The consistent sting and burn of his stitching needle did not produce the effect Argent desired. Of course, the thread he kept on hand in the washroom pulled the sliced flesh of his forearm back together, but the pain did little to alleviate the erection abrading against his trousers. He couldn’t tell which discomfort irritated him more, the cut or his cock.
Since the slice was a defensive wound on the underside of his dominant forearm, he had to seek out the only mirror in his entire cavernous place and use his less dexterous hand to do the stitching, while trying to work backwards from the reflection in the glass.
His efforts at a clean stitch had been thwarted more than once, and he’d had to start over. In fact, he might be doing more damage to the skin than good. He hadn’t initially realized how long the gash was, though it wasn’t incredibly deep. The bandage had kept it from bleeding too much, but carrying the child had caused it to ooze.
Ten minutes. Maybe he should have given her more time.
He’d divested himself of his bloodstained shirt and bade Welton bring him a clean bandage.
Welton set the supplies on the long bench built into the wall beneath the only washroom window. “If you’d allow me, Master Argent, I could stitch your wound in a jiffy,” he offered.
“I’m not in the habit of letting other people near me with sharp objects, even if it is only a needle.” Welton knew that, of course, but the man always offered.
“Very good, sir, but might I suggest you put on your clean shirt lest you frighten the lady.”
Brows drawing together, Argent considered it. Perhaps he should have been better prepared for this. For the first time in a score of years, he took a moment to truly study his reflection.
He really was an unsightly bastard. Though he knew his strong features could compel others at times, he was fairly certain his body would disgust them. His torso stood as a large chronicle of a life of abject, unceasing violence.
Argent flexed his shoulder and arm, smooth muscle rippling beneath a web of badly healed burns stretched over a body that had grown exponentially in height and girth since the wound had been inflicted.
While Welton unfolded the starched white shirt, this one loose and casual, Argent counted two bullet wounds, seven knife gashes, and he couldn’t even imagine what his back looked like. He’d once been wounded by a cattle prod a sadistic guard had brought to make the prisoners work harder.
That had been a terrible day. A terrible, blood-soaked day. He was pretty certain those scars still remained, though he’d never much cared to look.
What would Millie see when she encountered him like this? A killer? A protector? A coercer?
A lover?
A monster was more likely.
“I think you’re correct, Welton, I think I should like that shirt.”
It took some doing for the two of them to dress him and keep the shirt clean, but once he was buttoned into the garment, the right sleeve rolled up past his elbow, he resumed the tedious chore of stitching the flesh closed.
“I will be nearby if you or Miss LeCour have need of me,” Welton informed him, more inflection or meaning in his voice than Argent had ever before noted.
Brows drawn together in concentration, Argent nodded and was left alone.
Christ, but it was difficult to do anything requiring so much dexterity with the most insistent cockstand he’d ever had telling him the wound could wait.
The woman could not.
However, fucking a woman like Millie LeCour with a seeping gash in his arm seemed barbaric, even for him.
He somehow wanted to be certain that blood never once touched her perfect, porcelain skin. He had no qualms about bathing in it, but it should never touch a woman like her.
A mother. One who worried about things like shoes in the sheets and the comfort of a sleeping child. When he thought of the way she’d swept Jakub’s hair from his closed eyes with all the tenderness and love a woman could possess, a flutter of something soft and foreign pressed against his breastbone. Like a hummingbird was trapped there, looking for a way out.
And it was that little flutter beneath his ribs that made him catch his breath.
The washroom door creaked a little as it opened and Argent gritted his teeth. “Welton, hand me the vodka from the cupboard over there. I think this wound has been open too long. I don’t want it to turn septic.”
The cupboard door opened and closed while Argent cursed the unsteadiness of his hand as he made one of the stitches wider than it needed to be.
“It was your blood on the carpet in my dressing room, wasn’t it?”
Argent could count on one hand the number of times he’d been truly startled. Every time had resulted in pain, and this time was no exception, as he pulled too hard on the string stuck in his skin at the sound of Millie LeCour’s voice.
She held the bottle of vodka like sacrificial wine against her antiquated bead and velvet costume, and approached him like one would a wounded bear. “You’ve been hurt this whole time.”
Argent didn’t know how to respond, as the statement had sounded more like an accusation. Also, her hair had fallen from its net into a wreath of messy curls spilling over her breasts like an onyx waterfall. How the devil was he supposed to put words together when she looked like that?
He wanted her. God, how he wanted her.
A frown pulled at the corners of her red, red lips and she slipped by him to set the bottle on the window seat next to the clean bandages, which she pushed to the side.
Argent had paused to observe her, his arm only half stitched, wondering just what she planned to do next.
She sat. Looking up at him, she gestured to the space next to her. “You’re making a mess of your arm. Let me finish.”
He glanced at his handiwork in the mirror. Her observation was correct, the few stitches he’d been able to accomplish might as well have been done by a blind and simple child. He’d always doctored his own wounds. It was safer for a man like him not to show others his weaknesses.
“I’m nearly finished,” he hedged.
“You’ve only started,” she argued. “Now sit down, I know what I’m doing.”
It had been a lifetime, it seemed, since someone had dared argue with him, let alone issue an order. He stood for a moment, deciding what to do, and then, only because no alternative instantly presented itself, he stepped over to the window seat and lowered himself next to her. “How do you know what you’re doing?” he queried.
Millie turned to the bottle and retrieved one of the bandages, an air of efficiency that he hadn’t yet noted about her settled on her features. “I’ve two elder brothers and a younger one. Someone always needed stitching in my home.”
“Where are they now?” he asked. More startled than she was, he expected, by his curiosity about her.
A frown touched her eyes that made him sorry he’d asked.
“Two of them immigrated to America, and my eldest brother and I … we’re not close.”
“Why not?” he asked alertly.
Tipping the bottle to moisten the cloth, she set it down and reached for his arm.
A shock of sensation bloomed over his entire body when her fingers found his skin and cupped his arm in her small, gentle hand.
Argent was a man used to holding still. Used to waiting silently for his prey to step into his trap. But this time, he froze for an altogether different reason.
Like a seasoned hunter, he could feel the hesitant anxiety within her, and knew that though she ventured close, any sudden movement or harsh word would send her skittering for safety. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had reached for him with something other than the intent to harm.
And, though she was about to inflict pain on him, the pleasure of the gentle press of her fingers as she steadied his arm surpassed any anticipation he’d had thus far.
“This is going to burn,” she warned, avoiding the question.
“I know.” He’d irrigated deeper wounds than this with alcohol. He was quite familiar with the teeth-clenching pain of it.
Stretching the wet cloth over her fingers, she was the one to wince when she dabbed it on the cut. But to him, the searing sting did something it had never done before, singed its way down to his already turgid erection. Tightening it. Flexing it.
Argent bit down against a wave of lust so strong he had to swallow a groan.
Setting the cloth aside, she took the needle from him, her fingers grazing his, almost intertwining, and he had to stop himself from grabbing her hand. Holding it. Threading her fingers through his until—
“I’m going to do my best to be gentle. I know you men tend to fear stitching needles more than bullets.” With a slight smile, she exerted a negligible amount of pressure in order to make the two edges of the flesh come together before she quickly but elegantly pressed the needle through them both.
“I don’t fear stitching needles. I’m rather used to them.” He’d meant the words to encourage her, but he could tell by the way her frown deepened, they’d had the opposite effect.
“No doubt,” she murmured, not looking up from the row of tiny, precise stitches she was building. “I realize, Mr. Argent, that I haven’t properly thanked you for saving Jakub tonight. This injury was sustained on his behalf, and for that, I don’t believe I can ever repay you.”
Argent didn’t know what she meant. She was going to repay him, as soon as his wound was bandaged. Indeed, as he sat there in her thrall, his arm captured in her gentle grip, he was beginning to believe that, though he’d saved her life, he was still getting the better end of the bargain.
Her body. Her pale, perfect body would bend over for him. Expose herself to him. Providing him a warm, soft sheath in which to lose himself for a while.
“Is there anything that frightens you, Mr. Argent?” she asked.
He gave the question due process. What did most people fear? What had he to fear that he hadn’t already experienced and survived? Starvation, torture, rape, pain, beast or man? “I can’t think of anything,” he answered honestly.
Skepticism glimmered up at him for a scant moment before she returned to her work. “Not even death?”
Only if he died before tasting her again. Only if he was denied the ecstasy he would find between her thighs before he kicked open the gates of hell to claim its throne.
“Death is inevitable. To fear it is to waste energy.”
She let out a soft sound of disbelief. “So you’re a suicidal assassin, then?”
“Not particularly. I take precautions. I don’t stay in one place for an inordinate amount of time. I don’t eat at the same establishment twice, or visit the same whore, or establish a routine whereby I could become complacent. Or ambushed.”
He could see that she fought an emotion from declaring itself through her expressive features; he wondered what it was. “That’s certainly no way to live,” she whispered.
Argent shrugged. “It’s an excellent way to not die.”
“But … but what about loss, don’t you fear that?”
“What have I to lose?”
She jerked a little harder on the current stitch than the previous ones, but he didn’t let on that he’d noticed as he watched her discomfiture grow with every passing moment of silence. “Don’t you have family?”
He shook his head. “Dead.”
“Loved ones?”
“I love no one.”
“What about this grand and beautiful house? You must have a great deal of money.”
Again, he responded in the negative. “I have more money than I could spend in three lifetimes. This is the first house I’ve ever lived in and, though I have use for some of it, I’m not essentially attached to it in any way. I’ve lived in many other places.”
When she looked up again, he saw a strange desolation in her eyes that baffled him to no end. “Where have you lived?”
He was glad they were talking … it made him less likely to slice the thread, press her against the wall, and heave into her for the two thrusts it would take for his full arousal to release its seed. He was so hard. So fucking ready.
Distraction was an excellent way to endure physical torture. Wu Ping had taught him that at a very young age, and Argent had found exceptional use for it. Besides, he enjoyed her voice.
He searched his memory for the answers to her questions. “I’d a room in Wapping for a while after I traveled with a band of pit fighters, and slept where I could. Then before that, Newgate.”
“Newgate Prison?” She gasped. “What did you do?”
“Railroad work, mostly, and fight training with a kung fu master who’d been nabbed for embezzlement.”
“No, no. I mean, what crime did you commit to get incarcerated? It couldn’t have been … you know … what you do, because they would have hanged you otherwise.”
Argent could sense her distress brimming to the surface, and wondered how much more information he should impart to her. He couldn’t comprehend the soft, bruised look in her eyes, nor the change in her voice’s pitch. She didn’t particularly like him or hold him in high esteem. He’d tried to kill her, not once, but three times. In scant moments from now, he was going to fuck her for payment.
And when he’d disposed of all who posed a danger to her and her boy, he was going to walk away from them. To return to the shadows and leave them to the light in which they lived. It had occurred to him, while sitting in Dorian Blackwell’s study and watching the man he’d often thought was almost as ruthless and unfeeling as himself adore the woman he’d claimed, that he might want a similar situation. Someone he could see every day. Someone he could fuck when he wanted. Someone else to stitch his wounds and fill the silence with something more pleasant.
But he’d been a fool to consider it, and this conversation proved it. If he had nothing to lose, he had nothing to give. And what woman would want that? He wasn’t charming unless trying to lure someone into the darkness where he could kill them. He wasn’t educated, though Dorian had taught him to read, and he did make use of the books in his library upon occasion. He wasn’t principled, scrupulous, kind, romantic, or interesting.
He didn’t feel things like others felt them, if at all. He didn’t waste his time on guilt, worry, or empathy. Up until a few days ago, he’d considered himself nothing more than a machine, a hydraulic contraption with cogs and wheels that required fuel to work, sleep to function, and whores for the release of pressure and the maintenance of equilibrium.
This woman caring for him had taught him differently, but he wasn’t convinced of an improvement. All she’d done was to uncover some kind of void he’d been hiding. Some deep, cavernous—no, bottomless pit of desire and unfulfillment which he had no bloody idea how to contain.
Her sex was what it called for at the moment. What it demanded.
But Argent had a feeling it wouldn’t stop until it claimed her soul. He couldn’t let that happen. This demon of insatiable emptiness was his own, and he had to do his best not to show it to her.
Best to warn her away.
“I was born in Newgate while my mother served a fifteen-year sentence for prostitution, burglary, and assaulting a nobleman. She’d been seventeen when she was arrested, and twenty-eight when she died.”
“She … died in prison?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
The void within him opened, screamed, began to swirl with awesome force and insatiable demands. It warned him. It calmed him. It gave him something to focus on.
“In a pool of her own blood.”
“No!” The back of her hand covered her mouth, and a small bit of his blood stained the soft tips of her fingers. She reached for him, but stopped herself in time, noting the blood for herself, and examining her fingers with a somewhat horrified expression.
Bloody fuck and writhing hell. It had begun already. Blood on her hands.
His blood. On. Her. Hands.
No one could spend any good amount of time in his presence before they were covered in it.
No good could come of this.
“They released me when I came of age.” He attempted the comfort angle again. “I’ve done all right for myself in the fifteen or so years since.”
She stared up at him for a long while, her dark, dark eyes swimming in pools of unshed tears. Argent found himself wondering if anyone but his mother had ever conjured tears on his behalf.
Not fucking likely.
When she blinked, they spilled over, leaving mesmerizing tracks in her makeup.
He had the ridiculous notion to lean over and kiss those tears. To lick the salt from her body and digest it, make it part of himself. To swallow her sadness so he could feel some of his own.
It was long overdue, he imagined.
The urge hardened inside of him, reminding him that if he licked that warm tear, it would only turn to shards of ice in his mouth.
“Don’t pity me,” he snapped. “No one wants to fuck a woman while she cries.”
He watched the sorrow dim and the well of emotion dry up with a sense of conflict, that he’d done something wrong, but for the right reasons.
“I suppose that’s not true, there are many men out there who enjoy your tears, who would delight in turning them to screams,” he corrected himself, the hummingbird flutter behind his breastbone freezing and plummeting to its death within the void. “You should count yourself fortunate that I am not one of them.” His gaze flicked to his wound. She’d done an excellent job. “I think you’re finished.”
With a narrow-eyed sniff she looked down. “So I have.” He thought she’d be cruel then, that she’d yank and pull and tear, if only to punish him. But she quietly and calmly snipped at the thread, tied it, and secured the bandage over her handiwork.
It was time, and she knew it as well as he did. He could see that knowledge written all over her face.
Argent stood. “There’s a basin and soap for you to wash.” He pointed.
Wash off the blood. For there was no place for it where he was taking her next.
This was one contract Argent was certain he must see through to the end.
