The Perfect Kiss (7 page)

“Why are you chopping wood? That’s not work for—” He broke off, frowning. “You’ve hurt yourself.” His eyes dropped to where she was cradling her hand and he muttered something foreign and said, “Let me see.”

Irrationally she tried to pull her hand away. He effortlessly prevented her. “Don’t be silly. I can help.” He gently prised her fingers off the injured hand. “It’s a splinter, a big one.”

He lifted her hand, examining it carefully in the lamplight, handling her with exquisite care. Grace bit her lip. The trick with pain, she knew, was to focus on something else.

She glanced around. She could focus on the spider creeping along the beam overhead, or she could focus on him.

She didn’t like spiders. She focused on him.

Mesmerized by the play of lamplight and shadow over his strong, narrow face, she let her gaze skim the sculpted planes of his cheekbones, the sharp angle of his jaw, dark and rough with the promise of a beard. He was so close she could see the fine grain of his skin, smell him, a faint exotic fragrance threaded through with the scent of man and horses. His mouth was set in a hard line, his lips compressed, angry perhaps.

It was a beautiful mouth. Even when she thought him an insolent, raggle-taggle gypsy, she’d noticed his hard, beautiful mouth, sculpted in clear, sharp lines by some divine blade. It was bracketed by two sharp lines, cutting deep. Not laugh lines; despite that wicked gleam she’d spotted in his eye on several occasions, he didn’t look much like a man who’d gone through life laughing.

He pressed the skin around the splinter gently and she gasped as the pain shot through her. “I’ll get it out, don’t worry,” he said in a deep voice that was meant to be reassuring but which reverberated through her in a most unsettling way.

It was bad enough when he was teasing and being scandalous. Now, when he was gentle and sincere . . .

Thank goodness he’d put his shirt back on.

She managed to say in a light tone, “No, it’s all right. You surprised me, that’s all.” Merridew girls knew how to handle pain. And they knew better than to expose vulnerability to any man, stranger or not. At least Grace did. She was different from her sisters.

His gaze didn’t shift; she felt it burning into her for several endless moments. He was so close, she could feel his breath on her skin. For one long instant, she thought he was going to kiss her. She glanced up at the spider on the beam. “Look at all those cobwebs. Your
fiancée
, Miss Pettifer, would hate this place. She loathes spiders.” That would remind him.

“Does she?” he said in an uninterested voice and returned his attention to her splinter. Her hand throbbed. She stared at his bent head. His hair was thick and black and waved just a little. It was a little longer than was fashionable. One lock fell over his forehead. Her hand lifted, as if to smooth it back, but she caught herself in time.

Good God. She’d been about to slide her fingers into that thick, inky pelt. Would it be soft to touch or springy? She shivered. She didn’t want to know. He was a stranger, her friend Melly’s affianced husband. What had come over her?

Exotic, that was the word for him. Exotic and somehow . . . alluring. What nonsense, she told herself. Men couldn’t be alluring.

The lines around his eyes, they’d been made by sunshine. His skin was tanned, unfashionably dark. And what ancestry had given him those eyes, those strange, compelling eyes. They were—She jumped as the dark sweep of lashes rose and she found him staring back at her. His eyes, his mouth were only inches from hers. Mesmerized, she stood caught in his gaze for what seemed like forever. She swallowed and licked her lips.

His gaze dropped to her mouth and intensified. She could hardly breathe.

“I don’t suppose you have a pair of tweezers on you?”

She gave a shaky laugh at the prosaic question. “Of course not.”

The golden eyes heated. He gave a faint, fatalistic shrug. “Then I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.” Without warning his mouth settled over her palm, over her injury, warm and firm.

The unexpectedness of it caused her to curl her hand involuntarily; she found her fingers cupping his face. Before she could move, he clamped his hand over hers preventing her from moving it away. His gaze locked with hers. She could not break it. She felt helpless, unable to move as she was drawn deeper into that compelling golden intensity.

He was just extracting a splinter, for heaven’s sake. She closed her eyes to shut him out.

It was a mistake.

Without that glittering predator gaze on her, her other senses were free. Free? They ran rampant, though she didn’t move a muscle. His unshaven jaw was hard and prickled deliciously against her soft palm. His tongue explored her skin, delicately, almost sensuously. Every tiny motion rippled through her body and gathered momentum, setting off strange quivers deep inside her. Her toes, locked in her sensible half boots, curled. A long shudder rippled up her spine and her knees felt suddenly weak. She found herself clutching his arm with her other hand.

He moved, angling his body around her, to get a better grip, she supposed, but oh! He was so close. His big, hard body was half wrapped around her.

She tried not to notice, to block it out as she had with the pain—he was just extracting a splinter—but the intense heat of him seeped into her, making her feel helpless, itchy, restless. His skin was cool but it warmed under her touch. Her fingers moved of their own accord against the hard line of his jawbone, testing that delicious abrasiveness again. She willed them to be still.

Dominic moved, bringing her closer. Slender, soft, and unwillingly aroused. He could smell the moist female scent of her. His pulse leapt in response. He clamped down on it, hard. Now was not the time. Not while she was in pain.

This enchanting little freckled companion would be his. There was no question in his mind.

He breathed in the scent of her again; she was intoxicating. Her small, soft palm cupped his jaw delicately, tentatively. He felt her hesitate, felt her fingers flutter under his, half nervousness and half exploration, and he smiled.

It would be good between them. Better than good. She was shy, she was inexperienced, but he knew: she was becoming aroused. He could sense it.

He closed his eyes briefly and let his mouth and tongue explore her palm, seeking the precise angle of the splinter’s entry. The taste of her skin, of her blood, sparked something deep inside him, arousing his more primitive instincts. He forced them back under control.

His teeth bit gently down, pressing the fleshy part just below her thumb, where the splinter was lodged. He knew it must hurt, but she gave no sign. He let his tongue circle the spot, soothing, teasing, pleasuring her shamelessly. Her body softened against him, and he felt the delicate, subtle shivers that she tried so hard to hide from him. He pulled her closer and felt her stiffen, then gradually soften again. Oh yes, she would be his very soon.

He positioned her hand carefully, intensified the pleasure and then, without warning, sucked hard. She gasped at the mixture of pain and unexpected pleasure, and then suddenly he was gripping the end of the splinter between his teeth and drawing it firmly, smoothly out.

He spat it out into his other hand. “A big one. Let’s see if anything was left behind.” He lifted her hand to the light again. “It doesn’t do to leave even the tiniest splinter in. I knew a man who died of a splinter once. Went septic on him and poisoned him in the end.”

“Thank you for the reassurance,” she said dryly.

He liked that tart astringency about her. She was flushed and flustered, yet determined he wouldn’t see it. She would not come to him easily. The predator in him smiled. He liked it that she would be no easy conquest.

He scrutinized her palm with dispassion. “I can’t see anything,” he told her. “But soak it in hot water, as hot as you can stand, for ten minutes or so. And keep an eye on it. If it gets red and sore, it’s infected and we’ll need to poultice it.”

Grace thanked him and moved shakily to the doorway. Her legs felt decidedly unreliable.

What had just happened?

It couldn’t be called a kiss, but . . . oh . . . my. It was a relief to move into the fresh, rain-washed air. She didn’t know what had come over her in the darkened outbuilding. Her knees had almost turned to jelly back there when he was . . . sucking on her palm.

She shivered again. Perhaps she was catching a chill after all. She felt hot and shaky and her pulse was tumultuous. He didn’t seem the slightest bit unsettled.

She tried to gather her composure.

He straightened his coat. “Now, I’m off into the village. I’ll arrange for some villagers to start work here tomorrow. Have you any idea how much help you’ll need?”

She blinked at him, but he said impatiently, “Oh, never mind. I’ll just send a dozen or so up and you can pick out who you need to help you. Two weeks’ work only. I have no intention of setting up house here.”

Grace’s jaw dropped. He expected
her
to pick out
his
servants?

“And in the meantime, don’t let me catch you doing anything so foolish as chopping wood again!”

She bristled at his bossiness. Did he think she was chopping for her own entertainment? She said in a docile-sounding voice, “You said I should bathe my hand in hot water?”

He gave a curt nod. “Yes. Very hot.”

“And that I’m not to chop firewood?”

“No, of course not!”

She bared her teeth sweetly. “Then how would you suggest I get very hot water?” She enjoyed the look that stole over his face as it occurred to him belatedly just why she’d been chopping the wood in the first place.

He pulled off his coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. His forearms were as sunburned as any gypsy’s, strong and sinewy. His shirt was made of very white fine linen, so fine it was semitransparent. He set a large chunk of wood on its end on the stump.

“Stand back,” he ordered and Grace obediently retreated, fascinated by this aspect of him.

Lord D’Acre, wood chopper!

He spat on his hands and swung the ax. Crash! It split the log in half. He picked up the largest piece and placed it back on the stump and swung the ax again. Again it split the wood cleanly in half. He stacked the split pieces in a neat pile to the side, and collected the smaller chips and tossed them onto a piece of sacking nearby.

“You’ve done this before,” she said cleverly.

He gave her a baleful look from under his brows and fetched another piece of wood. He demolished that in one blow. He fetched another. Crash! And another. Crash!

She stood watching him, mesmerized by the swinging ax and the smooth rhythm and pull of his muscles. The fabric of his shirt clung to his body. His face darkened with the exertion and she could see a faint film of sweat on his brow.

He was a magnificent sight; raw, primitive, angry. And exciting.

She swallowed. She had come here to rescue Melly from this man. She watched his muscles bunch and flex, smooth, powerful masculinity in action. Would Melly truly want to be rescued from this?

She thought about the way he’d removed her splinter.

Her hands crept to her mouth. What if she’d got a splinter in her lip?

Dominic was furious with himself. It was his fault she was standing there in her damp and dowdy woolen dress, watching him with big eyes, with a ruddy great gash in her hand. The skin of her hands was so soft, almost silken. She’d never done manual work in her life. He ought to have anticipated the need for fire, for hot water. But dammit, he’d intended to send Sir John and his daughter back to London with a flea in their ears. Arriving uninvited. Forcing Dominic to set foot in a place he’d sworn never to lay eyes on!

And bringing this big-eyed, soft-skinned girl, dammit!

He was all stirred up. And not just by coming here!

He could feel her watching him. She hadn’t made a sound while he’d got that splinter out. Not a peep. One gasp when he’d caught her off guard, that’s all. Every other woman he’d known—except one—would have wailed and wept all over him.

His mother had been able to take pain in silence, too. It was something some women learned. The hard way.

He swung the ax again and again, splitting each log cleanly in half and half again. It was strangely satisfying. He needed to do something to dissipate the tension banked up inside him.

He had the scent of her in his nostrils, the taste of her in his mouth. And he wanted more. Dammit! He hadn’t planned on this. But Little Miss Freckles, with her soft, silken skin and her big blue eyes fired his blood in a way that no woman had fired it before.

Finally a stack of wood stood in a neat pile and Dominic laid down his ax. He felt sweaty and dirty and not a lot calmer than when he’d started. He bent and collected a pile of wood, bracing it against his chest.

“Take the chips on that sacking,” he ordered. “We’ll use them to start the fire.”

She looped up the four corners of the sacking and ran ahead of him to open the kitchen door. He tried not to watch the sweet sway of her rounded hips and bottom as she moved, but the damp wool clung to her body and he had no choice. His mouth dried, watching.

On the big kitchen table, an array of fresh, clean vegetables were laid out. Dominic frowned. “What’s all this?”

“Vegetables from your garden. I hope you don’t mind. I thought I’d make soup for supper. There’s nothing else.”

His eyebrows rose. Was that a faint jibe at his lack of hospitality? The cheeky minx. He dumped the wood with a clatter beside the big, old fireplace. “Hand me that kindling.”

She bent gracefully and placed it on the floor beside him. He began to lay the fire.

“Any paper?”

She passed him an old newspaper. Her fingers brushed his and he caught the scent of her again. Damp wool. Damp woman. Dammit!

He crumpled the paper and swiftly arranged chips of wood over and around it. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about the cutting of the traces on your coach.”

“Why? The horses were all tangled up and they were upset and jumpy. Cutting the traces was the quickest way to free them.”