Page 73 of Devil in Her Details

“Yes, but . . .” Her gaze flicked between the shirt and his face. The rascal was enjoying this far too much! And, unfortunately, had found her Achilles’ heel. She scowled, marched up to him, and snatched the shirt from him, too secretly thrilled to even feel any embarrassment.

“How did your meeting with your brothers turn out?” she asked to distract him, herself, while opening the shirt to inspect its size. The bigger the shirt, the better the sleep.

At his silence, she looked up at him.

“Your attempt to distract me won’t work.”

“Who says it’s an attempt to distract?” Lilly hedged. “I am curious.”

He shrugged. “It went as well as expected.”

She brought the shirt up to her face and inhaled deeply.

“It’s clean,” Dagger said amused.

Her cheeks flushed. “I know. I simply love the smell of fabric.”

He made a sound of indulgence. So much like her brother. She scoffed at him, lowering the shirt. “Very well, I accept the trade.”

His brows inched upward. “Trade?”

She nodded, motioning to his bare chest. “A shirt for your nakedness.”

“Must everything with you be a deal?”

She gave him a look of wry disdain. “Is it not the same with you? I’m simply following the lead you set from the start.”

Without waiting for a reply, Lilly marched up to the dressing screen, so giddy for this new find she ignored the small voice in her head demanding she send him to another chamber. She couldn’t bring herself to draw forth the urgency needed. For one, the man already shared a bed with her. What was the point in insisting on propriety now? Secondly, he’d been perfectly well-behaved. Hadn’t crossed over any line. He may be a big, bad panther, but he might as well have been a kitten in that sense.

She made quick work of her day dress before letting it pool at her feet, shedding everything else before pulling his shirt over her head.

Blazing heaven.

His shirt fell gloriously, magnificently enormous around her. The hem kissed her knees, and the sleeves consumed her entirely. She didn’t bother rolling them up, loving the feeling of being enveloped, and this shirt did its job so perfectly she decided immediately that this was the single finest thing she had ever worn.

Better than silk.

Better than her own carefully constructed nightgowns. She pressed the collar briefly to her nose before she could stop herself and once more breathed in the scent of fabric. And something distinctly him. Absolutely shameless. Though, like he said, the shirt was clean, so her imagination was running wild again. She would never admit that aloud.

She pinched the fabric, gave herself one brisk, satisfied nod, and stepped back out from behind the screen.

A curse met her ears.

She lifted her eyes to Dagger, and a dark cloud met her sight.

His eyes were on her legs. Staring. They flicked up for a second, slowly, before right down again.

Lilly cleared her throat, any residual embarrassment fleeing at that look of pure male appreciation. “My face is up here.”

His gaze reluctantly dragged up to meet her eyes.

One by one, Lilly withdrew pins from her hair, allowing it, section by section, to tumble down to her waist. “Since you’re here, you might as well brush my hair.”

“You have no fear, do you?”

“Oh, I have plenty of fear.” She grinned at him. “But there is good fear and then there is bad fear.”

“I don’t know about that,” came the mutter.