Chapter Twelve #2
“Go home, Grace,” he said again, and forced himself at last to release her, swiftly stepping away as if he feared she could too easily lure him back in.
As if of its own accord, his hand settled over his chest, rubbing like one might to relieve an inconvenient ache.
The right-hand corner of his lips twitched up fondly.
“And stay out of my damned house, you unrepentant little housebreaker.”
Grace pressed the tips of her fingers to her lips to suppress the smile that wanted to emerge. “But what about Tansy?” she asked.
“She’ll find her way back home. She always does.
Likely not without destroying a few pieces of my furniture.
” He drew in a massive breath and backed away another step as if to put some distance between himself and further temptation.
“Now. I am going back into my study. I am locking the damned door. And I am not coming out again until I am certain you are gone. Am I understood?”
“That seems a trifle excessive. Don’t you think you’re overreacting, just a little?”
“No,” he said, swiftly, with increasing agitation.
“No, I do not. You could tempt a damned saint.” He wagged a chastising finger in her direction for a moment before he jabbed it in the direction of the stairs.
“Now, get the hell out of my house before I am forced to fling you over my shoulder and deliver you back to your home trussed up like a Christmas goose.”
A snicker slipped out from between her fingers. “Do you know, I am almost tempted to see you try it.”
A feral growl collected in his throat. He cast up his hands in exasperation and turned swiftly on his heel. “Good evening, Grace,” he tossed over his shoulder, and the deliberately forceful enunciation made the words sound like a command.
Grace fluttered her fingers in farewell as he did exactly as he said he would, closing the door of his study behind him and locking the door with a resounding click.
He’d meant to make a point of it, she knew, but it was rather difficult to take the one he’d meant to give when her lips still burned with the pressure of his.
Ah, well. She headed for the stairs, resigned to returning home. He could hide all he liked this evening. But tomorrow—tomorrow he would call upon her. She was certain of it.
∞∞∞
Henry had had this dream dozens of times before.
A wicked fantasy that had plagued his unconscious mind for years, since Grace had first occupied the house just across the street.
It always began the same—the gentle depression of the bed beside him, revealing her presence.
Then the soft, warm weight of her as she settled into his arms and against his chest.
Delicious. For the first time the dream possessed a peculiar sense of reality it had lacked before. He knew, now, what she felt like. The satiny smoothness of her hair, the sweet floral scent of it, the way it clung to his fingers. The incredible softness of her lips beneath his own.
She purred as he stroked his hands down her silky hair; a particularly feline sound of approval. Her back arched into the gentle caress of his fingers. That purr deepened to a throaty rumble as she curved her back into a lithe stretch, until—
She bit his chin with fangs sharp enough to puncture; a swift and cautionary rebuke.
Henry’s eyes flashed open. He wrenched his head up from his pillow, jarred to instant alertness.
Vibrant green irises stared down into his, vertical black pupils sharpened in reproach.
Grey fur ruffled by his fingers stuck out at odd angles.
A fluffy tail snapped back and forth, like a flag waved in warning.
And Henry couldn’t quite tell any longer if the dreadful racket that assaulted his ears was more purr or growl.
There was a solid stone’s weight of cat lounging upon his chest, and he hadn’t the slightest idea of what he was meant to do about it. “Good morning, Tansy,” he said, in the faint hope that some measure of good manners might assuage the beast’s wrath.
For a few long minutes, they simply stared at one another.
Henry had the oddest sense that his worth was being measured and weighed.
Tansy’s paws—which rested far too close to his throat for comfort—flexed.
There was the barest prick of her needle-sharp claws, testing the give of his flesh beneath them.
Henry swallowed hard. Cautiously he let his fingers hover above the arch of her back. With the very tips, he smoothed the ruffled fur in a guarded, wary stroke. That cacophony redoubled itself, and for a moment, as those massive paws flexed again, he thought he’d made a fatal error.
Then, at last, her poisonous green eyes drifted closed. She tucked her chin down, laying her large head across the splay of her paws. The twitch of that fluffy grey tail subsided with a swish as she curled it around her body. The fierce rumble of her purr vibrated against his chest.
And Henry breathed a sigh of relief. She really was quite soft, and there was something…strangely flattering about having been chosen to be the terrible little beast’s newest napping spot. “I don’t suppose I could convince you,” he said, “to spare my gloves in the future?”
The drowsy flick of her ear seemed to convey that he shouldn’t hold his breath.
“I thought not.” Henry dropped his head back into the downy fluff of his pillow.
His stomach produced an ominous growl as it clenched with hunger.
The sun that slanted in through the window suggested he’d likely missed breakfast—which was not a surprise, given how late he’d been up evening last, and the sheer amount of whisky he’d consumed.
But he was loath to disturb the cat, who was presently sleeping sweetly upon his chest. Impossible to say just how long her pleasant mood would last. Whether shooing her off so soon after she’d elected to lay upon him would constitute a mortal offense.
Tansy had, for reasons beyond anything he could fathom, decided that she liked him—a dubious honor, but one which Grace had implied the cat bestowed upon few. A man in his position would do well to take allies wherever he could find them.