I turned away from him, angrily stripping off my beret so that I could rub my head in a feeble attempt to make the pain recede. Huck tugged on my arm and turned me back around.
“Go on, then, let me look at it,” he said, hand lifting my chin, first gently, then insistently when I didn’t comply. “Quit being mulish and let me see. There. Was that so hard? Oooh, yes, that’s a shiner, all right. The swelling’s gone down since this morning, though, so that’s good.”
“Nothing’s good,” I complained, shoving my beret into my coat pocket.
“Mmm. Nothing at all?”
“Almost nothing.”
A soft smile rose, quivered, then hid.
“What?” I said.
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He shrugged lightly with one shoulder and turned my chin, inspecting my face. “The last time one of us was tending to the other’s black eye.”
His gaze flicked to mine and then skittered away, back to the surgeon-like examination he was conducting on the scratches near my temple.
“I remember,” I said softly. “First and last time I ever threw a party at Foxwood when Father was out of town.”
“Aye, nothing like a little stolen champagne and a house full of rowdy teenagers to turn a birthday into a brawl. Scrapping like junkyard dogs.”
“James Kendrick got you good in the eye that night.”
“Sheer luck. It was his elbow, not his fist. And I recall getting in a pretty good hook of my own.”
“You broke his beautiful nose, Huck—or at least, that’s what he shouted about a hundred times,” I said, smiling. “Saw him in town a month or so after you left. His nose looked fine, in case you were wondering.”
“A shame.” His thumb feathered over my jaw, tracing a path, ever so lightly, as if he were studying roadways on a map. Tingles blossomed across my skin.
A warm wave of shivers cascaded over my chest and down my arms. I forgot about the chilly air and the balcony. Forgot about Vlad Dracula and the bombshell that had been dropped on me. Rothwild. My anger at Father. The pain of my black eye. All of it vanished as I gazed up at Huck’s face.
Hazel eyes, golden as whiskey, stared back at me under a fan of dark lashes and heavy lids. “Banshee,” he murmured in a deep, rich lilt. “Swear by all the saints, I really want to kiss you right now.”
My heartbeat went erratic.
“Do you?” I whispered.
“You haveno idea.”
Oh, but I did.
“Like I’ve never wanted anything in all my life.”
“Like you’ll die without it?” I said, fisting his lapel in my trembling fingers.
His nose grazed mine. “We shouldn’t.”
“Probably not.”
“Will only make things worse if we’re separated again,” he whispered as his hand cradled my cheek.
“Unbearably painful,” I agreed.
“But...,” he murmured.
