Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,51

it was still best to smooth over this situation. Faye stretched a hand out and awkwardly patted his hand. “You have my word that I shan’t use your name, Tynan.”

His incredulous gaze followed that gesture. “Either of my names, or any of them.”

“Fair enough. I shan’t use either, Ty—” His eyes sharpened on her, and she coughed into her hand. “I shan’t use either.” Also, they were getting entirely away from the wrong point of contention. “And I’ll not allow you to change the subject.”

“Me, change the subject? You interrupted my damned tirade.”

“Oh.” She paused. “That is right. You were on your first point of contention. Get on with your second.”

“Get… on… with my second?” he echoed.

Faye motioned for him. “Is there more?” Because she would dearly love to return to her own grievances.

“I don’t blush,” he shouted, startling several blackbirds from the roof of his house, and sending those creatures into flight. Several feathers came fluttering and falling to earth, one landing on Tynan’s shoulder.

“Really?” she shot back. “That is what you think is so important to focus on? And you do, by the way. You go red in the face when you’re feeling guilty. It is a tell. And when you are angry.”

“Oh, I am angry,” he purred. “Mightily so, kitten.” He stalked her like one of those sleek felines, his steps those that a panther would have envied him for.

Her back collided with the front of his house, forcing a stop to a retreat she’d not even realized she’d made. Again with this kitten nonsense. Faye lifted her chin and glared at this man whom she was so reliant upon in her efforts.

“You’re angry? You. Why?” She didn’t let him answer, because she didn’t want his answer. “Because I accused you of blushing, which you are in fact doing, thereby wounding your manly pride?” Faye put a finger to his chest. “Well, let me tell you, do you know who is the one who should be offended?”

“Me?”

“Me. The answer is me. I struck a deal with you, and instead of outright honoring our arrangement…” She began a small march, backing him up until they were in reversed positions. She jabbed him again in the chest. “Your actions today with Mr. Colb indicate that you only brought me there with the pretense of helping. All the while, you always believed that there was nothing I could learn here, which was why you were willing to bring me, thus wasting my time, Tynan.” Except it hadn’t been a waste of time.

He stopped abruptly.

“You used my name again,” he snapped.

Faye went stock-still. If he were any other man or gentleman or person, she would have expected those five words had been delivered in jest. And yet, oddly, she’d come to know this man very, very well in a very short time. She knew that of everything she’d uttered, the only blasted piece he’d heard was her accidental use of his name in public. Faye let out a soft shriek. “You are insufferable and boorish and—”

His mouth covered hers in a kiss that wasn’t at all insufferable or boorish.

Moaning softly, she lifted herself up into that sudden embrace, uncaring that they stood on the side of the street where anyone might see them. Pressing herself against Tynan, she opened her mouth for him, and he plunged his tongue inside, laying siege to her in a battle she was all too happy to surrender to.

It ended as quickly as it had begun, entirely too swiftly.

Faye sank back on her heels, exhaling little gasps.

“First,” he said coolly, in tones that were so crisp she would have believed he’d been unaffected by that quick embrace were it not for the heavy breaths he took. “Every time you use my name, you put me at risk. And that is not something I’m willing to allow just because you’ve got your mind made up to stir some mischief among the ruling elites.”

That was… fair enough. When he said it that way, she understood his upset. And yet… “That isn’t what this is about,” she whispered. Making trouble for the nobility. “It is about finding out whether there are more chil—”

“And second, Faye…” He lowered his voice. His deep baritone had a smoothness to it, like the brandy she’d once stolen from her brother’s office that had been rough at first going down, but the more she’d drunk, the silkier the feel and glide of it upon her throat. “I’m looking out for you when your own