Tempting Fate by Kerrigan Byrne (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

for soothing nerves. Fennel, mint, and licorice root for stomach remedies. Raspberry leaves and evening primrose oil for… well, for feminine ailments. And this, an antiseptic for wounds. Titus said it’s been a godsend.”

“That is why you spend so much time in the greenhouse,” he realized, remembering a few afternoons and evenings he’d been brave enough to linger in the courtyard archway to see her tend her numerous plants.

“That, among other things.”

“What other things?”

She wiped her fingers on the cloth, and he noted that she’d not yet moved from between his knees. “Just whatever strikes my fancy, I suppose. I like the speed at which things grow.”

“Speed?” He lifted an inquiring brow.

Her lashes swept down. “I suppose that’s the wrong word for it. Less speed… more fortitude. Plants are so fickle sometimes, so delicate, and often need very specific care. But at the same time, they can be so determined to bloom. To find a way. I like to think I can help. There’s something lovely about plunging my fingers in the soil. I appreciate the smell and the textures. I love tiny veins on the leaves and the imperceptible movements of the buds. Some follow the sun, but you never see them move. It’s a world so fascinating to me, one full of life and yet so still and silent. It is where I feel useful, but not necessary.”

Retrieving a small sticking plaster from the sink, she returned to apply it, catching her tongue in the corner of her lip as she concentrated. “My secret for this salve is tea tree. It will help with scarring.”

“What is one more scar?” he asked wryly.

She puffed out a breath of mirth and it washed him in goosebumps. Her lips were right there. Every muscle in his body knew it.

“Mr. Severand!” She grabbed at his sleeve, and he looked down to see a dark red blotch on it. “You’re cut!”

“It’s nothing, I’ll look after it when you’re done here.”

“Why didn’t you say so? Oh, dear God.”

The cloth he’d been holding over the slash had tumbled to the ground at their feet when she’d seized upon his arm. He’d bled through the thin material, as she’d stayed longer than he’d expected her to.

“I’m— I’m sorry.” Her legs gave out suddenly and he caught her before she tumbled to the floor. Suddenly limbless, she slid down his body.

Her blueberry eyes went almost comically wide beneath her spectacles as they each became abruptly aware of the erection pulsing between them.

Gabriel forgot to breathe. She had no panels. No corset. Nothing but billowing fabric between her breasts and his cock.

Christ. It felt amazing.

Felicity, on the other hand, visibly lost control of her lungs, expanding and contracting her ribs against the insistently hard flesh between them. Her pupils dilated so large, the black threatened to swallow all that cerulean with a darkness that didn’t belong on her features.

Was she astonished? Shocked? Displeased? Offended?

Aroused?

Certainly not.

He reached for her shoulders, intent upon helping her to stand. Hoping she wouldn’t be sick.

Instead, she fainted.

Gabriel caught her and leaned her against his good side as he used his shirt to tie a bandage on the slash.

Grunting in pain as he picked her up, he carried her to her chamber and settled her on the bed, pulling up the covers and tucking them beneath her chin.

In every fantasy he ever had, he crawled in beside her.

“Goodnight, Felicity.”

Taking a liberty he didn’t deserve, he bent to plant a kiss on her forehead before escaping back to the washroom.

Ripping off his ruined, knotted shirt, he went about the tedious and painful job of washing his wound and stitching it up using the mirror and one-handed magic. It wasn’t the pierce of the needle that set his teeth on edge, but the sensation of the thread running through the skin.

He gritted through it, only requiring six stitches in all. Once he’d finished, he swiped some of the salve on the wound before layering gauze over it and wrapping a bandage around his rib cage to keep it in place.

This would be good as new in two weeks or less.

The entire time, he’d expected his arousal to abate. The pain should have deflated it, the tedium of the stitching and, yes, the sight of his own blood.

But nothing would, it seemed. He’d been in some state of arousal since they’d kissed. Even while killing her enemies. Even while hating and berating himself.

All his cock seemed to do was consistently pulse with increasingly incessant demand.

He looked at his torso in the mirror, etched with tattoos and bound with gauze, at the tiny plaster below his hairline.

God, he was such a fool. To have imagined a sexual response in her eyes? In what sort of dream did he exist?

He’d never had a woman so close to him before. Never felt the soft curves of a female body pressed against his. Never thought of the erotic cleft between breasts as a place for his cock to find pleasure.

A surge of agonizing lust weakened his knees.

Unable to stop himself, he released the placket of his trousers and licked his palm before gripping himself. Biting his lip against the pleasure/pain of flesh too long denied, he worked his hand over his cock.

Arching his neck, he leaned his hip against the counter, and closed his eyes.

The rough skin of his hand was a hollow solace, incomparable to her softness. The grip of his palm, the only pleasure familiar to him, was often quick and efficient.

Something to alleviate pressure.

This time, he caressed his own skin as he imagined she might do. Running from base to tip with long, slow strokes. He knew the images pouring down behind the backs of his eyelids were degrading to her innocent loveliness.

But now he knew the warmth of her touch, the curiosity of her tongue, the slick magic found in the depths of her delectable mouth. How would those perfect, Cupid’s-bow lips look stretched to wrap around the head of his…

The sharp jolt of a climax sliced