Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels #7) by Lisa Kleypas

“A man knows when he’s being bossed.”

They stood together, motionless, with him braced over and around her.

His body was so close, so big and powerful. She wanted to explore the masculine terrain, charting every hard inch with her mouth and hands. It shocked her, how much she wanted him. Since Joshua’s death, those needs had been set aside.

But something about Keir MacRae had made it impossible to ignore them any longer.

Carefully he clasped her chin and tilted it upward. Her blood was racing. He stared down at her intently, his eyes bright with glints of frost and fire.

When he spoke, his low voice was flicked with wry humor.

“You’ll have your way, lass. I’ll go wash in the other room, since you’ve already made a start of it for me. As for you … dinna move. Dinna touch anything. Because I doubt a lady would want to see a dobber like me dashing about in the a’thegither.”

Which, Merritt thought dazedly, showed how little he knew about ladies.

MacRae pumped more water into the jug and carried it into the bedroom.

As he went into the next room, Merritt bent to retrieve the dishcloth and did her best to mop up the puddles on the floor. At the sounds from the next room—the clink of the porcelain basin at the washstand, the repeated sluices of water, some brushing and scrubbing—her imagination ran wild. She tried to distract herself by tidying the kitchen.

“Where are your men staying?” she eventually asked, wringing out the sodden dishcloth.

“They’ve taken rooms at the waterside tavern,” came his reply.

“Shall we have someone carry their belongings there?”

“No, they did that themselves when the barge docked, and took their supper at the public house. They were like to starve to death.”

“What about you?” She reached out to close the curtains over the window near the sink. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“That can wait ’til the morrow.”

Merritt was about to reply, but she froze, her hand suspended in midair. The window happened to be positioned to mirror the opening of the next room with remarkable clarity.

The naked form of Keir MacRae was reflected in the glass as he crossed the bedroom.

She went hot and cold all over, riveted as he bent to take a pair of trousers from the leather trunk. His movements were easy, graceful with a sense of coiled power, and that body—

“You’re going to work through the night without any dinner at all?” she heard herself ask.

—with those long, elegant expanses of tightly knit muscle and sinew—

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

—was magnificent. Fantasy wrought into flesh. And just before he fastened the trousers, she couldn’t help noticing the man was incredibly well-endowed.

Oh, this was beneath her, ogling a naked man. Had she no dignity? No decency? She had to stop before he caught her. Dragging her gaze away, she struggled to keep the conversation going.

“You would work more efficiently if you weren’t weak from hunger,” she called out.

The reply from the other room was slightly muffled. “I dinna have time for loafing at a public house.”

Merritt’s gaze darted back to the reflection in the window. She couldn’t help it.

MacRae was pulling a shirt over his head and pushing his arms through the sleeves, his torso flexing and rippling with muscle. It was the body of a man accustomed to pushing himself without mercy.

This was the most interesting and exciting thing to happen to Merritt in years. Perhaps in her entire adult life. Before her marriage, she would have been too shy to enjoy it. But now, as a widow who occupied a solitary bed … the sight of Keir MacRae’s body made her achingly aware of what she’d once had and now missed.

Sighing, Merritt pulled the curtains closed and moved away from the window. Although she was unable to summon a full measure of her usual good humor, she tried to sound cheerful when MacRae came back into the room.

“Well,” she said. “That’s much better.”

He looked refreshed and far more comfortable, wearing a knit wool waistcoat over the collarless shirt. His hair had been brushed back, but it was already falling over his forehead in shiny amber ribbons. The reek of whisky and sweat had been replaced by the scent of white soap and clean skin.

“I’ll admit, ’tis preferable to smelling like a tavern floor.” MacRae stopped in front of her, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Now that you’ve taken charge of me, milady, what’s your next command?”

The question was casual, with a hint of friendly teasing. But she was stunned by the reservoir of feeling he’d unlocked in her, so vast she was drowning in it. A feeling of pure longing. And until this moment, she’d never even known it was there.

She tried to think of some clever reply. But the only thing her mind could summon was something impulsive and silly.

Kiss me.

She would never say something so brazen, of course. It would appear desperate or mad, and it would embarrass both of them. And for a business owner to behave in such an unprofessional manner with a customer—well, that didn’t bear thinking of.

But as Merritt saw his blank expression, a horrid realization made something inside her plunge.

“Oh, God,” she said faintly, her fingers flying to her mouth. “Did I say that out loud?”