Hello Stranger

“She’s giving us cover,” Ethan whispered, amused.

“But they’ll go out and repeat her gibberish,” she whispered back, “and before long I’ll have a waiting room full of patients with tiblin complaints.”

“It’s a new field of medicine. You’ll be a pioneer.”

He heard her muffled chuckle. She continued to lean against him while the trio of constables expressed sympathy for the unfortunate patient. Eventually the men departed with a chorus of hearty farewells. Ethan discovered that his other arm had stolen around Garrett. Making himself let go of her was like trying to uncoil a steel spring.

“You should go up to your father now,” he said with difficulty.

“Eliza will look after him while I take a few minutes to show you some slides. I have insect wings . . . pollen grains . . . flower petals . . . What would you like to see?”

“The inside of a hansom cab,” he said softly. “I can’t be alone with you, darlin’.”

Garrett touched the edges of his vest, fingers clamping on the thin leather. “Ethan.” A blush rose in her face, like light glowing through pink frosted glass. “I don’t want to end this. We . . . we could meet in secret, now and then. No one would have to know. We would make no claims on each other. We’ll just . . . do as we please.”

The way she fumbled with the words, so unlike her usual precise way of speaking, devastated Ethan. He could only guess what it cost her to lay open her pride like this. He wasn’t certain what she was offering, or even if she knew. Not that it mattered. He wanted, craved, needed anything she was willing to give. But he had to make her understand that it was impossible. And even if it were, the idea was beneath her.

“Have you had that kind of arrangement with a man before?” he brought himself to ask.

Her eyes were the green of deep summer and lush growing things. “I’m a woman who makes her own decisions and handles the consequences.”

“That means no,” Ethan said softly. At her silence, he continued, “You’d be risking your reputation. Your career.”

“Believe me, I understand that better than you.”

“Have you ever shared a bed with a man? Even once?”

“Why is that relevant?”

Her evasive response sent a pleasure-pang down to the pit of his stomach. “That means no,” he said again, his voice even softer than before. He took a slow breath, trying to steady himself, while his blood sang with the knowledge that she’d been waiting for him. She was meant to be his. God, he wanted her beyond any reckoning of earth or heaven. But her well-being mattered a thousand times more than his own desires.

“Garrett . . . I’m a man full o’ trouble. When I vowed to let nothing harm you, I included myself on that list.”

A frown crimped her forehead. She closed her grip on his vest until her fists were tight as pine knots. “I’m not afraid of you, or your trouble.” Her green eyes were narrowed and intent as she tugged him closer. “Kiss me,” she urged in a whisper.

“I have to go,” he said shortly, and pulled back while he was still able.

But Garrett moved with him, her hands reaching up to grip his head on either side, the way he’d taught her at Baujart’s. The strength of her fingers electrified him.

“Kiss me,” she commanded, “or I’ll break your nose.”

The threat startled a ragged laugh from him. He shook his head as he looked at her, this fearsomely capable woman who loved geese and was afraid of spaghetti, and could either wield a scalpel in a complex surgical procedure or use it as a throwing-knife.

There had always been a cold streak in him, but he couldn’t seem to find it now, when he needed it most. He was breaking apart inside. He would never be the same after this.

“Christ, you’ve ruined me,” he whispered.

His arms went around her, one hand gripping the heavy silken mass of her braided chignon. She guided his head down, and he lost the battle, all his will vanquished as he began to kiss her as if the world were about to end.

For him, it was.

Chapter 8

In truth, the kiss started a bit awkwardly. Garrett puckered her lips into an innocently round shape, as if she were pressing them against someone’s cheek. Had Ethan not been so inflamed, he would have smiled. He brushed his mouth over the gathered circle of her lips, playing softly, coaxing without words . . . Like this . . . nudging at her lips until she parted them hesitantly.

All the hungering minutes of his life, the years of bitter struggle, had led to this moment. The scars his soul had worn like armor were dissolving at her touch. She allowed the gentle intrusion of his tongue, made a little sound of pleasure, and to his eternal delight, she tried to pull him deeper. The graceful hands he so admired lifted to his head, slender fingers wandering behind his ears and into his hair, and the feel of it was so exquisite, he all but purred.

The kiss turned into something dark and dreaming, an unspoken language of heat and silk, tenderness and greed. He was so famished for her, had worshipped and wanted her for so long, but he’d never expected to have her in his arms. He’d never imagined she would yield to him like this, her response natural and searing. Nothing had ever devastated him the way she did. He pulled her closer, as if he were trying to protect her with his entire body, and she moaned softly, clinging to him as her knees began to give out like slip-joint hinges.

Lifting her easily, Ethan sat her on the edge of a metal table and collected her against him, one of his hands guiding her head to his shoulder. She conformed to him bonelessly, her legs forced to part beneath her skirts. Her breath came in flutters, like the bursts of a sparrow’s wing beats.

Take her right now, came the lust-drenched thought. He could make her want it. He could have her begging for it, right there on the table. It would feel so damn good, better than anything either of them had ever experienced. It would be worth anything.

“Don’t trust me,” he managed to warn unsteadily.

Garrett’s breath struck his neck in a little puff of amusement. “Why?” she whispered. “Are you going to seduce me in my own laboratory?”

Clearly she had no idea how close he was to doing just that.

Ethan crushed his mouth against her smoothed-back hair, his gaze wandering over shelves filled with vaguely menacing instruments and flasks of mysterious fluids. “What man wouldn’t be carried away in a setting like this?” he asked dryly. Although there actually was something provocative about it, this scientific room of cold, hard surfaces, and the pretty green-eyed creature in his arms. She was the only soft thing in here.

“Science is romantic,” Garrett agreed dreamily, missing the sarcasm. “There are secrets and wonders waiting to be discovered in this laboratory.”

Ethan’s lips twitched as he charted the length of her spine with his palm. “The only wonder I see is you, acushla.”

Garrett drew back enough to look at him, the tip of her nose brushing his. “What does that word mean?”

“Acushla? It’s . . . a word for female friend.”

After a moment of consideration, a skeptical grin crossed her face. “No, it isn’t.”

It was pure reflex to kiss her again, a response to an impulse before it had even reached his brain. Her mouth shaped to his with a willingness that drew a primitive grunt of satisfaction from his throat. He felt the innocent tightening of her thighs against his hips, and his groin pumped with heat.