Daring and the Duke (The Bareknuckle Bastards #3)(66)

His lower lip was wickedly swollen, and she immediately reached to touch it, gently. She stroked the bruise there, then ran her fingers down the line of his nose, equally bruised and certainly painful, and the high bones of his cheeks. “You’ll be black and blue for an age. They got you, and well.”

“I don’t care,” he said, his hand sliding up over her shoulder, pulling her back down toward him. “Come back and kiss me again.”

The low command licked through her, and she nearly obeyed—she wanted to, but instead, she leaned over to fetch her sack from beside the chair, his hands coming to her bottom as she moved against the steel ridge of him, large and impossibly warm through her trousers.

“Mmm,” he grunted as she sat up, and she looked to him, his gaze on her, lids low, the look capturing her for a moment.

Ewan had always been handsome, tall and blond and with the kind of flawless face that didn’t seem possible outside of marble. Devil had broken his nose during a bout at Burghsey, and the imperfection had only made him more perfect. But now, bruised and battered, with a swollen lip and a collection of scrapes beneath his eye, he looked like a gift, delivered to her from that place that had been his before it was hers.

Ignoring the hot thrum of desire within, Grace focused on the task at hand, opening her bag and extracting a clean white cloth and a small metal box. His heated look turned curious, and she opened the box to show him the contents.

He raised a brow. “One of the blocks I hauled today?”

She gave him a little smile as she filled the cloth with ice and tied it off neatly before placing it to his eye, her other thumb stroking over his bare cheek.

“I don’t need it,” he grumbled.

“You do, though.”

“You did that very well,” he grumbled. “Made the ice pack.”

“I’ve made them before.”

“I gathered that from the special box.” His eyes found hers, serious. “How often?”

She swallowed, knowing what he was really asking. She shrugged one shoulder. “When we got to the Garden, one of us was fighting every night. Even if you’re good—like us—like you,” she added, remembering the way he’d fought, working to quiet enemies without destroying them. “Opponents get their knocks in.”

The muscles of his jaw tensed beneath her palm. “I hate that you had to fight.”

“Don’t,” she said, and she meant it. “Fighting is like breathing in the Garden, and I had enough rage in me to make me good. We were lucky we were all good, and we were even luckier we could get paid for it.” She looked to him. “You made sure we were good, you know that, right?”

“I shouldn’t have had to.”

No, he shouldn’t have. They should have been able to have childhoods, with their mothers who loved them and fathers who were proud of them. And instead, here they were, battered and bruised in a thousand different ways.

Grace did not linger on the fights. “That’s how Devil and Whit got involved in ice. We quickly learned the difference between a fight with it and without it, and they found a way to make certain we were never without it.”

One of his blond brows rose. “I suppose the smuggling is just for fun, then.”

She gave a little laugh at that. “No, the smuggling is for money, and to stick it to the aristocracy.” She paused, then, “Which is a bit fun, I suppose.”

He huffed a little laugh, and lifted his hand to press it against the back of hers. “And you, the resident doctor.”

She nodded in the direction of the books on the table. “I’m no Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Do not underestimate yourself.”

“Shall we bring you to life after I am through? See what kind of monster has been made?”

Was it a flirt? Or was it a nod to their past? To the night he’d become the monster from which she’d run? To the years of her looking over her shoulder, worrying about the monster she believed him to be?

He took the ice from her hand, lowering it as he reached for her. “Grace,” he whispered, pulling her close, sending warmth and something she didn’t dare name spiraling through her. He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “Whatever monster I have become . . . It is not you who made me.”

She heard the anguish in the words and hated it.

And then she hated the confusion that came with the realization that she was beginning to think, perhaps, that he was not the monster they had all believed him to be.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to resist the way the memories of the past were colliding with the realities of the present—memories of him, on her turf. Taking his knocks in her club. Doing the wash with the women of the Garden. Paying his dues to the men of the Rookery. His humor.

And then, this afternoon, the way he fought, like he’d been built for it. So he had.

The way he’d come for her, like he’d been meant for it. So he had.

But most of all, she hated how much she ached for him, this new, changed man she had not expected to find when he came to. Hated how much she seemed to want him, despite the fact that he had given her a lifetime of pain.

Hated how, even now, as he suffered the effects of the bout earlier in the day, all she wanted to do was care for him.

Even though he did not deserve it.

She’d made the decision to come here to tell him just that—that he did not deserve her attention, or her protection in the Garden, or anything else he wished from her. He certainly did not deserve her care—she’d given him more than enough of that and watched him toss it away.