The Impostor's Kiss. Tanya Crosby Anne
an inspiration.
With Lady Fiona and Edward gone from the room, she allowed herself to study the contour of his body beneath the sheets. His chest was wide, his limbs long and muscular. He was nearly bare, she knew. They’d removed his shirt. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a man unclothed—she’d nursed a few—but it was certainly the first time she’d been alone with one. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she lifted one corner of the blanket to peer beneath.
It wasn’t as though he would ever know; he was fast asleep.
Her heart beat a little faster as she lifted the coverlet. A sprinkling of curly hair beckoned to the touch, but she didn’t dare. It began at his chest and tapered to a fine, silky line that drew her gaze lower, despite her sense of propriety. He was a beautiful specimen of a man, she was loathe to admit, with tawny flesh that stretched taut over beautiful muscles. She just didn’t remember his skin being so dark.
Her heart skipped a beat as she contemplated lifting the covers higher to peer lower. What a terrible waste of a man, she thought with disgust.
Merrick lay as still as he was able, in no rush to wake.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt a woman’s nurturing touch—nor even the first time, for that matter. He’d had lovers, but this was somehow different.
As a child, it had been Ryo who’d cared for him when he’d been ill, and Ryo who’d reared him to manhood. Strength and honor had been instilled in him from the day of his birth, but he feared behind the mask, he was no more than a little boy who craved a mother’s love. It was never more apparent than it was this instant; he could have languished in the moment, never waking.
Her warm, sweet breath brushed his face and he turned toward it like a flower to the sun. When he opened his eyes at last, it was to find her bent over him, her face near his chest as she peeked beneath the covers, glimpsing him. Her private smile was the most sensuous smile he’d ever witnessed on a woman. It stirred his loins at once, rousing the one part of him that didn’t ache—at least not at that instant. Her lips curved softly, admiringly, and he feared that if she didn’t drop the covers at once, she would witness, firsthand, the erection of a tent.
As a matter of self-preservation, he spoke. He couldn’t keep himself from baiting her. “Enjoying the view?”
She dropped the coverlet with a startled gasp.
He watched as a flush crept from the valley of her breasts and then tinted her face. Her lips deepened to rose, and he wondered if they would be warm to the touch…hot and soft.
Not for the first time, he had the overwhelming urge to kiss her.
Recovering her composure quickly, she tossed the cloth she held over his face, as though to escape his gaze. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You’re awake!” Though her color betrayed her, her tone was full of pique.
“I am,” Merrick assured her, removing the cloth. He smiled disarmingly—at least he thought it should be, but she seemed entirely unaffected.
“More’s the pity,” she lamented. “It appears not even the devil wants you, my lord.”
Her contemptuous tone didn’t escape him.
Grimacing, Merrick adjusted himself in the bed to give her better access. “What,” he taunted her, “no welcome-home kiss for your darling husband?” He had no idea where the question came from, only that it spilled far too easily from his lips.
She gasped, as though offended by his quip, and took an appalled step backward. “How dare you speak to me as you would one of your strumpets! The fall must have addled your brain!”
But she didn’t answer his real question: who was she, dammit?
And then she added much too glibly, “I shall inform your mother that you’ve awakened, my lord—just in time for company! The constable will be quite pleased not to have to wait, after all,” she told him, and hurried to leave.
“Rusty lied,” he said before she could abandon him. “It wasn’t a fall.”
She stopped abruptly at the door, her curiosity piqued.
That waist—so tiny he thought his hands could easily span it. She turned slowly to face him.
Merrick weighed his words; he was hoping for an ally, but wasn’t certain how much to reveal. “The horse didn’t throw me,” he admitted.
One delicate brow arched. “Really?”
“I was, in fact, robbed,” he said.
Both her brows lifted now. “Really!” she said again, her face suddenly losing its animosity. In truth, she appeared even hopeful.
Merrick nodded, watching her closely. “Indeed.”
She took a step closer. “Hawk?” she asked, and the tone of her voice was suddenly awestruck.
Merrick stared at her, dumbfounded.
She lived with the rotten thief and didn’t realize who he was?
“Yes,” he said tersely, deciding that Hawk had obviously never shared his secret with his lovely wife.
She was somebody else’s woman.
He was struck, on the heels of that revelation, with a wave of envy as foreign to him as the bed in which he lay.
Chrissake, when in his life had he ever envied anyone anything?
His entire life he’d had everything at his disposal simply for the taking.
She straightened to her full height and seemed to be assessing him. “I don’t believe you,” she declared suddenly.
“Why not?”
“Because.” Her expression was smug now. “You should be so fortunate to exchange mere glances with the man. You aren’t fit to wipe his boots. That you breathe the same air is a blasphemy in itself.”
Merrick blinked at her declarations.
Two things struck him in that instant. One, she had absolutely no notion of her connection with Hawk. And two, she didn’t seem to like her husband very much.
In fact, he’d like to have agreed with her assessment of Lindale, but her accusations seemed somewhat more personal than they should have, considering that she wasn’t even talking about him. She was talking about Lindale—who was, in fact, Hawk. Be damned if the inanity of the situation didn’t amuse him, despite that her vehemence was directed, for the moment, squarely at him. “Is that so?” he asked her wryly.
“Yes, of course. Hawk is everything you are not.”
He sat, not bothering to cover his bare chest. Why trouble himself? She’d already had an eyeful.
She gasped, and turned to go, suddenly and conveniently embarrassed by the sight of him.
“And just what is it that I am?” he asked, baiting her. He didn’t want her to leave just yet.
She turned to face him, lifting a hand to her face, covering her eyes as she spoke to him. The flush in her breast returned, followed by the one in her cheeks. But she didn’t cow. Her mettle brought a smile to Merrick’s lips. “I shall be most pleased to make you a list,” she told him, and then added, “After you do me the courtesy of covering yourself, my lord.”
He ignored her request. “Make me a list, then.”
“Are you decent?”
More so than he’d like to be. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I warrant it’s nothing you haven’t seen numerous times before,” he told her pointedly, and waited for her to deny it.
She parted two fingers slightly to peek through and closed them again with a soft gasp. “You are so crude!”
“Crude?”