Delilah looked into his face, soft yet still implacable, his eyes hot but enigmatic, and loathed herself for how something in her immediately eased at the words. As though he alone had the answers. As though nothing could possibly go wrong while he was standing guard.
She’d meant it: she didn’t want to need anyone. Let alonewantanyone.
The first step was the difficult task of taking herself out of his presence. Sitting there like a beautiful rugged wall she wanted nothing more than to climb all over.
A wall that had let through a chink of light and she wanted to go toward it the way any moth goes toward light.
She’d probably dash herself to pieces.
Her words emerged in a rush. “I don’t think standing guard all night is necessary, but thank you. Good night.”
She turned so swiftly her braid whistled through the air toward him like a cat-o’-nine-tails.
He caught it in his fist like a striking snake.
They froze that way, absurdly for a moment, like one of Derring’s statues. The way Hardy moved took her breath away. The speed and precision. As if he was prepared for every single eventuality because he’d already encountered them in some form or another. She gave herself permission to be awed.
He was, in fact, remarkable.
His mouth was turned up at the corner. “However frustrating you find me, Lady Derring, I don’t believe I deserve the lash.” He whispered it.
She gave a nervous little laugh. She opened her mouth to apologize.
But something about his expression stopped her voice.
Because now he was looking down at her braid with something very like wonder, maybe confusion. As if he’d stumbled across an exotic creature in a trap he’d set and he wasn’t certain whether he ought to free it or name it. As if he hadn’t the right to touch it at all.
Her heart, for some reason, was beating exultantly.
He gently drew the braid between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t think I’ll return this,” he teased, softly. “It might be useful. I could use this to lower myself out of a castle, like Rapunzel. Or raise the mainsail.”
He raised his eyes to hers. She felt the heat in them.
“I’m not certain you’ve been telling the truth, Captain Hardy, about your facility for poetry.”
She was whispering, too.
He frowned faintly. “Not a bit of what I just said rhymed.”
She realized she’d been leaning ever closer to him all this time.
Tentatively, she laid her hand against his jaw. She wasn’t certain why. Except that she wanted to touch his face after seeing that raw, amazed expression. It had pulled her like gravity.
His cheek was a little gritty with the start of his whiskers. Hard. Warm. She was close enough to see his scar, his lines, map the stern geometry of his face, his cheekbones, his chin.
Yet she couldn’t quite read his eyes in the twilight of the parlor. Maybe that was all for the best. It made what she was about to do a little easier.
She kissed him.
Softly.
Chastely.
Fleetingly.
And she raised her lips from his; she drew in a shuddering breath.
He’d gone so motionless she’d warrant the blood had momentarily stopped moving in his veins.
