A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(58)

Her eyebrows soared. “Ah. Now we’re back to Katie? My tactic is working already.”

He firmed his jaw and glared at her. “If you had any idea the torments I’ve endured in my life, you would know—I will not be done in by a puppy.”

“Let’s just try it and see.”

Thorne inwardly cursed. He could not be done in by a puppy, but this woman . . . she was a true danger.

She made eye contact with him, direct and honest. “My whole life, I’ve searched for answers about my past. My whole life, Thorne. I will not rest until you tell me the truth.”

“I can’t.”

She lowered the pup another half inch.

A quiver pulsed through Thorne’s belly.

“Badger, no,” he commanded, even though he knew the futility of warning a dog off such behavior.

The dog was a dog. He barked. He chewed. He chased.

God have mercy.

He licked.

Kate kept her first bout of torture brief. She lowered Badger for just a few seconds of enthusiastic tickling.

Thorne growled like an animal. An enraged animal. His nostrils flared. The muscles of his abdomen tensed in staggered rows, hard as cobblestones beneath his skin. Tendons stood out on his neck, and his good arm was solid flexed muscle, embossed with thickly pulsing veins.

Heavens.

Kate’s own breathing quickened. He was massive and strong and furious and utterly at her mercy. A beast, but a beautiful one.

Near giddy with power, she momentarily restrained the pup. “Had enough?”

His breathing was heavy, his voice a hoarse rasp. “Stop this. Stop this now.”

“Beg me for mercy.”

“The devil I will.”

She lowered the pup again. This time he strained and arched beneath the ropes so hard, he had the bed frame rocking to and fro. The entire bed scooted several inches across the floor. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

She gave him another brief reprieve. “How about now?”

“Devious woman. You’re going to regret this.”

“I doubt that.” She lowered the dog once again, letting him lick Thorne’s side now, just beneath his lowest rib. He seized and gasped.

“Very well,” he finally growled. “Very well. You win. Just get him off me.”

“You’ll tell me everything?”

“Yes.”

Victory surged in Kate’s breast. “I knew you’d surrender.”

“I’m not asking mercy for me,” he panted, staring up at the ceiling. “Just for the dog. With all that oil, you’ll make him sick.”

She smiled to herself, knowing she’d found his Achilles’ heel. “I knew you cared about him.”

She brought Badger close to her chest and praised him extravagantly before setting him on the floor. Then she gave Thorne her full attention. Oh, the look on his face was murderous.

She said, “I’m listening.”

“Release me from these bindings first.”

“When you’re fuming at me so darkly? I may be brave, but I’m not stupid.” She reached for the tea. “But I will offer you some of this.”

She moved close to the head of the bed and raised the mug to his lips, putting one hand behind his head to help him drink. As he lowered his head to the pillow, she swept her fingers through his bed-mussed hair, taming it. “Go on.”

He sighed. “Yes, I knew you as a child. You were just a little thing when we saw each other last. Four years old, perhaps. I was older. Ten or eleven. Our mothers—”

At the word “mothers,” a lump rose in her throat.

“Our mothers?” She clasped his good hand. “You must tell me everything. Everything, Thorne.”

He sighed reluctantly. “I’ll tell you more. I swear it. But release me first. The tale warrants a bit of dignity.”

She considered. “All right.”

From the table, she retrieved the knife. With careful sawing motions, she cut loose each of the bands of linen holding him to the bed. Some of the bindings she’d wrapped over his breeches-clad legs. Others cinched against the bare skin of his chest and abdomen. To lift and cut them, she had to run her hands along his warm, oiled skin. She tried to maintain a businesslike demeanor, but it was difficult.

When she had the last binding cut, he propped his good elbow under him and slowly curled to a sitting position. A sleeping giant coming awake.

His boots hit the floor with twin thuds. She’d never bothered to try removing them.

He rubbed his squared, unshaven jaw, then pushed a hand through his hair. His gaze dropped to his bare, oil-coated chest. “Have you a sponge or damp cloth?”

She handed him a moistened towel from the bedside table.

He accepted it with his left hand and dragged the square of fabric over his throat and then around to his nape. As he tilted his head to either side, Kate stared at his sculpted shoulders, transfixed by the limber stretch of his tendons and the defined contours between each muscle. There was nothing soft on him, anywhere.

And then there were those intriguing tattoos.

When he dropped his hand and began to swab his chest, Kate’s mouth went dry. She looked away, suddenly conscious that she’d been staring.

A shirt. She really ought to find him a shirt. A narrow cupboard near the turret’s entry seemed to serve as his closet. It was where she’d hung his red officer’s coat last night, once the danger had passed. She went to it now and found him a freshly laundered shirt of soft linen.