He had not come this close to her since he had saved her from the river. Now their arms nearly brushed—his defined by the fabric of his fine coat and hers bared practically to the shoulder. His breathing sounded even and slow. Clearly this closeness did not affect him, despite his teasing on the hillside that he still wished to kiss her. An impromptu swim in frigid water could cool the most insistent ardor, she supposed.
“Why are we hiding?” she said beneath the trill of Juliana’s thoroughly insincere protests and Mr. Anders’s wine-soaked assurances.
Lord Vitor cut her a Dark Look.
“They cannot hear me,” she whispered. “Her giggles drown out all else.”
A V appeared between his brows and he seemed to study her face as sometimes he did, as though searching her features for an answer to a question he had not spoken. When he looked at her like this she did not feel the cold. She felt hot and unsteady.
She should have let him teach her how to dance.
The thought came unbidden and unwelcome. She didn’t want to learn how to dance and she did not want him to touch her again. Even the caress of his midnight gaze now made her unbearably uncomfortable.
Then, with a hooding of his eyes she had seen only once before, his gaze dipped to her mouth.
“Why am I allowing my toes to grow numb one by one?” she made herself say. Anything to halt the painful pleasure inside her. Anything. For it was painful, she understood now. When he looked at her like this, an unendurable sort of misery gathered in her chest and belly that she needed to escape. That was the reason she had fled the drawing room earlier, to avoid his dark regard and to avoid touching him again. “So that I can watch Mr. Anders cajole Miss Abraccia into his arms, since he failed to cajole me?” she forced through her lips. “He believes he is a poet, but in truth he is a boy.”
Shifting his attention from her, her companion glanced into the great hall. “Killers may wear masks.”
She peeked through the grille, her breaths fogging on the steel breastplate in front of her. Juliana took another dainty step away from Mr. Anders. Then she reversed direction and fell against his chest with all evidence of submission.
Ravenna simply could not watch. It was too foolish. “And you know this because . . . ?”
“Because I have worn such masks. But no longer.” His eyes, upon her again, flickered with torchlight. “He failed?”
He was a killer? This man who had risked his life to save her from the river? The only man in the castle who—she was quite certain—was not the murderer they sought? “He who—what? Failed?” Her wits had fled along with her breaths.
Across the hall, Mr. Anders murmured to Miss Abraccia. A muscle in Lord Vitor’s jaw flexed.
“You mean he, him?” Ravenna whispered. “Martin Anders?”
Lord Vitor said nothing, only watched her.
“Of course he failed,” she said. “He is a sorry tease and I don’t—”
“He failed.” The words seemed to come from deep in his chest. He looked up to the ceiling and then down at his feet and then finally, as though reluctantly, again at her mouth. “Would I fail?” His voice was unmistakably husky.
Ravenna’s stomach turned over. Now he did not tease—not as he had at other times. He meant this question and he wanted an answer. She should go. Immediately. Without delay she should slip out of this concealed place and save herself from certain trouble.
“Would you fail?” she heard herself repeat.
He looked very serious. “No.”
Heat and confusion tangled beneath her skin now. Desire. It suddenly seemed so clear. Too clear. She wanted him to touch her yet it terrified her. “No?” she asked, the chill barely stirring between them.
“No,” he said. “Unless you bite me again.” Laughter sparked in his eyes. Abruptly, Ravenna could breathe again.
Then his hand touched hers.
And breathing became a distant memory.
Chapter 10
The Touch
She had been longing for touch, real touch, not merely the pat of Petti’s fingers or the quick clasp of a friend’s hand. She had spent nights aching for Beast’s warm mass to curl herself around and take comfort in. Then for a few moments when this man had held her in his arms, in her icy stupor she had felt safe.
Now as his hand brushed hers she felt no consolation or comfort, only fear. Everything in her readied to run, but the soles of her feet remained flat upon the stone floor as, gently, his knuckles strafed hers. It was the slightest of touches, but everything inside her seemed to shimmer to life. His fingertips followed the same paths, barely a caress, barely contact at all, yet it filled her. Her breaths would not come. No one had ever touched her like this. No one had touched her as though he wished to feel her—as though he wished to know this small part of her—any part of her.
Without releasing her gaze, he passed his fingertips across the pads of her fingers. She did not expect the tingling shock or the gasp that slipped through her lips.
He stroked softly. Inside her, where she was empty, bloomed longing and heady agitation. His hand was warm. His palm cupped around her knuckles so that she felt his strength. In the torchlight she watched his face, the hard plane of his jaw and the shadows in his eyes. What he did now was intimate and as wrong as the kiss he had forced upon her in the stable. But there was no force now, only need growing inside her and his intoxicating exploration.
Then he stroked his thumb across her palm. She mustn’t allow this. From her lips issued the barest breath of resistance. He repeated the caress. It was strange, deep pleasure that she knew nothing of, and she was as sensible of her ignorance as she suspected he was of his confidence to make her feel. She could see it in the line of his lips that remained closed while hers had fallen open. With each stroke across her palm her breaths came faster. But she saw that his did too, his chest moving quick and hard.
He turned her hand, laced her fingers through his, and brought their palms together.
Ravenna choked back a sigh. Her eyelids dipped. Skin to skin, she felt him between her fingers and brushing against her palm with tingles that made her a little dizzy. To be connected like this, the heat of a man’s life intertwined with hers, seemed miraculous. Inescapable. Despite his strength he held her by her will. She had no desire to pull away, only the need to remain with him in this silent meeting of skin and heat. She found her chin tilting up, her gaze dipping to his lips. Their shoulders brushed. She felt it everywhere inside her. He bent his head.
“Ravenna,” he whispered so close to her lips.
The crack of a slap echoed through the hall. “No, signore!”
Ravenna jerked her hand free. She forced her eyes to focus beyond the grille.
Hands over her mouth, Juliana fled across the hall. Mr. Anders stood still, wobbling slightly, the torchlight revealing his scowl. Juliana disappeared up the stairs. Mr. Anders released a great huffing groan and followed.
Sinking her hands into her skirts, Ravenna forced herself to look at the man beside her. Shoulders stiff, he stood with his hand around the back of his neck. He glanced aside at her. With a deep inhalation his gaze shifted to her mouth, where for a long, silent moment it rested.
“You should go,” he said quietly, his voice quite low. “Now.”
She took up the lamp and slipped out from behind the screen and went swiftly across the hall. As he followed at a distance he did not mask his footsteps, but she did not look back. She did not know why she had allowed him to touch her. She should not have. Yet she knew that he would silently see her safely to her door.