Page 80 of The Hunter
Did he have to ask? Couldn’t a man such as him, a predator, sense the fear in his prey? Was she afraid?Yes. She was terrified. Not just of him, but of herself, of the frightening heat spilling through her. Of the urges compelling her toward him. Of the dark and carnal things she wanted to elicit from him. Today, right now, he was the stoic assassin, violent and cynical and ready to be about the business of killing.
This man wouldn’t hurt her, she wasalmostcertain.
He was most dangerous as the man from the night before. Wild and aroused, hungry for a satisfaction only she could bring him, and willing to take it if need be. And what Millie feared the most, was that she wanted him to. She wanted to give it to him again, and this time, take the pleasure that was her due. She wanted to tell him what to do… Which shocked her as she’d never before experienced such an impulse.
For a fee, she could now wield his lethality like that knife in her hand. Thrust him at her enemies until their blood painted the ground and her child was safe. There was a dangerous sort of hypnotic power in that knowledge. That a man like this would attack at her slightest command.
But what if she could take it further? What if he allowed her the same command over his body in a more carnal fashion? What would it be like, to order his hands upon her, and to have him comply? To direct his strength and command his pleasure? To withhold his climax until she’d had her own. To make him beg for her mercy, as others had pleaded for his?
Lord, something was wrong with her. She had to stop this. She had to get control over herself before she did something utterly idiotic. Something they both regretted.
“You startled me, is all,” she lied. “I’ve never seen you… like this.”
“Yes, well.” He glanced down at his own torso. “Welton said you might be appalled by my scars. Would you like me to find a shirt?”
“No!” Millie protested. Then, realizing she’d spoken too fervently, she cleared her throat and tried again, diverting her eyes from the feast of fascination that was his bare chest. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Argent. If you would just, um, tell me what it is you… needed to discuss with me here, I’ll leave you to your…” She gestured to the room at large, uncertain what exactly it was he did in this room. “Your exercise.”
He prowled toward her, the flow of his pants causing him to look as though he floated over the polished floor rather than walked across it.
It struck Millie, not for the first time, how silently he moved for such a large,largeman. He slithered close, too close, this king of vipers, and the warmth from his bare skin washed Millie in stomach-clenching awareness.
“You mean to tell me, my body does not disgust you?” he asked, something glimmering from the depths of his eyes that she’d not yet seen.
Millie was loath to call a man like this self-conscious or bashful. And yet, that strange attentiveness he conveyed nudged her for an answer.
“No,” she said again, slower this time. “Indeed, I find it rather more diverting than disgusting.”
She’d the sense she pleased him, though he didn’t smile.
He did have scars, but to her they represented a very intriguing combination of mystery and masculinity. They were a testament to his fortitude and vitality. The only reason she’d erase them, would be to make it as though they’d never been. To spare him the agony of their wounds. She wanted to press her lips against each one and somehow clear the memory of the pain from his mind.
That impulse became so intense, Millie literally found herself blinking away tears. And again, she was thrust into dangerous territory. There needed to be less between them and morein betweenthem. More darkness. More space. More clothing.
He leaned closer, and Millie wondered if he realized what he was doing, bringing that hard mouth toward hers. She put her hand out to stop him. To demand that he tell her what he wanted and let her go.
But the moment her hand touched the fine webbing of scars on his shoulder what escaped was, “How did this happen?” She snatched her hand back and held it to her heart. Not because the burned skin had felt uneven and yet unnaturally smooth beneath her fingertips, but because touching him had felt better than she’d remembered.
His eyes narrowed on the hand she held against her as though she’d bemused him, or perhaps rejected him. He didn’t turn from her, though his gaze dulled and he looked away.
“Years ago, on the railway line, an enemy attempted to drown me in hot tar. I was able to fight him off, but not before some of the tar spilled down my shoulder and part of my arm. I couldn’t get to it before it hardened on my skin.”
Millie couldn’t think of one thing to say, so instead she reached out again, pressing her hand to his taut shoulder as an aching fury threatened to smother her. “D-did you… kill him?” she finally gathered the courage to ask.
He nodded, both of their eyes trained on the smooth, pale hand she held against his scarred flesh. “Caved in his skull with a rock, but the damage to my body had been done.”
A dark pleasure speared through her, that the man who’d caused him such an injury had met such an ignoble end.
“How did you remove the tar?” she asked around a thickening voice, already knowing the terrible answer but feeling that she owed it to him to listen. “Did you have to—tear it away yourself?”
His shoulder flexed beneath her hand, power rolling under remembered pain. “No, actually. In Newgate, two ruthless boys, the Blackheart Brothers, Dorian Blackwell and Dougan Mackenzie, spent all night ripping away bits of my flesh along with the tar. We’d formed an alliance some years before when Dougan had saved my life by pulling us out of the deadly prison ship lines and into the railway gang. Though we worked well together, we were all violent youths, and so avoided each other when possible. But that night of my pain and their patient work solidified loyalties between us all.”
Millie’s eyes misted. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend the torture he’d endured. “Are you—still loyal to them?” she queried.
He remained staring at her hand as though it puzzled him. “Dougan is dead now, for all intents and purposes, but Dorian Blackwell and I have spent a lifetime trading terrible favors. And thus it will ever be, I expect.”
Terrible favors.Millie drew her hand away slowly. How easy it was to forget, to ignore the monster born of nights such as the one that left this terrible brand on his flesh. These scars should serve as a reminder, a reminder of the stains on his soul. They should repel her instead of attract her. They should evoke fear instead of compassion.
But when it came to Christopher Argent, things never seemed to be as theyshouldbe.
