Page 171 of Her Beast

“The first woman who saw me—and only my hand, mind—almost fainted, Julia.”

“Did she love you?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Did she love you?”

“No! She was a whore.”

Julia tried to ignore the jealousy she felt in the pit of her stomach—it was in the past. She took his right hand. “May I?”

He gave an abrupt nod.

She struggled to peel back the snug leather. “Do you really like it so tight?”

Malcolm’s lips twitched into an unexpected smile. “The tighter, the better.”

Julia narrowed her eyes at him, her face heating as she understood his crude innuendo. “You are naughty.”

His smile grew wider and he nodded. “Yes.”

Julia did a terrible job of hiding her answering grin and turned back to her labors. The leather was exceedingly thin.

“Do these tear easily?”

“They do not usually last more than two or three days.”

Her head whipped up. “You replace them every two or three days?”

He shrugged. “They are the only gloves that yield adequate sensation.” He sounded defensive.

Julia wanted to suggest that henotwear them but decided to leave that struggle for later. They would have the rest of their lives, after all.

She tugged off the last finger and held his hand in both of hers, her finger tracing the tissue-thin skin on the top before turning it over to find the underside mostly undamaged.

She set down his hand and picked up the left.

“That one is worse.”

Julia ignored him and went through the same painstaking process. The hand beneath was, indeed, worse, burned on both top and bottom, the last two fingers nothing but stumps.

She lifted both his hands and placed them on her face, cupping her jaws the way he so often did. “Can you feel my skin?”

“A very little with the left but”—his lips curved into a painfully sweet smile—“but I can feel you with the right.”

“And how do I feel?” She rubbed her cheek against his palm.

“As lovely as you look.”

His words warmed her and she leaned forward to kiss him. But he pulled back.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I can’t live a normal life, Julia.”

“You mean you can’t m-marry,” she stumbled over that word, blushing scarlet, “or have children?” she asked, feeling bolder the more she spoke, the angrier she became at him for denying himself and trying to denyher.

“Obviously I can do those things, but I cannot socialize normally. I won’t go to parties or dinners or the theat—”

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