“Take no offense,” he said. “I find I like a woman with thoughts of her own.”
Did he truly? The men in the slums, even Mr. McKinnon only wanted me for my body. They didn’t want to talk, to understand me. “I want to know how it works.”
He started into the room, shrugging the jacket from his broad shoulders. Snow dusted his hair. “How what works?”
That muscled chest strained against his white shirt in a fascinating way that made me want to undo the buttons until I exposed his tight skin. I wanted to run my fingers through the light sprinkling of chest hair I could see when his collar was undone. What would he look like naked?
“Ginny,” he said, startling me.
“I want to know how everything works,” I whispered. “The world. The planets. You know…what makes them move? What makes us move? Why do stars fall? Why don’t we fall if the world is constantly turning?”
He paused near the settee, his hard gaze on me. It was obvious he thought me a fool.
“Don’t you ever wonder what’s out there?” I asked.
He tossed his jacket to the back of the settee. “The heavens, isn’t that what they say? The planets and stars move by the hands of God.”
I rolled my eyes and placed the book on the floor. The scent of spicy male mixed with the crisp scent of snow. “Why can’t God and science work together? Why must we choose one?”
“Of course, you’re much too rational to believe in religion.”
He was mocking me again. I didn’t like that he thought of me as some empty-headed fool to be teased. Who was he to laugh at me? “Do not mock me. Do not act as if I am stupid.”
“Ginny,” he sighed. “You are one of the most intelligent women I’ve ever met.”
He stated it so bluntly, as if he truly believed it, that my blush heated. “You don’t—”
“I do mean it.”
Did he? How would I know? Every word from his lips could have been a lie and I’d never realize. I studied the tips of his polished boots, my gaze traveling up his perfectly pressed black trousers, tight against his muscled thighs. Higher, to the pristine white of his shirtsleeves, and finally to his hair, damp with melted snowflakes. He hadn’t been wearing a hat. How scandalous. I’d missed him, damn it all. “You were out tonight?”
He settled on the settee. “To visit my father. Every Wednesday.”
“Oh.”
He’d merely been visiting his parents. As relieved as I felt, I knew I was an idiot to care. What did it matter where he’d been? As soon as my clothes were returned, I’d flee this opulent place. I took my lower lip between my teeth. So why wasn’t I demanding my dress? Why wasn’t I walking out the front door now?
Because of the snow? Because of my lack of clothing? Lack of home? No. Because the thought of never seeing him again, of not breathing in his scent, feeling his hands on me…
“Are you very much like him?”
He stretched out his long legs. “I suppose I am.”
I frowned, concerned. He had no feelings toward his sire. His friends claimed he was a monster. What did that make Gabe? But as I studied him, I noticed the tight lines around his mouth, the shadows under his eyes, the tenseness of his features. He didn’t enjoy visiting his father. He didn’t like the man.
“Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
I thought he’d been teasing me. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe, just maybe, he had sat by my bedside those nights I was ill. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t as similar to his father as he believed. Maybe, just maybe…he cared.
He lifted from the settee and surprised me by settling on the blanket. Having him that close, sent a heated thrill through my body. Who was the real Gabe? I’d be a fool to trust him. But I could not deny that I liked him.
“He’s practically comatose. Awake, then gone, in and out.”
“I’m sorry.”
He rested his arm on his knee and looked at me with amusement in his eyes. “Don’t be. He is a heartless bastard. Like me.”
His words should have been shocking. I studied his handsome features. There was no doubt there was a hardness there, but underneath…I swore I saw a man. Just a man, trying to survive.
My hands curled as I resisted the urge to draw my fingers down the side of his face, to feel the erotic scruff against my