Rake Most Likely To Sin

‘You can do it, I have great faith in your oil-applying abilities.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘But don’t work too much longer. I don’t want you fainting from fatigue or heat.’

‘Oh, you do care.’ Brennan grinned, pouring olive oil into the palm of his hand and smearing it on his chest in broad strokes. He watched the pulse at the base of her neck leap. She was definitely not indifferent.

‘Only because you’re too big, I don’t think I could drag you inside.’ Patra shook her head. ‘I’ll be in the shade with the mending if you need anything.’ Oh, he would. Brennan grinned. He’d make sure of it.

Brennan finished whitewashing the front of the house and began the process of cleaning brushes and putting away the tools, all borrowed from Kon. He wrapped them in an old cloth and stored them in the wagon. He stepped back from the wagon and surveyed his work. The house looked better already. The whitewash made the house gleam under the sun and the blue shutters on the two windows added a crisp finish. He’d get the rest of the house done tomorrow. Right now, there was something else he wanted to do, another project to work on.

He spied Patra under the tree, the mending in her lap. She’d left her hair down today. He’d noticed at breakfast, but he didn’t dare comment on it, after the bit with the nightgown. It made her look younger, freer. She wasn’t old, she shouldn’t dress as if she was. Certainly any mourning obligations to her husband had been satisfied years ago.

Her long chestnut hair hung in a thick skein over one shoulder as she sewed, humming a Greek tune. The domesticity of the scene caught him unawares like a sucker punch to the gut: Patra sewing, the freshly washed house behind her, the olive groves beyond that. They were a tangled mess right now, but they wouldn’t be when he’d finished. Come October, they would be healthy again.

He had to stop himself. Would he even be here in October? That was six months away. If he wanted the fantasy he painted in his mind, all he had to do was reach out and claim it with Katerina. It was there for the taking, but he didn’t want it with Katerina. That particular fantasy was lacking something.

Did he even want a wife? Last night he had been doing everything he could to avoid such a fate. He wasn’t the marrying kind. Marriage was for ever and he could barely manage to do anything for a month. At Oxford, he’d jumped from subject to subject. He’d been fascinated by Aramaic for five weeks and then he’d been fascinated by a merchant’s pretty daughter and that had been the end of Aramaic studies. If he’d managed to stay with a subject long enough, he would have been an expert at something instead of a jack of all trades, master of the only one that mattered—sex. Brennan knew how he operated. He had no staying power. Kardamyli was something of an anomaly in that regard. He’d never stayed anywhere this long. He was just infatuated with the moment, with the challenge Patra presented.

Patra looked up, biting off a length of thread. ‘Do you need something?’

Brennan grinned, covering up the moment of inner turmoil with nonchalance. ‘Yes, I do. I need an answer to my proposition last night.’ She gave him a quizzical look, unsure what to say. He stretched out in the grass beside her. ‘You know, the one I made right before I kissed you.’

Chapter Six (#ulink_b1df3158-bd7e-55d7-b741-a0d0fb7cc61b)

Of course he would mention that. Patra felt her cheeks flush and she struggled to thread her needle. He really didn’t play fair. Last night was supposed to exist in a vacuum, it wasn’t official, it wasn’t supposed to count for anything beyond a momentary escape. How was it that a singular evening had now become the basis for a proposition? A proposition she didn’t quite remember. In her defence, she’d been more focused on his mouth at the time than she’d been on the words coming out of it.

Brennan reached over and took the needle from her, threaded it deftly, much to her irritation, and set it aside. ‘Perhaps you need a reminder?’ His voice was a low seductive ripple of words. ‘I believe I was like this.’ His body angled close to her as it had been last night, the mere proximity of him sending a heated rush through her. ‘My hand was just so.’ His palm cupped her jaw, warm and welcoming against her skin. ‘My mouth was here—’ here being a scant half-inch hovering above hers ‘—and I said...’

Patra swallowed, his touch doing all sorts of things to her self-control. She remembered now. ‘Something about joining forces.’ At the time, she hadn’t given it much credence, just words murmured in flirtation at a hot moment.

‘Well? What do you think? We both have unwanted suitors. By pretending to be together, we can convince them their attentions are futile.’ It was hard to resist when his voice was a husky murmur against her throat, his mouth teasing her with its nearness, making her memory crave his kiss. ‘It would be worthwhile, Patra.’

Patra summoned the last of her willpower and pulled back. ‘Worthwhile for whom? You? What happens when you leave? I will be the poor jilted widow.’ That was only the obvious concern. Brennan only thought it would be worthwhile for him. He saw this as a long-term escape from Katerina’s clutches.

‘For you, too,’ Brennan argued, dropping his hand from her cheek. ‘You can satisfy the town’s desire for you to socially engage while not having to entertain one of those greybeards under false pretences.’

On the surface, it did look like an expedient solution to the rather pesky problem of her insistent suitors. Still, she wasn’t naïve. She doubted his motives were entirely altruistic. ‘Somehow I doubt it’s that simple,’ Patra challenged. ‘Do you think to use it as a ploy to land yourself in my bed? Steal a few more kisses?’

‘Nothing will happen that you do not wish. What we do inside the privacy of the ruse is up to us alone,’ Brennan said solemnly. She believed him as far as that went. He was a rogue, but he had honour. He would never force himself on her. But that was the problem. She highly doubted there’d be any force involved. What if she did wish for something more? Or thought she did?

Last night was proof enough that he could coax a response from her, that she was not immune to the pull of attraction between them. The power of attraction would rear its head as it had last night. They could not spend time in one another’s presence and remain entirely unaffected. Did she dare explore that pull when it surfaced again? Above all, could she keep Brennan safe from her secrets? Anything more than a temporary association with her could be, well, deadly, if the wrong people heard of it.