely gentlemen don’t wear evening clothes to bed?”

“Darlin’, the only thing I want to wear tonight is you.” He tugged his shirt over his head and it flew across the room somewhere. I didn’t watch where it landed; I was too busy gazing at what its absence had revealed.

Oh. My.

He was beautiful. There was no other word for it. Muscle carved his chest and arms and turned them into living sculptures. The male personified. But it wasn’t a perfect unearthly beauty. No. This body had fought and struggled. There was a long scar across his ribs, and faded white lines from other wounds crossed the gold of his skin of his arms and shoulders.

This man had fought. And won.

He was strong and true.

And if I didn’t have him very soon, I was going to scream

“Very nice,” I said. “Now the trousers.”

“You’re taking charge again.”

“Someone has to.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go slowly.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I want fast. And hard. And really, right now would be just fine with me.”

It was his turn to go still. He sucked in a breath. A breath that turned into a groan. “Don’t joke about that.”

I backed toward the bed. “Who said I was joking?”

His shoes practically vanished from his feet and his trousers fell to the ground. Apparently what Templars wore under their clothes was really not much at all. Thin linen drawers that looked as if they’d rip off quite nicely.

“Sweet lords of hell,” I said softly.

His face turned serious. “I’d rather they didn’t have anything to do with this,” he said.

“I’d rather we stopped talking altogether.”

“Fine with me.” He moved fast when he wanted to, and before I knew quite what happened I was lying on the bed with him on top of me. His mouth came down on mine again and suddenly there was no more thinking. There was only sensation.

Heat streaked through me as I felt him hard between my legs, hot beneath that linen barrier. I arched against him, wanting more of the pleasure beating at me. We turned and twisted and my shift disappeared with a silken rip as we bit and kissed and tasted in a frenzy, rolling across the bed in an attempt to find the place where we were closest together.

“Holly,” Guy groaned. “We should slow down.”

“Guy DuCaine,” I growled in response. “If you slow down now, I really will kill you.”

That earned me another dose of that smile and a “if you say so, darlin’,” in that velvet drawl that made me want him even more.

Then, to my consternation, he pulled himself away from me.