“Give me your hand,” he murmured, his fingers closing around hers.
She shook her head, but she didn’t resist when he drew her hand closer, cradling it in his palm. Samuel traced his thumb over the tiny button of her glove and slowly—so slowly and carefully—slid the button through the silken loop.
She gazed down at his fingers wrapped around hers as if in a daze, as if she’d never seen such a thing before. Her hands were trembling, but her chin rose, and somehow, that little act of bravery made Samuel’s heart melt in his chest.
He didn’t wait, couldn’t wait until he’d bared her skin. He caught her slender hand in his and raised it to his lips, the warm, smooth slide of silk against his mouth sending hot sparks of desire spiraling in his belly.
A tiny sigh left her lips at the caress. “M-madame Marchand was there, and she—”
“Shhh.” Samuel didn’t want to talk about Madame Marchand, or the Pink Pearl, or Helena Reeves, or Caroline Francis.
He didn’t wantto talk at all.
* * * *
It made no sense, that his lips could be so gentle.
The firm line of them, the sardonic curl at the corner of them, the grim twist of them…they should be hard, shouldn’t they? Demanding. Punishing, even.
How could she have known? How could she ever have imagined how soft they’d be, the sensuous slide of them against the thin silk of her glove?
“Show me your hands, Emma.” His voice had droppedto a whisper.
Emma did her best suppress the delicious throb of awareness that uncurled in her belly at that low purr. She didn’t move as he took her hand, his touch tender as he began to slowly drawoff her glove.
There was a part of Emma that wanted to tug free of him—to snatch her hand from his grasp before he could see what she’d tried for so many years to hide, even from herself, but there was another part of her that was weary, so weary of cowering, that wanted someone to see.…
No. Not someone.Him. Only him.
She watched, entranced, as he slid the smooth silk down her arm, and she let him, shelethim, even as she knewwhat he’d find…
Lower, and lower still, his touch firm, her skin learning the shape of his fingertips. His gaze held hers as he slid each of her fingers free of the silk glove, one by one, his movements languid, unhurried, until her bare hand rested in his gloved one. “There,” he whispered, tracing the pattern of lines on the back of her hand.
The scars were faded now, but one had only to look carefully to see them, her brutal past written across her hand, a piece of her history carvedinto her flesh.
“Your hands are no less beautiful because they bear these scars.” He brought her bared hand to his lips and pressed a warm, lingering kiss there. “Have your admirers made you ashamed of them, Emma? Is that whyyou hide them?”
It was a kiss, only a kiss, a brush of his lips against her hand, but within seconds, Emma’s head was swimming. “I…no one…” she whispered, but how could she tell him, how could she explain that no man had ever seen these scars before him? No man but the one who’d inflicted them, and he…he…
But she didn’t have to tell him. She didn’t have to say a word, because Samuel read the truth in her face. “No man has ever seen them, touched them, kissed them.No man butme.”
Emma shivered at the possessiveness in his voice, the fierce satisfaction in his face as he bent over her hand and traced the tip of his tongue over the deepest of the scars. “This is part of who you are, Emma. You have no reason to be ashamed of them.”
Everything inside Emma ached at his words. She wanted so badly to believe him, but she’d earned the nightmares that came with those scars, had lived those awful moments over and over again, each time she closed her eyes.
Samuel saw the doubt in her face—or perhaps it wasn’t doubt, but the fragile hope that rose in her breast at his words—and he turned her hand over and pressed his lips to the center of her palm.
Emma’s breath caught. His gaze darted to her face at the soft gasp, his dark eyes holding her captive as, one by one, he pressed kisses to each of her fingertips before trailing his lips up the tender skin ofher inner arm.
Emma’s own lips parted when the tip of his tongue grazed her skin, but the kiss was over in an instant, leaving only a hint of heat behind. His teasing mouth wandered from her forearm to the curve of her elbow, and he buried his face in the sensitive hollow, a low moan on his lips as he breathed deeply, taking her scent inside him.
She didn’t realize how badly she wanted to touch him until, as if in a dream she watched her hand settle gently on the head bent over her arm, and she dragged her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck.
“Oh.” Emma let her fingertips drift through the dark strands, her lips parted in wonder at the silky waves tickling her fingers. It seemed impossible such a hard man could have such softness to him, such unexpected tenderness.
Hadn’t she thought him a hard man, once? Yes, but it seemed a long time ago now. As she drew her fingers through the impossible softness of his hair, Emma could no longer recall why she should have. “How can it be so soft? It’s likedark velvet..”
Samuel had gone still at her touch, but her quiet exclamation of surprise made him raise his head. He gazed at her for a breathless moment, eyes glittering, the gray iris drowning in asea of black.
