Desire Me (7 page)

He took steps toward the front of the shop. Perhaps there would be something hidden in those cupboards. The floor creaked
beneath his weight. He stilled. There was yet another noise.

The doorknob jiggled from behind him. Someone else was trying to get in. Perhaps Miss Tobias returning home late from another
game of chance? Quickly Max moved to the other side of the stairwell and hid in the narrow cubby beneath.

The door jerked open, and two men lumbered in. Max could hear a third voice outside the door. Three men, one outside to keep
watch. Sabine Tobias’s shop was certainly gaining in popularity. What a pity he hadn’t thought to bring along a couple of
thugs himself. Max withdrew farther into the shadows.

If he hadn’t been certain before that Sabine Tobias was hiding something, now it seemed quite evident. From beneath the stairwell,
Max couldn’t see much of what the men were doing, but he could make out a few words of their hurried whispers. They didn’t
sound educated, and they didn’t seem to know specifically what they were searching for. They’d obviously been hired to break
into the shop. In Max’s experience, “employees” of that nature were highly unreliable. They took no personal interest in their
assignments and generally proved to be rather unmotivated. Not to mention a bit dim. No doubt their search would not be thorough.

Max settled his back against the wall, prepared to simply wait them out. However, when the stairs above him shifted slightly,
Max moved to the edge of the cubby to get a better glimpse. Delicate, pale ankles attached to feminine bare feet crept down
the steps.

Bloody hell! Miss Tobias. Did the woman have no sense at all? What was she doing sneaking down to investigate? Surely she
did not intend to fight off would-be thieves in nothing more than her nightrail.

He craned his neck, looking for the thugs in the unlit storeroom. Thank goodness, they were busy rifling through the cupboards.
He positioned himself, and once the lady came within reach, he clamped a hand across her mouth and pulled her into his hiding
place. Her muffled
protests were punctuated by those delicate feet kicking into his shins. He stifled a groan of his own.

He turned her around to face him, careful not to uncover her mouth. Sabine Tobias stared up at him, her eyes wide and angry.
He frowned at her, then leaned close to her ear.

“Kick me again, love, and I’ll let the wastrels get you,” he warned in a whisper.

Her lovely, expressive face tensed.

He nodded to the noise around the corner from them, then pulled them farther into the darkness beneath the stairs, thankful
that the thugs were making enough noise to cover the sounds of his own struggle with the little minx. Idiots to think they
wouldn’t be discovered, making all that racket.

He put one finger up to his lips. “Shhh.” Once she nodded, he removed his hand from her mouth. But he made no move to release
her. She had enough fire in her to do something foolish in the name of bravery. If she let on to their hiding place, she could
get them both hurt. He’d taken on two men in a fight before, but three was asking a bit much. So he held her firmly against
him.

While he wasn’t visually able to enjoy Sabine’s flimsy nightgown, pressing her this close against him left little to his imagination.
She was plump where a woman should be, rounded hips, lush breasts, soft bottom. He tightened his grip on her narrow waist,
enjoying the feel of her soft curves. She smelled of fresh herbs and warm bread and felt just as delicious. He inhaled slowly.

One of the men ran into a shelf and a glass fell to the floor, shattering. Sabine sucked in a harsh breath and nearly said
something.

Far be it from Max to miss an opportunity. So with that
thought, he threaded his other hand into the back of her lustrous
hair and pulled her face to his. A moment later, he tasted her just as he’d done the night before. This time, though, her
soft lips opened, probably more from shock than desire, but an invitation was an invitation.

He deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue between her gently parted lips. She tasted of chocolate and cinnamon. He’d intended
only to kiss and quiet her, but the feel of her made desire surge through his legs and into his groin.

Her hand slowly slid up his arm. He cupped her bottom and pulled her closer, pressing her to him. Then she pinched the skin
at his bicep. It was not enough pain to cause much damage, but he did jerk back from her.

She glared up at him, then opened her mouth to say something.

But before she could, the man at the door stuck his head in. “Hurry.”

If the man had looked a little to his left, he would have been able to see the white of Sabine’s nightgown billowing out from
beneath the stairs. Max grabbed the fabric and cinched it by her hip. No doubt her lovely leg was nearly completely revealed,
but at least her nightgown was no longer waving surrender from beneath the stairs.

“We go upstairs,” another of the men said in a harsh whisper. “We haven’t found nothing yet.” He started up the staircase.

A choked sound squeaked from Sabine’s throat. Her eyes widened with fear, and her mouth formed two silent words, “My aunts.”

Bloody hell! Looked as if he was going to have to take a chance with those odds after all.

Max grabbed both of Sabine’s arms and switched their places. “Stay,” he whispered. Then he crept out from his
hiding place
and grabbed the leg of the man on the lower stair. Max pulled sharply. The thin man fell onto the stairs, hitting his head
on the hard wood. The other man turned and ran back down the stairs, heading straight for Max.

It took one solid blow to the man’s nose to bring him down. Blood sprayed as the bone and cartilage shifted.

“You broke my nose,” he howled. “You son of a bitch.”

“Watch out,” Sabine cried.

But it wasn’t enough warning for the punch to Max’s left kidney. Pain radiated up his back and down his hip. He groaned, but
shook it off and turned to meet his assailant. Another punch headed his way, but he was able to duck and slam himself into
the man, knocking the thug off his feet.

By this time, the noise had awakened the other household occupants, and ladies’ voices came from the rooms overhead.

“What the devil is going on?” one asked.

“Sabine?” another said.

The first man Max had struck was now attempting to get to his feet, but Max was able to hit him on the head, and he sank back
to the floor. The one with the bloody nose struck Max on the jaw, rocking him backward. Max would be lucky if the punch only
resulted in a blackened eye and didn’t also bruise the entire side of his face.

The other man made a direct line toward Sabine.

Three older women came rushing down the stairs, their nightrails flowing behind them. They all carried makeshift weapons:
a fire poker, a heavy candelabra, and a small, jeweled pistol.

Excellent
. He was getting the shit beat out of him, and Sabine was about to be rescued by the fairy godmother brigade.

Max took another hard blow to his shoulder before he managed to grab the third man and slam his head against the doorframe.

A shot rang out. “Get out!” the woman shrieked. “Out, out, out!”

The three thieves wasted no time in scrambling out the door.

“You, too,” she said to Max.

But Max did not move. Instead he simply stared at his chest, where a bloodstain grew across his coat.

“Lydia, you shot him!” Sabine said.

D
amnation,” Agnes said.

“Oh, no,” Calliope said.

Panic seized Sabine. Her mind stumbled over several scenarios in which Max bled to death on their floor. But then she caught
sight of his crooked smile. Damned man was too stubborn to die of a piddling gunshot wound.

She took several steadying breaths. Agnes was here; she would ensure all was well.

“Let’s get him upstairs,” Sabine said. She braced herself against him, wrapping her arm around his waist. “Don’t get any foolish
ideas,” she warned, remembering their heated kiss under the stairs. She herself tried to ignore his taut abdomen and firm
back.

He chuckled but allowed her to lead him up the wooden staircase.

They stepped into the small kitchen, and she helped lower him into one of the chairs. She was painfully aware of how confined
the space felt with his large masculine
form there. Her aunts immediately went about gathering the items they needed: a small
bowl of water, tweezers, a clean rag, and some makeshift bandages. For a moment, she was back in the kitchen in their cottage
in Essex preparing to care for one of the villagers who’d had an accident with a hoe or who had gotten into a brawl after
imbibing too much whiskey. There everything had been peaceful, but here in London, life moved at a much quicker pace. Though
she had always considered herself a calm person, the bustle kept her on edge.

But they weren’t in Essex, and this man was not one of their own. He did not know of their ways or of their capabilities.
And she would risk much in sharing them, but his complexion had paled, and his coat was heavy with his blood loss. They had
no choice; they certainly couldn’t risk his bleeding to death or developing a life-threatening infection.

“Don’t forget the salve,” Sabine said.

“Truly?” Lydia asked. Her three aunts exchanged looks.

“Yes,” Agnes said. “We will need the salve.”

Lydia would not question Agnes. As the guardian, she was the Healer, and the elixir would be used as she deemed necessary.
They would never have even paused to consider its use on a villager. But this stranger would notice when his wound healed
twice as fast as it ought.

While Agnes gave further instructions, Sabine pulled Max’s coat off his shoulders and down his arms.

Blood stained his white shirt, coloring a large section of his chest beneath his right shoulder.

“Damn,” he swore.

Calliope stepped forward with a glass of deep-red liquor. “Here, this should help with the pain.”

“A lady after my own heart.” He raised the glass in a toast, then winced. “Thank you.” He downed it in one gulp.

He tried with one hand to unbutton his shirt, but he took too long, so Sabine swatted his fingers out of the way. “Here,”
she said. Her deft fingers worked the buttons swiftly, though she would have sworn she’d felt them shaking ever so slightly.
There would be no reason for that, though. On more than one occasion, she’d helped Agnes tend to men’s wounds. She pulled
the shirt the rest of the way off and exposed his wound.

It was caked in blood, and she could not see enough of the actual bullet hole to gauge the true damage. Blond hair covered
his torso, but in the wound area, it had matted. Without warning, she ran the wet rag against the wound. Rivulets of blood
and water dripped down his arm.

“That stings,” he growled.

Sabine had to clean the wound. Perhaps in her determination to ignore his fine form, her ministrations were rougher than she’d
intended. “Don’t act like a child,” she warned. “Besides, it’s not that deep.” She caught Agnes’s eyes as she obviously lied
to Max.

Agnes nodded almost imperceptibly.

Sabine hoped he wouldn’t notice that it was, in fact, quite deep. The best thing for all of them was to convince him the injury
hadn’t been that bad to begin with, and then he might not be so curious when it healed quickly. They needed to patch him up
and send him on his way before he became suspicious of their ways. Now that the Chosen One was searching for Agnes, they all
had to be extremely vigilant.

A cold chill shivered down Sabine’s neck. What if
this man
was the Chosen One? Her hand stopped midstroke, and she met Max’s eyes—clear blue and lined with real
pain. No, Madigan would
have known if Max was the Chosen One. He had their map, and he considered himself a scholar, though he’d referred to himself
as an adventurer. And hadn’t Agnes said that Phinneas had once had a vision about a “great one” discovering their map? She
relaxed a bit.

“Little more than a grazing,” she added.

Lydia’s eyes rounded, and Calliope opened her mouth to argue, but Agnes shook her head. “Calliope, pour the marquess some
more of your fine whiskey.”

He sat taller. “Wasn’t the first time I got shot,” Max ground out. “Probably won’t be the last.”

Lydia poked a scar on his back. “Shot in the back, I see. Perhaps you shouldn’t invade people’s homes in the middle of the
night.”

“Lydia,” Calliope chided as she handed Max the whiskey.

“Who were those men?” Sabine asked as she continued to wash his wound.

“I don’t know. Thugs hired to find something would be my guess.” He winced. “They were digging through all your belongings,
then headed upstairs to continue their search.” His blue eyes locked onto hers. “Care to share what you’re hiding?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We have absolutely nothing to hide.” She turned back to the basin and poured clean
water into the bowl. “They obviously had mistaken our shop for someone else’s.”