I now stood right next to his bed, and he reached up and pulled me down so that I sat on its edge. “Aye, lass. Yer hands will be far more gentle than me brother’s.”
“Okay,” I ran my fingertips over the exposed scar that ran down the side of his face. Whatever Morna had placed upon it had altered the skin completely. Only days before the line had been red, angry, relatively new. Now its shade was a close match to the rest of his skin and had the look of a much older scar. It had healed as much as it ever would. “It looks so much better, Eoghanan.”
“Aye?”
I couldn’t tell if he’d heard a word I said. His eyes were closed, and he was enjoying the feel of my fingertips as they trailed his face. When they reached the base of his neck where the remaining wrap started, he grabbed my hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissed my palm.
“I love yer hands, lass, and the way ye make me feel when ye touch me. Do ye remember when ye cut me hair?” His words were slow, slightly slurred, and incredibly sexy.
“Yes, I do. What about it?”
He still gripped my hand, trailing slow kisses up my arm as he spoke. “All I could think of was what these hands of yers would feel like digging into me shoulders as I claimed ye, pushing meself deeper and deeper inside ye. How ye would shudder beneath me…”
“Okay…” I jerked away, standing up as fast as I could, doing a strange little dance where I shook out my hands and hopped from foot to foot to clear my head and the disastrous thoughts that were flooding it as he spoke. “I think you are further into the bottle than you think, mister. Whether you thought it or not, you would never say that out loud to me sober.”
He smiled, getting up from the bed so that he stood in front of me, smiling that same lazy grin. “Aye, mayhap so, Grace, though every word is the truth.”
For the moment I was glad that the majority of his body was still wrapped up tightly, but I was about to have to unwrap him like some sort of man candy present, and if he didn’t stop talking, I worried I might jump him and beg him to do to me just exactly what he’d imagined.
“Are you ready to get started?” I didn’t allow him the chance to answer, gripping the top of the fabric near his neck, tugging to test out just how tightly it was bound. “Does that hurt?”
“No, no in the way that me face did.”
I nodded, continuing to pull at the bandage, “Good. I’m going to keep going then.”
He said nothing. For the following minutes I worked quietly, pulling and then reaching around him to gather the fabric, repeating the motion over and over. He didn’t scream, didn’t wince, he simply watched me so intently that tension began to build quite evidently in the room. Each time I leaned forward to wind the cloth around his back, I was tempted to linger.
I wanted nothing more than for him to grab me, kiss me, and take me to his bed, but my rational mind told me to keep to my work. No matter how much I wanted to tell that rational voice in my head to go hang, I inevitably had to leave here; it would be foolish to complicate things further.
“Where have ye been, Grace?”
The question caught me off guard. Despite the fact that I feigned ignorance, I knew exactly what he meant. “What do you mean? I’ve been right here.”
“No, ye have been anywhere but right here, lass. Ye have plans to leave.”
He didn’t ask it as a question, and his keen observation caused my hand to still for a brief moment. I’d unwound him to the bottom of his waist. All that was left was his right leg, but I hesitated to go further. I didn’t imagine he had on boxer briefs beneath the wrapping.
“I…” I couldn’t very well lie to him. Of course I had plans to leave. “I don’t really have a choice. There’s only a few more days before I’m due back in New York.”
“New York. Do ye mean for yer article?” He reached behind himself to grab the roll of bandages I held. “Put them down, lass. Stand up and look at me.” After pulling me to my feet, he continued, “Yer magazine will receive the money promised to them with or without yer article. The mysterious benefactor…I believe ’twas Jerry.”
Of course it was. “How do you know about that?”
“The telephone ’twas right outside me bedchamber. I heard him speaking to yer boss, though I dinna understand it until the evening when ye told me about yer job.”
The telephone. I had a sudden flashback to my phone conversation with my sister and the noise I thought I’d heard behind his door. “The telephone…you heard me, huh?”
He smiled, reaching up with his right hand to tuck some hair behind my ear. The movement in his shoulder was much improved. “Aye, though I could only hear ye, no whoever ye spoke with.”
“My sister.”
He nodded, “I thought as much.” Smiling with one half of his mouth, he released my arms and leaned down to unwrap his lower waist and leg.