Read Online Tempted by Molly O'Keefe - Free Book Online Page B

room below. Whatever debauchery she’d expected from a whore house in full swing, this seemed... not it. Tension over the room was palpable.
    "Stop staring," Delilah said, and Anne pushed herself into motion.
    Down the hall there was a knot of people gathered outside the door, and as Delilah and Anne approached they all separated, revealing a man crouched down, speaking into the keyhole.
    It was Steven.
    She knew in a heartbeat.
    She knew by the color of his hair. The bend of his spine. The width of his shoulders.
    She knew because she would know him anywhere. Even here—where it seemed impossible that he could be.
    The pain was cataclysmic.
    Because Anne had believed him when he said it wasn’t just her whose touch he could not abide. But clearly, as his presence at a whore house indicated, that was not true.
    What had Delilah called him? A customer. Yes. There was only one kind of customer at Delilah’s.
    Her broken heart and shattered pride meant nothing in this terrible moment, but she could not stop the pain. It was like blood from an artery.
    “Steven,” Delilah said. “The doctor’s assistant is here.”
    “Assistant,” he said in that familiar voice. He turned his face sideways, and she had to glance away. At the ceiling. Anywhere but at him as he came to his full height and turned to see her.
    “Anne,” he gasped.
    Angrier than she’d ever seen him, he crossed the hallway to her and grabbed her arm, nearly dragging her a few steps away from the crowd watching them with wide eyes.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked through his teeth, and she became just suddenly, just all at once, so angry it hurt. Everything she felt for this man hurt, because it had nowhere to go—it just stayed inside of her body, poking and jabbing and sinking, and she was tired of it. She hated it.
    Hated him.
    “What are
you
doing here?” she asked, unable to stop herself. He blushed—Steven, whose life she’d saved. He blushed and for a moment could not look at her. She curled her hands into fists, her blunt nails digging into her skin, the pain sharp enough to keep the angry tears at bay.
    “The doctor is seeing other patients,” she said in her coldest, most professional voice. And his head snapped back around, his blue eyes pinned her to the wall.
    Fury, a great blast of it from him, made the hair on her arms stand up.
    Steven leaned down, looming over her, so close she could smell whiskey on his breath. So close she could see the hair of his beard coming in on his cheeks. So close she could feel the heat of his chest against the bare skin of her face.
    The air smelled of him and as it crossed her tongue—it tasted like him.
    “Where is he, Anne?”
    “At the house,” she whispered, unable to meet his eyes. Feeling the heat of his attention through her clothing. “He’s…indisposed.”
    “I will kill him. To put you in this situation—”
    Finally Anne shook herself free of his hand and stepped away from his body. She could see his chest through the open neck of his shirt, and she remembered it from the days in the clearing. Smooth and wide, thick with muscle.
    “The situation I am in is of my own making. Just as yours is.” He stepped back and she gave him her sharpest smile. Inside she was trying to staunch the blood from the wound he’d given her, but she would not show him that. Not ever.
    We can no longer be friends
, she thought.
    “How gratifying that you have found someone you can bear to touch. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to try and save Stella.”
    “It is not… My being here is not as it appears.”
    “I’m sure that is what many men here say.” She brushed past him, back toward the door with the people gathered around it. They made way for her, and soon she was at the closed wooden door. She lifted a trembling hand and knocked.
    “Mr. Garrity?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level. “Who is it?” His voice, muffled through the wood, sounded frantic and wild. She put a