with but if you don’t feel comfortable coming in here we can clean the cut in the kitchen.’
How many foolish actions could a woman make in one evening?
She walked into the bedroom.
Her legs feeling as if they were walking on a cloud, she followed him past the largest bed she had ever seen in her life, vaguely noting the impersonal nature of the space and its lack of pictures or photos, her heart hammering, breaths shortening.
Tabitha had never been in a man’s bedroom before.
Trying desperately to affect nonchalance, but knowing she was failing, she followed him through another door into a bathroom that was as luxurious as the bedroom was sparse.
Heart in her throat, she went straight to the double sink. From the corner of her eye she saw Giannis open a tall cupboard door and pull out what looked like a black leather washbag.
Carefully unwinding the cravat from her hand, she placed it in the right-hand sink then turned the left sink’s tap on.
The bleeding had definitely lessened in flow.
‘Your cravat is ruined,’ she said in what she wanted to be a conversational tone but which sounded shaky even to her own ears. The cravat might be black but it was made of silk.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He placed the washbag beside the sink just as she put her hand under the running tap.
She clenched her teeth as the cold water hit.
‘It hurts?’ he asked.
‘Only a bit,’ she lied, feeling foolish to admit that a cut so minor smarted so much. There was soap in a dispenser above the sink and she squirted some onto the cut and rubbed it in, then held it back under the tap to let it clean out properly, all the while intensely aware that Giannis stood close enough that she could feel the heat emanating from him.
They had danced together for hours, their bodies almost flush, but her awareness of him had not been as heightened as it was now.
Every cell in her body had come to life and strained towards him.
‘May I have a towel, please?’ she asked when done.
‘Let me,’ he murmured, taking her injured hand back into his own.
Tabitha held her breath, suddenly aware of her heart hammering so hard its beats were thudding in her throat.
He’d removed his mask. The features she found so captivating were right there before her, the closest they had ever been, unadorned.
Head bowed in concentration, a lock of his dark brown hair fell over his eye. He dislodged it with a quick flick of his head. ‘You can move your hand without problem?’
She cleared her throat and whispered, ‘Yes.’
His movements unhurried, he wrapped a small grey hand-towel around her hand and gently pressed it to her palm.
Palm dry, he removed the towel. Fresh droplets of blood seeped from the cut, although noticeably less heavy than before. ‘I should have a bandage for that.’ He placed the towel back on the palm, took Tabitha’s other hand and pressed it on it. ‘Keep the pressure on.’
He unzipped what she’d assumed to be a washbag but was in fact stuffed with bandages and other first-aid equipment.
‘Are you a secret doctor?’ she asked, again striving for lightness of tone and failing dismally. His spicy scent was filling her senses again and she struggled to even open her vocal cords.
Clear blue eyes briefly met hers, creasing at the corners, before he pulled out a large padded plaster in a protective packet. ‘A habit from my university days. My mother insisted I take a medical kit with me.’
Using his teeth, he ripped the packaging, the tendons on his olive throat straining.
The blood running through her heated a little more and she had to fight the fog in her brain to think of something to say. ‘Was your mother over-protective?’
He gave a grunt-like laugh. ‘She was sensible. I was rather wild and reckless in my younger years. Hold your hand flat but curve your fingers a little for me.’
She complied then held her breath again as he carefully fixed the plaster to her hand, smoothing it down at the sides.
‘There,’ he said, lifting her hand to his mouth and placing a kiss to the plaster. ‘All done.’
Her belly flipped over so hard the effect rippled through the rest of her. ‘Thank you.’ But her vocal cords had now knotted themselves so tightly the words hardly formed.
He was so close. The cells in her body were no longer merely straining towards him; they were trying to fly out of her skin to him, abetted by the violent beats of her heart.
Giannis studied the delicate palm spread out on his hand and traced his fingers over her elegant ones, surprised to find the tips hardened and calloused.
About to ask how this could be, he met her cornflower-blue gaze and his throat closed up.
He’d tended to Tabitha’s wounded hand with the best of intentions, promising himself they would clean it up and bandage it then go back outside to watch the fireworks together.
He hadn’t considered that his attraction to her would burn even brighter when they were alone in the confines of his apartment or that he would be so aware of her every movement and every breath.
He hadn’t considered that he would tend to her hand and have to stop himself from running his tongue over it.
Since Anastasia’s death he had hardly lived like a monk. He’d been with a considerable number of women, both before his marriage and after he was widowed.
Not one of them had made his loins ache and his chest tighten with one shy smile.
Not one of them had captivated him like Tabitha had, and he still hadn’t seen her face...
Suddenly he found himself needing to see it, to see the whole face of this woman who had enchanted him so much that he couldn’t determine if it was her or the champagne he’d drunk inducing it.
He released his hold on her hand and brought his fingers to her face.
Not a breath of sound could be heard between them as he slowly lifted the mask up and over the honey-blonde hair.
Heart pounding, he stared at a flawless face far more beautiful than he had suspected.
Truly, ethereally beautiful.
He rubbed the back of his fingers down high, rounded cheekbones in wonder, that wonder growing at the sudden pulse he saw in the cornflower eyes.
She gave a sharp inhalation before her own hand reached for his face and tentatively touched his jaw.
A bolt of electricity charged through him, strong enough to knock a weaker man off his feet.
The light delicacy
