She could taste him still.
Gradually his breathing evened out. Slowly the lines of pain eased. The medicine was working.
His eyes opened briefly and his gaze roamed the room, taking in the clothes hanging on the nails at the end of the bed, the faded red bed curtains, the window and the garden beyond. He frowned over each item, as if puzzled, then sighed and his eyelids fluttered and closed, as if it was all too much to work out.
“Can you tell me your name?” she asked. “Or where you were going? I can send a message to your loved ones.”
He murmured something unintelligible and moved his head restlessly against her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” she soothed, stroking his hair. It was obviously too much for him to speak just yet.
He muttered something again and his hand brushed across her breast.
She jumped. He was half asleep, she was sure, and probably had no idea what he’d done. She settled back into the soothing motion of running her fingers through his hair. She wasn’t sure who it soothed most, her or him.
“Mmm, nice,” he mumbled and cupped her breast, stroking the nipple with a long, strong thumb. It sent a jolt of lightning through her body.
She jumped off the bed. “Stop that!” Half asleep or not, he shouldn’t be doing such things.
She thought of the way she’d responded in bed this morning and flushed. It wasn’t the same. He’d deliberately touched her.
And this morning she’d deliberately pressed back.
He’d fallen back, half buried in the pillows when she’d jumped off the bed. One intensely blue eye opened slowly. “Come back to bed.”
“Absolutely not.” Rev. Matheson was right; the man was a rake, after all. She felt oddly . . . disappointed.
He eyed her. “Wha’s . . . wrong?”
Perhaps a rake needed to have it explained. “I don’t like you touching me like that.”
His eye lowered. “You liked it.” The eye gleamed, then closed.
She folded her arms across her chest with its traitorous nipples and glared at the apparently sleeping rogue.
They hadn’t even beenintroduced!
“Well, then, since you’re awake enough for—um.” She tried again, trying to sound calmer and more ladylike instead of someone who’d just been groped like a maidservant and wanted to hit him for the . . . the impersonality of it.
Not that anyone should treat a maidservant disrespectfully. But some men did. Rakes. “While you are awake, let us take the opportunity to make you decent.”
The blue eye opened. “Not . . . beyond redemption, then?”
“I meant decently clad. I have the vicar’s nightshirt here. Seeing you traveled with none of your own, he kindly donated some of his.”
There was a faint muffled snort from the bed. “Been blessed, has it?” Even with his eyes closed and his face tight with pain, a faint half smile lurked on that wicked, beautiful mouth. Devilry shining through the pain. Irresistible. Devious.
She couldn’t leave him naked under the bedclothes an instant longer. Dressed, he would be easier to manage.
Swaddled would be even better. Tightly, with his arms firmly bound to his sides.
Fallen angel? Devil, more like.
She hoped the vicar’s nightshirthadbeen blessed!
She shook out the nightshirt and helped him into it. Into half of it, at any rate. It wasn’t too much trouble to get his long powerful arms into it and carefully ease it over his bandaged head. She dragged it down to cover his broad shoulders and firm, flat chest, trying not to notice the small, flat masculine nipples as she did so.
Hers were hard and throbbing, which made it difficult not to compare.
