Page 49 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
“Ah, hell. Fair enough.” Though he’d yet to take a bite despite the fact that he’d torn up a great deal of his meal, Chris gestured with the fork toward the nightstand drawer. “Little wooden box,” he said. “All the way to the back, on the right.”
Obediently, Phoebe rifled within the drawer, sliding her hand toward the very back until her fingers touched something cool and smooth. The box was small and discreet, perhaps six inches long. Unassuming, she thought, for what it contained.
“Go ahead,” he urged, and she flipped open the catch and lifted the lid. A neat stack of items lay within, stiff and semi-transparent.
“They look like vellum,” she said, poking at the topmost one with the tip of one finger. The rustle of them made her wince. “These cannot be comfortable.”
A laugh rumbled in his chest. “They’re made of sheep’s gut,” he reminded her. “They come dried. They must be soaked prior to use to make them pliable. As for comfort—well, not so much as going without. But it’s a small price to pay for the security they provide.”
Security. Yes. She supposed they must offer that, or no one would bother with them, strange as they were. She flipped the lid closed once again, secured the latch, and tucked the box back into the drawer where it belonged.
“I’ve held up my end of our bargain,” he said. “So. About my fee.”
Well, shehadmade that bargain, and she had traded upon her trustworthiness to do so. It was only a kiss.
She closed her eyes, leaned forward.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so.” The amused words cut straight through her concentration, and she opened her eyes once more with a frown. “My ability to lean in is somewhat curtailed at the present moment, and you’re entirely too far away. You’ll have to sit here.” He patted one hand at the edge of the bed, where a scant six inches of surface was available between his hip and the edge.
She’d be precariously balanced, but she supposed he was right. She couldn’t exactly expect him to meet her halfway in his condition. Somehow, she managed to perch herself there, claiming what little space she could, and bent toward him once more.
Only a kiss, she thought, and pressed her lips to his. A brief one, at that. He ought to be resting—
Before she could pull away, he sank his fingers into her hair, his right arm strong and sure against her back. “That was not,”he said in a low murmur against her lips, “quite what I had in mind.” Something about the tenor of his voice made the hairs at the nape of her neck lift. Made a strange heat kindle in her belly.
His lips grazed across hers, the day’s growth of beard upon his cheeks and chin abrading her skin. An odd sensation. Not unpleasant so much as unfamiliar. Her mind shed itself of petty concerns as if a spell had been cast upon her, and some part of her—some part she had long ignored, some part she had tried to convince herself did not exist at all—tossed up a tempting thought.
This is something that he can teach to me.
It had been an easy thing to dismiss that first kiss as a product of panic, of desperation. A thing to be done only to secure what she had wanted for herself. Now, in the quiet of an otherwise deserted room, she had no such excuses. There was that same unconscious lassitude, the loosening of every stiff muscle, the parting of her lips to admit the slow thrust of his tongue, the slick slide provoking a shiver.
She found herself grasping his shoulder, her nails flexing into the muscle beneath his warm skin.Toowarm. She’d forgotten his fever—
“Chris,” she mumbled.
“Shh. Not just yet.” There was his other hand at her waist, sliding toward the small of her back. His fingers clenched in her hair, holding her still. The pressure of his lips burned, bruised. A sensation that would linger with her long after the kiss. “It’s been too damned long.”
The hair at the nape of his neck was damp with sweat, but still soft and smooth. She didn’t know quite how her fingers had ended up there, but she enjoyed the growl that rumbled in his throat as her nails scraped across the skin beneath it. “Chris—”
“Phoebe. Kindlyshut up.”
Ah, well. She had tried. And really, it was a uniqueopportunity to assuage her curiosity. To learn the differing textures of his skin. The smoothness of his shoulders and back, the sparse hair scattered across his chest. The—
“Ah, goddammit all to hell!” Chris roared. He released her abruptly, falling back against the pillows, his face twisted in pain. One hand splayed over his side protectively, just above the gauze pad peeking out from beneath the bandage. The tray of food, still perched upon his lap, rattled at sudden motion.
Briefly bereft, Phoebe blinked in surprise. Oh—oh,no. In her struggle to get closer, she’d jammed her knee up against his side. Right against his wound. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think—”
“I’ll live,” he grunted, wincing through the pain. “More’s the pity. Probably I should have known better than to try it in my condition. Not at my best.”
The short, staccato bursts of words made her conscience twinge. “I did try to warn you,” she offered as she bent, carefully, to retrieve the cloth that he’d let drop to his tray. “You do have a fever, besides.” Another dunk in the ice water, since it had gone tepid at best, and she wrung it out, offering it to him once more. “Perhaps I should summon the surgeon—”
“It will pass,” he said. “I’d rather not have that ornery old bastard deciding for himself to relieve me of possession of my spleen while he’s got me helpless.” He sighed when she laid the cloth across his forehead.
“What does a spleen do?”
“Haven’t got a damned clue, but it’s still mine and I’d prefer to keep it.” His eyes closed for a moment. “I’ll sleep for a little while,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Oh. Of course,” she said. She had taken up rather a lot of his time, when he ought to have been devoting himself to healing. Rising to her feet, she turned for the door.
