Free The Beloved Scoundrel by Iris Johansen Page B

“But I don’t believe it will be necessary. You are a hard man, but you do not intentionally hurt the helpless. It was only needful that I point out in what direction you were wandering.”
    As the door closed behind him, Jordan drained the glass and set it on the table. It was all nonsense. He would continue on the same course he had started with Marianna.
    He did not lust after the chit.
    He did not hold her in affection.
    He was most certainly not going to let her sway him in his purpose.
    To hell with Gregor’s alternatives.
    H e poised, ready to plunge deep.
    In just a moment he would be inside, closed in her warm tightness, and this agony of need would be over.
    Her blue eyes looked up at him, bold, shining, eager.
    Strange, the other times he hadn’t noticed her eyes.…
    My God.
    He woke, hard and heavy and aching, and lay there in the dark, his chest moving in and out with his labored breathing.
    He rose and moved naked toward the window and threw it open, letting the night wind rush in and cool him. Lord knows, he needed cooling.
    Marianna.
    M arianna glanced up from the board. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
    “How was I looking at you?”
    She frowned. “Peculiarly. Are you irritated because I’m beating you today?”
    “I don’t like to lose,” he said noncommittally.
    She lifted her hand to her cheek. “Do I have a smudge?”
    He had been searching for a smudge, an imperfection, and had found many. Her features were fine butnot classic; her eyes were too bold; her lips were well shaped but seldom smiled at him.
    And she was scarcely more than a child, dammit.
    He didn’t want to have this passion for a young girl who had no experience and thought life should be seen through a stained-glass window. He didn’t want to set out to bed a girl who had beaten him at chess and made him smile at his defeat.
    “We all have smudges.” He looked down at the hand toying with her queen. “What is that on your palm?”
    “What? Oh, a scar. You must have seen it before.”
    “Not that one.” He took her hand and turned it over. Her palm was nicked with a number of scars. He touched the long white one running across the center of her palm. “This must have cut deep.”
    “I work in glass. Sometimes I pay the price. I was clumsy and let a sheet slide off the table. I had to catch it before it hit the floor and broke.”
    Sudden anger surged through him. This was an old scar, so the accident must have happened when she’d been a very young child. Why hadn’t they watched her, taken care of her? “It could have cut your hand in two.”
    “I work in glass,” she said again. “I was never that clumsy again.”
    Her pulse was leaping beneath his finger as he gently rubbed back and forth on the scar.
    She swallowed. “I wish you would not do that. It feels … most strange.”
    “Pain?”
    “Not precisely.”
    It felt like pain to him, and the discomfort was growing by the second. A child would not have answeredhim as she had done. She was a woman and fair game in the sport he knew so well.
    Christ, he was looking for excuses to seduce her.
    He dropped her hand and stood up. “It’s warm in here. We’ll finish the game tomorrow.”
    She looked at him, startled. “I’m not warm.”
    “I’m not only warm, I’m hot. I need a stroll on deck.” He strode toward the door. “I’ll see you at supper.”
    If he distanced himself from her, then his need would go away. He had always been a self-indulgent bastard, and he was instinctively searching out qualities in Marianna that would give him an excuse to bed her.
    “You look a trifle discomposed,” Gregor said as he fell into step with him on deck. “How is Marianna?”
    “Not lying naked and weeping on my bunk.”
    “Then it is good we had our talk.” Gregor’s brows lifted. “You must be behaving very well. It always puts you in vicious temper.”
    “Did you think that bringing all of this to the surface would solve the