He held her gaze and her heart fluttered a bit. This connection she felt whenever he looked at her like that was disconcerting to say the least. As a result, she forced herself to look away, but the burning of her cheeks had to be as obvious to him as it was to her.
“I traveled the world, you know,” he said. “In service to my king, I learned new languages, saw things I couldn’t even imagine. I pretended to be what I was not. It was all a grand adventure. A pleasure as much as a duty.”
“It must be hard to lose that,” she whispered.
He was quiet a moment, and then he said, “You told me there would be pain if I do as you say.”
She swallowed hard and forced herself to meet his eyes. “Yes.”
His lips pressed harder together. “But will I heal? Will I ever be anything like the man I was before?”
She caught her breath, moved once more by the hint of pleading in his voice. The desperation that drove his worse behaviors was clearer to her now. Everything he was had been tied up in what he could do. How he could protect. Where he could go without difficulty.
Losing all that had changed him.
She understood that.
“I will never lie to you, Lucas,” she said, leaning in to touch his chin, turning it so that he met her eyes and could see the truth of her. “And I will not promise you what I cannot deliver. I don’t know if I can bring back that man you once were. But if you let me look at you, help you, I promise you I will do everything in my power to try.”
His eyes narrowed, like he was reading her, hesitating to trust her, but at last he nodded slowly. “Very well. I will give you your month.”
Relief flowed through her, stronger than she’d thought it would, considering she hadn’t wanted to do any of this in the first place. His refusal would have made her life easier. His acceptance made her happy, though.
“Good,” she said.
He held up her basket. “Now, will you tell me what these herbs do?”
She smiled as the tension between them bled away a fraction. “Well, some are to ease pain. Others are to help with healing. This one makes chicken taste better.”
He tilted his head back and laughed. “Best not to get them confused then.”
“Never,” she said, and took the basket, sliding it over her forearm. “Why don’t we go upstairs and we can begin, this time in earnest? I want to look at your injuries more closely. Only then can we truly know what to do next.”
If he wanted to hesitate or argue or refuse, he did not do it. He merely drew in a long breath, then got to his feet and took her offered arm as they slowly made their way back to the house and to the tortures she knew would come.
Lucas drew in a deep breath and tried to calm himself. When this woman touched him, it was mesmerizing. He’d never experienced anything like it with any lover he’d taken over the years. Being near her was like sunshine waking him in the morning or the warmth of alcohol buzzing through his system and addling his brain.
And yet, as she opened the door to the house, his anxiety about what would happen next rose in his chest. He’d been trained to handle pain, of course. A spy needed to be able to bear torture.
But the past six months had pushed him to his limits. He did not relish the idea of doing it all again, and especially not in front of this woman who seemed to be able to see into a man’s soul, whether he used his training against her or not.
She tightened her arm around his waist as they began to climb the stairs together. “I will get you a cane,” she mused, almost more to herself than to him. He stiffened, and she glanced over at him with a knowing look. “Let me guess—you shunned the idea of a cane because it made you weak?”
He pursed his lips at the censure that marked her tone. “When you say it like that, it sounds foolish,” he drawled, hoping to cut the tension with a bit of self-deprecation.
She paused at the top of the stairs, her breath labored as she panted, “Itisfoolish. Great God, would you not feel better if you could wrangle yourself up the stairs or through a room without needing someone to support your weight?”
“I…suppose,” he admitted slowly. “Does it trouble you?”
She cast him a side glance and began to maneuver him toward the bedroom. “Does what trouble me?”
“Always being right,” he finished. “Does it keep you up at night?”
There was a second’s pause, and then she laughed. The sound was like music and he drank it in while she helped him into the chamber and toward the bed. As he collapsed back onto the mattress, she buckled over him and landed across his chest. Pain shot through him, as it always did. But it was tempered by something else.
Something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Pleasure. Her body against his was a pleasure, and he found he didn’t want to let that go quite yet. Her laughter faded and she stared down at him, watching silently as he lifted his arms to fold them around her. To hold her like he’d done the night he comforted her.
Only he hadn’t comfort on his mind in this moment. No, he wanted something else from her and he was not going to be denied. He glided his fingers into her hair, cupping her skull to lower her mouth to his. She didn’t resist—she only let out a tiny sigh, and then her lips were pressing against his.
