Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards 3)

“Don’t,” she said, and she meant it. “Fighting is like breathing in the Garden, and I had enough rage in me to make me good. We were lucky we were all good, and we were even luckier we could get paid for it.” She looked to him. “You made sure we were good, you know that, right?”

“I shouldn’t have had to.”

No, he shouldn’t have. They should have been able to have childhoods, with their mothers who loved them and fathers who were proud of them. And instead, here they were, battered and bruised in a thousand different ways.

Grace did not linger on the fights. “That’s how Devil and Whit got involved in ice. We quickly learned the difference between a fight with it and without it, and they found a way to make certain we were never without it.”

One of his blond brows rose. “I suppose the smuggling is just for fun, then.”

She gave a little laugh at that. “No, the smuggling is for money, and to stick it to the aristocracy.” She paused, then, “Which is a bit fun, I suppose.”

He huffed a little laugh, and lifted his hand to press it against the back of hers. “And you, the resident doctor.”

She nodded in the direction of the books on the table. “I’m no Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Do not underestimate yourself.”

“Shall we bring you to life after I am through? See what kind of monster has been made?”

Was it a flirt? Or was it a nod to their past? To the night he’d become the monster from which she’d run? To the years of her looking over her shoulder, worrying about the monster she believed him to be?

He took the ice from her hand, lowering it as he reached for her. “Grace,” he whispered, pulling her close, sending warmth and something she didn’t dare name spiraling through her. He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “Whatever monster I have become . . . It is not you who made me.”

She heard the anguish in the words and hated it.

And then she hated the confusion that came with the realization that she was beginning to think, perhaps, that he was not the monster they had all believed him to be.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to resist the way the memories of the past were colliding with the realities of the present—memories of him, on her turf. Taking his knocks in her club. Doing the wash with the women of the Garden. Paying his dues to the men of the Rookery. His humor.

And then, this afternoon, the way he fought, like he’d been built for it. So he had.

The way he’d come for her, like he’d been meant for it. So he had.

But most of all, she hated how much she ached for him, this new, changed man she had not expected to find when he came to. Hated how much she seemed to want him, despite the fact that he had given her a lifetime of pain.

Hated how, even now, as he suffered the effects of the bout earlier in the day, all she wanted to do was care for him.

Even though he did not deserve it.

She’d made the decision to come here to tell him just that—that he did not deserve her attention, or her protection in the Garden, or anything else he wished from her. He certainly did not deserve her care—she’d given him more than enough of that and watched him toss it away.

She’d only intended to answer the question he seemed so keen on asking her. What did she need? She needed him gone. She needed him to find the future he was looking for or the penance he required, and live his life. Far from her.

She’d only intended to leave the salve.

She’d only intended to know what she needed, finally.

And then she’d arrived in this dark room full of candles and mirrors and the scent of him, tobacco and tea, that combination she’d never been able to smell without aching for him.

Even as she hated him for his betrayal.

She should have left then. Should have ignored this room that seemed ripe for sin and sex. Should have ignored him.

But instead, she’d been lost to another memory, made without her consent. A memory that did not come with fear or pain or heartache, but with desire. Him without clothes—his trousers not even properly buttoned—not looking a thing like he did the last time she’d mended his wounds, doused in candlelight, fresh from a bath and covered with the badges from his earlier bout—a bout he might have won if he’d fought the way he should have.

He hadn’t. Because he hadn’t wanted to hurt the Garden any longer.

She loved and hated that in equal measures.

And so, now, when she thought of telling him what she needed, the most pressing need was no longer his leaving and never returning. Now, it was infinitely more dangerous, because it was the same thing she had needed the last time they had met in the darkness.

It was another kiss.

Another touch.

Another night.

One more.

And it did not matter that he might be a more terrifying monster than anything one could find in books.

He sensed the change in her as she took his face in her hands and stared down into his eyes—those amber eyes she’d loved so much and so well and so long, until she’d closed herself off, for fear that they’d haunt her forever.

But they were here, now, and for this night, they were hers.

“Take it,” he said.

Everything you need.

She kissed him again, her hands moving, no longer healing. No longer soothing. Wanting. Claiming. He sucked in a breath as she smoothed her hands down over his chest, gentling as she tracked past the bandages on his abdomen, his muscles rippling and tightening enough to remind him of his wounds.

He hissed at the ache, and she lifted her hands as though he’d burned her. “Did I—”

Ewan shook his head instantly. “Don’t stop.”

She watched him for a moment, unmoving. Uncertain.

“Don’t stop.”

She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to start and never stop. And hold this moment, this night, forever, keeping the past and the present and the impossible-to-ignore truth of them at bay.

A single word shattered through her.

Mine.

He reached for one of her hands and set it to the flat plane of his stomach below the bandages and above the line of his trousers, where muscles cut deep in a V and a trail of dark brown hair disappeared.

She swallowed at the image they made, her fingers on his skin. “I shall be gentle.”

“I don’t want gentle,” he said. “I want you.”

She gave him what he asked, her fingers grazing over him, toying and tracing a path down to the place where the falls of the trousers remained unbuttoned, forgotten after his bath. He sucked in a breath as she lingered there, transfixed by the shadowy spot and the thick, impossible-to-ignore ridge directly below, knowing that all she had to do was slide her fingers a touch farther and claim him.

Mine.

What a word. What a wicked, wonderful word.

Ewan lifted a hand to her hair, stroking over it, his fingers tangling in the riot of red curls. “Tell me.”

Her lips parted, plump and perfect. “Tonight.”

His throat worked, and she knew what he wanted to say. It wasn’t enough. She knew it. But she would worry about that tomorrow, when she would reinforce the walls she had built to keep him out, and return to the world she had built without him.

He nodded, the movement stilted, an agreement she knew he did not want to give. And one that freed her nonetheless.