Devil take it, but he could not expunge the thoughts of her which had brought him to release. Looking at her now, being in proximity to her, sent a fresh rush of lust pounding to his loins.
He had to stop.
“Your sallies are not humorous,” she told him, still frowning, still clutching the book. “I was correct, of course. You rely far too much upon your handsome face.”
He grinned. This was getting promising.
“You think me handsome, Grace?”
Her frown grew more severe. “Youthink yourself handsome. That much is apparent. And as we have already established, I never gave you leave to refer to me by my given name.”
It nettled her when he called her Grace. He resolved to do it from this moment forward. No moreMiss Winter.
“I was not making a statement, but rather posing a question,” he prodded her. “I shall ask it again. Do you think me handsome, Grace?”
In truth, he did not merely think himself handsome. Heknewhe was. The females of his acquaintance had flocked to him. Always. He had no concerns in that quarter. The fairer sex found him impossible to resist. He had legions of bed partners to attest to that fact.
Which was just fine with Rand. It had always stood him in good stead. He had never gone without a woman. Had never had to.
All he required now was forGraceto find him impossible to resist.
Not him, he reminded himself sternly, but hisplan. The plan was everything. The plan was all.
Tyre Abbey was his motivating force.
“I think there are some ladies who would undoubtedly find you attractive,” she said then, interrupting his musings with her cool assessment. “However, I am not one of them.”
The lying minx.
He moved nearer, thinking about the book, taking note of the protective manner in which she held it against her. Thinking of the engraving he had spied before she had snapped it closed. He had thought, for a fleeting second, that it had been a man and woman inflagrante delicto. But then, he had persuaded himself it was naught but his overeager imagination.
Now, he could only wonder.
“Forgive me, Grace,” he said, stopping when they were almost touching. Near enough for her summer’s blossom scent to envelop him. “But I cannot help but note the flush in your cheeks when you speak to me.”
She frowned at him, moving away in a flick of her skirts, striding toward the opposite wall and her relative safety, he could only suppose.
“If I am flushed, it is because I am irritated,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Nothing more.”
“Or perhaps you are embarrassed by your attraction to me,” he guessed, stalking after her.
She spun about so suddenly, he nearly collided with her. As it was, he was left reaching out to steady her, lest she lose her balance. Her soft arms burned his palms. Reminded him why he had spent that time in bed envisioning her sucking his—
“I am not attracted to you in the slightest,” she told him, disrupting his thoughts as she wrenched herself from his grasp and put some more distance between them.
The stubborn wench was dismantling his opinion of himself, one brick at a time.
A cursed disconcerting situation, it was.
He decided to abandon that particular subject for the nonce. Instead, he turned his mind to the book. She had it pressed to her breast just now, and unless he was mistaken, he recognized that binding. He had seen that finely tooled leather before. The gilt title.
The Tale of…
The rest of the words were obscured by her fingers, clenched tightly and protectively over the little book.
“Are you reading a volume ofThe Tale of Love?” he asked.
Her countenance went pale. “Of course not. What would make you think such a thing?”
