Tarnished Knight - By Bec McMaster Page 0,28

perhaps. The sooner they spoke of this, the better.

Old furniture was stacked against the walls, a large Turkish rug covering the floor. Blade had little interest in fencing stolen goods but there were always people who needed coin desperately. He often traded coin or protection for the goods they offered. Charity here in the ‘Chapel would have earned him naught more than a sneer.

Esme shivered. Her throat felt thick with unsaid words; I didn’t mean it, I was speaking of being your thrall, I should never have kissed you, friends…just friends. All of it lies, but they were safe lies.

As she went to open her mouth, the thought spurred something hot to life in her chest. She didn’t want to be ‘just friends’ anymore, didn’t want to take everything she’d said back. It was finally out in the air between them and though she was frightened of his lack of a response, a part of her wanted to confront him about it.

“You cold?” he asked quietly. His voice had always been deeper than most men; the kind of voice that sent shivers over her skin. He rarely ever raised it, but sometimes she wished she could sense what he was feeling in it. To yell or rage, just once.

But she knew why he didn’t.

Esme nodded, her gaze settling on his throat and the corded muscle there as he swallowed. She wasn’t quite brave enough to meet his eyes. “A little,” she whispered.

Where was her courage now? Her defiant glee that the words were said? Rip took a step toward her, shrugging out of his leather coat and Esme couldn’t stop herself from taking a step back. His shirt strained over the enormous slabs of muscle that decorated his chest, heavy braces indenting his shoulders. A workman’s shirt; rough, coarse… But she knew the feel of it, the way it would abrade her skin.

As if she’d struck him, he froze.

And Esme realized that he thought she was rejecting him.

Stepping forward, she reached for his coat, twirling into it like a dancer. Rip’s hands settled on her shoulders lightly as he helped her settle it in place, then lingered. With her back to him, Esme’s heart suddenly raced. Slowly he gathered up her hair, hands so gentle she almost ached, and dragged it free of the collar. The ribbon she’d used to tie it back had loosened and Rip tugged it out, fingertips sliding through the silk of her hair.

“John?” she whispered.

“I like that,” he murmured. “I ‘ate it when you call me ‘Rip’. You’re the only one who doesn’t. The only one who sees me as John.” A tentative finger wrapped around one of her black curls, gave a little tug. “You want to punish me? Aye, well you knew ‘ow to do it.”

Esme’s fingers curled in the collar of the coat, holding it in place as she flinched. Suddenly her need to hurt him as he’d hurt her seemed nothing more than cruel. “I’m sorry.”

A rough sigh. “So am I.” Then the sensation of his body shifted behind her, leaving Esme feeling cold.

Rip stepped past, toward the lantern. Sinking down onto the dusty red rug, he tipped his chin at her. “Come. Sit by the light. Talk with me.”

Her feet didn’t want to move. Somehow she forced herself to cross the tense space, manoeuvring between dusty chairs and lamps. Courage, Esme. This wasn’t the first battle she’d ever fought and it wouldn’t be the last. But she felt almost sick to the stomach as she stiffly sank to her knees beside him. Clutching at his coat to hold it in place, her gaze dropped.

Rip shifted, drawing his hand back from his knee into the shadows of his body and she realized it was his mech hand. She’d been staring past it.

Reaching out, Esme caught it, feeling the cold of the metal beneath her palm. “Don’t. You shouldn’t hide it.” The fingers flexed and hers slid between them, feeling the smooth ball-and-socket joins of each knuckle. It was rough work; the hydraulics in his forearm gleamed in the warm candlelight as he shifted, a piston hissing cool air against her skin. He’d never let her touch it before.

“Perhaps we should talk to Blade,” she found herself saying, as though the weight of the silence would bury her. “Surely he can pay for a replacement. I’ve seen some of those new mech enhancements on the men fresh out of the Enclaves.” Men who’d had to pay for their enhancements with years of