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CHAPTER THREE

She was ignoring his muscles.

Dom hadn’t planned for that.

He hadn’t planned on her bursting into his room unannounced, either, though it had been a tremendous boon.

Lavinia Fairfax was in his room , with no one to interrupt them, a second chance delivered in the form of an aspiring doctor with a medical bag and the silkiest dressing robe he’d ever felt.

He pushed himself away from the pillows behind him, letting his biceps flex for longer than necessary, but she didn’t so much as glance in his direction, focused as she was on pouring more of that infernal tincture on fresh lengths of gauze before sitting at his side.

Perhaps she was torturing his confession out of him.

Tensed as he was in anticipation of the sting, he jolted when her fingertips slid over the skin of his back, a rush of heat racing down his spine to settle at his cock. He grunted, shifted, wondered how he could arrange the bedclothes to cover his rapidly swelling erection.

“Two here that need cleaning,” she said as she brushed just below his shoulder blade, her words perplexingly erotic considering she was discussing wound care. “Another here.” When her touch tickled the hair on the base of his neck, he shuddered and a moan escaped his throat.

He quickly cleared it. “Right, um. Are there any alternatives to that—” He gestured towards the soaked gauze. “Perhaps something that won’t set my skin on fire?”

She winced, and he felt a jolt of displeasure in himself at upsetting her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The carbolic acid is best for preventing infection. But you can squeeze my hand if you need.”

His pulse thundered in his ear as she extended her bare hand.

He’d never touched her bare skin, a glove or the soft fabric of her dress constant barriers between them.

Her fingers were fine, delicate and perfectly suited for the precise work of surgery, but the skin was rougher than he’d expect from a society lady, likely because of whatever acid she was currently putting on his savaged skin.

“Dear God ,” he hissed, the burn chasing the cool relief of the gauze with alarming alacrity. He tugged her hand towards him as he fought to hold still, pressing their joined palms against his bare chest.

“Easy now, hold still,” she crooned, rubbing her thumb over his forefinger with one hand while prodding his injury with the other. “Breathe with me, Dominic.” His lungs expanded in shaky increments, and she nodded, smiled. “Well done. One finished, two more to go.”

He thought he was ready for the next assault, but the fire still stole his breath, and the hand he clung to flattened against his chest, drifted up between his pectorals and pressed gently.

“You have to breathe for me,” she whispered, and he forced his lungs to rise and fall. He’d do anything she asked, breathe or jump over a garden wall or let her practice stitching on him.

“You’re not practicing your stitches, are you?”

She chuckled, and his heart soared. “No. That’s what the dead bodies are for, remember?”

“And I’m not dead.”

When she bit her lower lip, he nearly expired in actuality. “No, you’re not,” she whispered, and her palm trembled against his chest. He laid his hand over it, held it tight.

“One more?” he asked, hoping he’d somehow miscounted or the gouge on his neck had miraculously healed. Although, if that were the case, he’d have to release her hand, and that was rapidly becoming an untenable proposition.

“One more.” She leaned closer, her breath disturbing the hair around his ear, and he pressed her hand more firmly over his heart.

Dominic nearly bit through his tongue when the gauze touched his skin, and the moment she declared herself finished, he collapsed against her, throwing one arm around her waist and letting his head fall against her shoulder.

His lips brushed her neck and, without questioning his decision—yet another in a long line of mistakes he’d made that evening—he kissed the tender skin beneath her jaw.

She stiffened in his arms but did not pull away. “Dominic…”

If he said nothing at all, he couldn’t say something stupid. “Yes?”

“Did you kiss me?”

He could lie, make an excuse that he was hurting and their proximity had been accidental. But withholding the truth had left him in this sorry state, lonely and desperate and on the precipice of losing this remarkable woman without telling her how he felt.

“I did,” he managed, and immediately winced, expecting the full force of her disgust and wrath.

Lavinia was silent for a long moment, a modicum of the tension leaving her body. “Why did you jump into a rosebush?”

This wasn’t the question he’d been expecting, and he didn’t have time to concoct a better answer. “I didn’t try to. The bush was just there.”

She leaned back and fixed him with a look that brooked no argument, but beneath her stern facade he saw a cautious hope. Perhaps he was wishing to see that hope in her eyes, one that mirrored his own, because the words slipped from his lips with the bravery he’d lacked for the past two years.

“I was chasing you.”

In the low light, her eyes were the color of the deepest parts of the sea as they searched his face. “Why?”

“I wanted a second dance.”