The Scoundrel and I: A Novella Read Online Free

glass of frothy ale in his grip.
    “What are you—”
    In firm strides he came toward her, grasped her hand, and pressed the glass into it.
    “Drink this.”
    He smelled positively delicious, like rich red wine mingled with fresh cedar. His hand encompassing hers was large, strong, and warm.
    “Drink,” he repeated in his commanding tone, and released her.
    “You brought ale? For me?” She stared into the glass and then up at him. The air went straight out of her lungs. She had never stood so close to a man like this—except once, and she had tried to block that out of her memory.
    This man was so . . .
masculine,
from his taut jaw to the slightly curling locks of ebony hair dipping over his brow. His skin was tanned and the tiny lines radiating from the corners of his eyes gave him an air of gravity and perpetual pleasure at once.
    “From the King’s Barrel?” she managed to say.
    “Got to put some color back in those pretty cheeks.” His eyes were so blue, vividly blue, like the perfect azure she had seen in pictures of the Mediterranean Sea.
    She stepped back, thrusting out the ale toward him. “I do not drink spirits.”
    “Ale ain’t spirits. And you’ll drink this.”
    “Sir, you might well be in the navy, but I am not and I needn’t follow your—”
    “
Drink
. Then you’ll tell me what troubles you and I’ll make it right.”
    Sheer shock from this declaration sent the glass toward her mouth and the first sip of ale down her throat.
    She coughed. “This is
not
ale.”
    “Little something extra in there. Calms the nerves. Drink.” Setting his hat upon Jo Junior’s desk, then crossing his arms over his decorated chest, he sat back against the edge of the furniture and watched her venture another sip, then another. She felt assessed, like he might take the measure of an unexpected ship that appeared on the horizon. As she swallowed a fifth and then a sixth sip of ale—and something extra—warmth gathered in her belly and spread softly to her head. His lips shifted upward at one corner.
    He had very fine lips.
Very
fine. Beautiful.
    She blinked.
    This
was the reason she never drank ale.
    “Now,” he said, “tell me.” His voice was like the rumble of a very large cat, almost a purr, a lion’s purr.
    Ale was the devil’s brew
.
    She shoved the glass forward. He shook his head. She moved around him and set it down on Jo Junior’s desk with a decisive clack. The sailor turned to watch her.
    “I’m waiting,” he purred.
    “I suppose you will not leave until I have told you.”
    “You suppose right.”
    “
Correctly
. I suppose correctly.”
    He grinned. His teeth were beautifully white and straight, his smile positively brilliant. Perhaps it was his tan skin, or the crisp blue of his coat and snowy white of his neckcloth and waistcoat, or his arms crossed nonchalantly across his chest so that she could see the pull of fabric against muscle . . . Despite the ale, her throat went dry.
    She backed away a step. “You have ruined me.”
    The blue eyes flicked down her body, then up again before his grin broadened.
    “Fairly certain I’d recall that,” he said.
    Her cheeks flamed. “That was not, of course, what I meant by those words.”
    His eyes laughed. “You don’t say?”
    “You
are
a scoundrel, sir.”
    “Assuredly. Now tell me your trouble and I’ll do my scoundrelly best to solve it.”
    “You will do your
scoundrel’s
best.”
    “Aye.” He uncrossed his arms and set his hands to either side of him on the edge of the desk. They were strong, big hands, and the sight of them made Elle’s insides even warmer than the ale that was clouding her head.
    Pivoting away, she went through the connecting door into the press room. His boot steps followed, even and easy.
    Halting before the press, she said, “This. This is my trouble. You—you
and I
—caused it.”
    When after a moment he said nothing, she looked up at his face. He was studying the huge machine made of wood and