No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

Chapter 6

Three minutes. Perhaps fewer.

She had that long to hide before he would be after her.

And if he caught her, the evening would take a turn.

Not that it hadn’t already done just that.

Mara pulled her cloak tight around her, thanking Lydia for convincing her to purchase a warm winter coat for her excursions with the boys, and tore down the alleyway behind the dress shop, desperate to find a nook in which to hide herself well and wait him out. She’d escaped while his driver wasn’t looking, the universe on her side for once.

Now, to hide.

The closer to the shop, the better.

Temple would think she’d have run. He’d be calculating the time she’d had and the distance she could have made, and he’d be checking that radius. She simply needed to sit quietly and wait for Temple to pass her.

He’d never expect her to stay close.

She’d learned well how to hide in the last twelve years. Indeed, she’d learned to hide in the first twelve hours after she’d run. But she didn’t have a mail coach with a well-paid driver and a legion of people willing to help her now. Now she was in Mayfair in the dead of night. And she was on the wrong side of one of London’s most powerful men.

If he caught her, she believed he would force her to tell the truth.

But the truth about that night—about her life—was her only power. And she would be damned if he’d get it from her so easily.

That wasn’t why she’d run, though. She’d run because she worried she might not be able to resist him as well as she’d once thought.

Her heart began to pound.

Thank goodness for Mayfair’s strange architecture. She was quickly lost in a maze of mews and tiny alleyways before long, and she tucked herself behind a large pile of God knew what, trying not to inhale too strongly for the stench.

Even the aristocracy made garbage.

In her experience, the aristocracy made more garbage than most. And the things they made that were halfway decent were those they attempted to toss out anyway.

One man’s meat was another’s poison, after all.

Footsteps.

Heavy, masculine footsteps.

She pressed her forehead to her knees, willing herself smaller, holding herself utterly still, refusing to move or even breathe. Waiting for him to pass.

When the footsteps faded away, she leapt to her feet, knowing now was the most important time. She had to run. Far and fast. In the opposite direction.

It wouldn’t work. They were impossibly intertwined, now.

It would work for tonight. And with distance, she could think. Regroup. Strategize. Wage war.

She took a deep, stabilizing breath and tore out of the alleyway, getting not five feet before slamming straight into a wall of man.

Temple.

Except it wasn’t. She knew because, of all the things he made her feel—fury and frustration and irritation—he never made her feel fear.

Not like the man who held her now with his heavy, painful grip and his foul stench. And his “Well, well, wot ’ave we ’ere?”

She stilled, a rabbit caught in a trap, as he tossed her to his companion, who held her in an iron grasp as the first man gave her a long assessment from head to toe and back again. When he was finished, his appraisal turned to a leer, and his lips spread wide into a rotted-toothed grin. “Ain’t we the luckiest men in London tonight? A girl just landin’ in our laps?”

Her captor leaned in close, speaking in her ear, the words a horrifying threat on a wave of sour breath. “That’s where ye’ll be in a bit.”

The words unstuck her, and she began to struggle, kicking and squirming until her captor caught her close and the stink of him—drink and sweat and days of unwashed clothing—overwhelmed her. He leaned in and whispered at her ear. “We don’t like it when women get uppity.”

“Well,” she said, “that is a bit of a problem, as I am feeling quite uppity.”

He pushed her back into the alley, up against the stone wall, hard enough to expel the air from her lungs. Fear and panic flared, and she squirmed beneath his hand, no longer desperate to scream.

She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.

She couldn’t breathe.

She knew that he hadn’t done enough to kill her. That he’d simply knocked the wind from her. But it was enough to terrify her.

The terror turned to anger.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she struggled more, willing to do anything to free herself from his hand. She squirmed and pushed, and still he held her, his free hand tearing her coat apart, sending buttons flying before he grasped at her skirts, pulling them up, letting the frigid air curl around her ankles, her calves, her knees.

“Hold ’er,” the first man said, reaching for the fall of his trousers as breath returned, miraculously, and her fear turned from death to something else. Something worse.

She clawed at her captor, hands punching and hitting at his arms, but she was no match for him. She changed tack, feeling for the knife in the lining of her cloak, trying to stay calm. Trying to focus.

She found it as she felt the other man’s hands grab harshly at the skin above her knee, and she closed her eyes, unable to shake the vision of his filthy hand on her skin there. Slid the knife from its mooring.

But her captor saw it before she could use it. Caught her.

Was too strong for her.

He wrenched it from her hands and pressed it to her throat. “Silly girl. Weapons like this are too dangerous for the likes of you.”

Fear gave way to horror.

And then he was gone, her blade clattering to the cobblestones, the loss of his weight accompanied by a deafening roar that should have increased her fear, but instead brought relief like none she’d ever known.

Temple.

She was free, her captor releasing her the moment the duke arrived, at first attempting to rescue his friend, but now standing back, unable to tear his gaze from the fight. She scurried backward, clutching her knees to her chest, and watched as well.

Temple pummeled her attacker, now pressed against the wall just as she had been, and no doubt feeling a fear similar to hers as England’s winningest bare-knuckle boxer used every ounce of his skill and force to mete out justice.

But this was not a professional fighter who fought with rules and regulations, somehow finding a space for sport in the fight.

This Temple was out for blood. The movements were precise and economical, no doubt the product of years of training and practice, but every blow carried the heavy weight of his anger, hitting again and again until it was the momentum of his fists that kept her attacker upright, and nothing else.

He was stronger than gravity.

The second man in the alleyway seemed to have a similar realization, and decided that rescuing his friend was far less important than rescuing himself. He pushed past Temple, headed for escape.

But luck was not on the man’s side.

Temple dropped his current foe into an unconscious heap at his feet and reached out to catch the second man by the neck, pulling him off balance and throwing him to the ground. Mara saw the glint of silver in the villain’s hand. Her knife. He’d found it in the darkness.

“Blade!” she called out. She came to a crouch, ready to enter the fight. To protect him as he’d protected her. Before she could, however, Temple took a knee next to the man and resumed his battle. As though weaponry could not hurt him. As though he were immune to threat.

The knife flew through the air, finding its mark before Temple knocked it away, sending it skittering across the cobblestones, coming to a stop mere inches from her boots. She lifted it, held it tight in her hands, and did not stop watching Temple.

This time, he spoke, his blows punctuating the words that came through clenched teeth. “You. Will. Never. Hurt. Another. Woman.”

The man whimpered.

Temple leaned in close. “What did you say?”

The man whimpered again.

Temple lifted him from the ground by the lapels, then dropped him, allowing his head to fall back on the cobblestones. “I cannot hear you.”

The man shook his head, eyes closed. “I—I won’t.”

Temple landed another blow, then leaned in. “Won’t what?”

“Hurt another.”

“Another what?”

“Another woman.”

Temple leaned back on his haunches then, his massive thighs firm and wide, his breath coming hard and fast. “Get up.”

The man did as he was told, scrambling to his feet.

“Take your bastard friend with you if you wish him to live.”

The man did as he was told, pulling Mara’s groaning attacker to his feet and beating a path from the alleyway with as much haste as possible.

She watched them go, and it took her several long moments before she looked to Temple, who was staring at her from his place, several feet away, still as stone.

Once he met her eyes, everything changed. He swore once, under his breath, and came toward her, on his hands and knees, slowly. “Mara?”

The sound of her name on his lips, soft and graveled, unlocked her, and she began to tremble there in the darkness, on that grimy London street. He was by her side in seconds, reaching out, his hand hesitating in the space between them, hovering scant inches from her. Less. Not touching her. Not wanting to scare her, she imagined. Not wanting to impose.

The movement was so gentle, so kind, that it was hard to believe that he was anything but a friend.

You came, she wished to say. Thank you.

She couldn’t find any of the words. And she did not have to, because he was swearing softly and pulling her into his enormous embrace.

And she felt safe for the first time in years.

Perhaps ever.

She leaned into him, reveling in his warmth, his strength, his size. His arms came around her, pulling her tight against him, and his head bowed over hers, his whole body encircling her, protecting her.

“You’re safe now,” he whispered to the top of her head. “You’re safe.” He rocked her back and forth. “They shan’t be back.” His lips grazed her temple as he spoke to her.

She believed him.

She believed the way he spoke with care, the way his hands, instruments of her attackers’ retribution, now stroked softly along her back and down her legs, tucking her skirts carefully around her, spreading warmth through the parts of her that had gone cold with fear.

“You bested them. There were two. And you are one.”

“I told you, I do not lose.” There was lightness in the tone, one she could tell he did not entirely feel.

She smiled at the words, nonetheless. “Such arrogance.”

“Not arrogance. Truth.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she decided on: “You are not wearing a coat.”

He hesitated at that, barely, then said, “There wasn’t time. I had to find you.”

And he had.

“Thank you,” she said, the words strange and strangled and unfamiliar.

He pulled her closer. “Don’t thank me,” he whispered. “I was quite angry.”

She smiled into his topcoat. “I imagine you were.”

“I might still be angry, but you’ll have to wait until I am through being terrified.”

Her head snapped up, and she cursed the darkness in the alleyway, wishing that she could see his eyes. “Terrified?”

He turned away from her. “It doesn’t matter. You’re safe now.”

And she was. Because he was here.

Remarkably.

“How did you—”

He gave her a little smile. “I also told you I would find you if you ran.”

She shook her head, tears threatening. He’d passed. She’d heard him.

And still, he had found her.

He brushed her hair back from his face. “I doubled back.”

“If you hadn’t—”

He shook his head and pressed her tight against him again. “I did,” he said firmly.

And he had. She was safe.

“Thank you,” she said to his chest, one hand falling to his arm, causing him to stiffen and hiss in pain.

She sat up immediately, her hand dropping to his thigh. “Your arm.”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” There was a deep slice in the fabric of his topcoat, and she pulled at the fabric to find a similar cut in the lawn shirt beneath, and in his skin.

“He hurt you.” The buttons of his coat had burst in the fight, no doubt scattered somewhere on the dark cobblestones, and she pulled one lapel aside. “Take it off,” she said, as she started to unravel his cravat, to get at the collar of his shirt. “You need treatment.”

He caught her hand in his. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” she protested, guilt threading through her. “I shouldn’t have run.”

He stilled, his gaze finding hers. “What?”

“If I hadn’t run . . .” She’d hurt him.

As ever.

“No.” She ignored him, pulling her hands free, working at his cravat once more.

He stopped her again, one hand coming up to catch her cheek, his hands warm and sure. “Don’t say it. Don’t think it. This wasn’t your fault.”

She met his black gaze. “You’re hurt.”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “I was itching for a fight.”

She shook her head. “That wasn’t what this was.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain,” he teased before growing serious. “Those men were beasts. And you—” He stopped, but not before the words reminded them both of who he was.

Of who they were, together.

But now, it was her turn to care for him. “We must get you inside,” she said, standing, reaching down to help him up.

He ignored her hand, coming to his feet in a single, smooth motion. Once at his full height, he paused for a moment, and she imagined that he was weak from the pain of the wound. She moved to tuck herself under his good arm.

“Lean on me.”

He barked a laugh in the darkness. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Aside from the possibility of my crushing you?”

She smiled. “I am stronger than I seem.”

He looked down at her. “I think that is first truth you’ve told me.”

The words sent a thread of something indefinable through her. Something exciting and unsettling and half a dozen other things. “I shall take that as a compliment.”

“You should.”

No. She did not wish to like him.

Too late.

“Then why not lean on me?”

“I don’t require help.”

She peered up at him and saw something in the set of his jaw, in the firm line of his lips. Something familiar.

How many times had she said such a thing to those who offered her aid? She’d spent so much time alone, she immediately resisted the idea that someone might offer help without expecting some form of payment.

Or, worse, making themselves a part of her life.

“I see,” she said, softly.

There was a long moment as the words fell between them before he said quietly, “Sometimes, I think you do see me.”

He took her hand, and she stilled at the touch. He looked down at her. “Do I have to pay for this, as well?”

The words were a reminder of their deal, of how they were at odds. But the touch felt nothing like odds. The slide of his warm, rough skin against her own felt like pleasure. Pleasure she did not wish to acknowledge, but that she could not deny.

“No,” she said, a cold wind sending a shiver through her. “No charge for this.”

He did not reply, as they returned to the carriage. They found a quiet camaraderie in the darkness—something that would no doubt be chased away by daylight, when they would remember their past and their present. And the future, so clearly cast in stone.

And so she did not speak.

Not as they emerged from the alley, turning back toward his coach, nor when the driver leapt down from his box and came to assist them, nor when they were closed into the quiet, dark space, too confined not to touch—knees brushing against knees—and too proud to acknowledge the touch.

She did not speak when they arrived at his town house, and he leapt down to the cold, dark London street and said, “Come inside.”

There was no need for words as she followed him.

“The history of our acquaintance is rather too stained with violence, Your Grace,” Mara said when they were inside the library where she’d first revealed herself and her reason for reappearing. Where she’d drugged him for the second time.

He stripped off his topcoat to reveal his bloodstained shirt. “And whose fault is that?” he asked, the words gentler than she would have imagined they might be.

Gentle.

It was strange that the word seemed to so suddenly define this man who was known to much of London as a brutal force, all unyielding muscle and indestructible bone.

But with her, he was somehow hard angles and soft touch.

He hissed his discomfort as he peeled the shirt from his arm, shucking it over his head and across the room, revealing the clean, straight wound above a wide swath of darkened skin—black with a swirling, geometric design. Mara’s gaze flew to that cuff. To its twin on the opposite arm. Ink. She’d seen it before, but never on someone like him.

Never on an aristocrat.

He’d fetched himself hot water and linens with a skill that suggested that it was not the first time he’d returned to this empty house and mended himself, and he sat in the chair by the fire he’d stoked when they’d entered the room, dropping cloth into the steaming water.

His movement unstuck her, and Mara went to him where he stood by the fire.

“Sit,” she said softly, dipping a length of linen into the water as he folded into one of the chairs by the hearth. She wrung the scalding liquid from the cloth before setting to the task of cleaning his wound.

He allowed it, which should have surprised her. Should have surprised them both.

He was quiet for long minutes, and she forced herself to look only at his wound, at the straight slash of torn flesh that served as a reminder of the gruesome violence she might have suffered. From which he had rescued her.

Her mind raced, obsessed with not touching him anywhere but there, on the spot just above the wide, black swath of skin—as though the darkness inside him had seeped to the surface in beautiful patterns, so wicked and incongruous with his past. With the duke he should have been.

The darkness she’d had a hand in making.

She tried not to breathe too heavily, even as the tang of him—clove and thyme mixed with something unidentifiable and yet thoroughly Temple—teased at her senses, daring her to breathe him in.

Instead, she focused on healing him with soft strokes, cleaning his arm of dried blood and stemming the flow of fresh. She watched the linen cloth move from his skin to the now pink-tinged bowl and back again, refusing to look elsewhere.

Refusing to catalog the other scars that littered his torso. The wicked hills and valleys of his chest. The dark whorls of hair that made her fingers itch to touch him in another, much more dangerous way.

“You needn’t tend to me,” he said, the words soft in the quiet, dark room.

“Of course I must,” she replied, not looking up at him. Knowing he was looking down at her. “If not for me—”

His hand captured hers, pressing it against his now clean chest, and she could feel the spring of his chest hair against her wrist. “Mara,” he said, the name coming foreign, as though it was another’s.

This man, this place was not for her.

She twisted her hand in his grip, and he released her, letting her return to her ministrations as though he’d never had her in his grasp to begin with. “Tend to me then.”

“It needs stitching,” she said.

His brows rose. “You’ve knowledge of wounds needing stitching?”

She’d stitched dozens of wounds in her life. More than she could count. Too many when she was still a child. But she said none of those things. “I do. And this one needs it.”

“I suppose it will cost me?”

The words were a surprise. The reminder of their agreement. For a moment, she’d allowed herself to pretend they were different people. In a different place.

Silly girl.

Nothing had changed that night. He was still out for vengeance and she was still out for money. And the longer they both remembered it, the better.

She took a breath, steeled herself. “I shall give you a bargain.”

One black brow rose. “Name your price.”

“Two pounds.” She disliked the words on her lips.

Something flashed in his eyes. Boredom? No. It was gone before she could take the time to identify it, and he was already opening a small compartment in the table at his elbow and removed a needle and thread. “Stitch it, then.”

It occurred to her that only a man who was regularly wounded would have a needle and thread at arm’s length. Her gaze skittered over his chest, tracking a score of scars in various stages of healing. More.

How much pain had he suffered over the last twelve years?

She ignored the question, instead moving to the sideboard and pouring two fingers of whiskey in a glass. When she returned to him, he shook his head. “I won’t drink that.”

She cut him a look. “I did not drug it.”

He inclined his head. “Nevertheless, I prefer to be sure.”

“It wasn’t for you, anyway,” she said, dropping the needle into the glass before cutting a long piece of thread.

“That’s a waste of good whiskey.”

“It will make the stitches less painful.”

“Bollocks.”

She lifted one shoulder and said, “The woman who taught me to sew a wound learned it from men in battle. Seems reasonable.”

“Men in battle no doubt wanted the bottle nearby.”

She ignored the words and threaded the needle carefully, before returning her attention to his wound. “It shall hurt.”

“Despite the addition of my excellent scotch?”

She inserted the needle. “You tell me.”

He hissed at the sting. “Dammit.”

She raised a brow at him. “Shall I pour you a drink now?”

“No. I’d rather have your weapon visible.”

Her lips twitched. She would not be amused. She would not like him. He was foe, not friend.

She completed the stitching quickly and with experienced precision. As she snipped the final length of string, he reached into the drawer once more and extracted a pot of liniment from within. She opened it to a waft of thyme and clove—familiar. “This is why you smell as you do.”

He raised a wry brow. “You’ve noticed my scent?”

Her cheeks warmed at the words, to her great dismay. “It’s impossible to miss,” she defended. Still, she brought the pot to her nose, inhaling, the scent sending a tight thread of awareness through her. She dipped a finger in the pot and spread it across the enflamed skin around his wound, taking care not to hurt him before folding a piece of clean linen carefully and securing it with a long strip of the cloth.

Once finished, she cleared her throat, said the first thing that came to her. “You shall have a wicked scar.”

“Neither the first, nor the last,” he said.

“But the one for which I am responsible,” she replied. He chuckled at that, and she couldn’t help but look up, meeting his black gaze. “You think it is amusing?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I think it is interesting that you claim the one scar that has nothing to do with you.”

Her eyes went wide. “But the others do?”

He tilted his head, watching her carefully. “Each one, earned in a fight. Bouts I would not have fought were I not . . .” He hesitated, and she wondered how he would finish the sentence.

Were I not ruined.

Were I not destroyed.

Were I not disowned.

“ . . . Temple,” he finished simply.

Temple. The name he had assumed only after she’d run. After he’d been exorcised from family and Society and God knew what else. The name that had no bearing on the life he’d had. The one where he’d been William Harrow, Marquess of Chapin. Heir to the dukedom of Lamont.

All-powerful.

Until she’d stripped him of that power.

She looked at him then, cataloging his scars. The map of white and pink lines that ended in week-old bruises, the hallmarks of his profession.

Except it was not a profession.

He was wealthy and titled and with or without her death on his head, he was not required to fight. And still he did.

Temple. The fighter.

She’d made him. Perhaps that was why it seemed so right to tend to him now.

Who had tended to him the other times?

Because she could not allow herself to ask that, she asked instead, “Why Temple?”

He inhaled at the question, the hand of his good arm flexing into a fist, then back. “What do you mean?”

“Why choose that name?”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “I’m built like one.”

It was a flippant, practiced answer. Years of telling truth from lies told her it was the latter, but she did not press him to say more. Instead, her gaze tracked down one massive arm to the place where the wide black band of ink stood stark against his skin.

“And the ink?”

“Tattoos.”

Her hand moved of its own volition, fingers inching toward him before she realized that she was overstepping her bounds. She stopped a hairsbreadth from him.

“Go ahead,” he said, his voice low.

She looked up to him, but his gaze was on the band. On her fingers. “I shouldn’t,” she said, and the words unstuck her. She snatched her hand back.

“You want to.” He flexed his arm, the muscle making the ink shift as though it breathed. “It will not hurt.”

The room was not warm—the fire was new and it was winter outside the walls of the home—but still his arm was burning with heat. She ran her fingertips across the elaborate markings, all curving lines and dark space, amazed by the smoothness of his skin. “How?” she asked.

“A small needle and a large pot of ink,” he said.

“Who did it?” she met his black gaze.

His flickered away, back to where her fingers slid across smooth skin. Comfortable now. “One of the girls in the club.”

Her fingers stilled. “She is very skilled.”

He shifted beneath her touch. “She is. And thankfully has a steady hand.”

Is she your lover? Mara wanted to ask. Except she didn’t want the answer. Didn’t want to want it.

She didn’t want to think of a beautiful woman leaning over him with her keen sense of artistry and her wicked needle. Did not want to think of what happened later, after the needle had pricked his skin a thousand times. More. “Did it hurt?”

“No more than a fight on any given night.”

Pain was his currency, after all. She didn’t care for that thought, either.

“It’s my turn,” he said, and she returned her attention to him as he qualified. “To ask questions.”

The words broke the spell between them, and she let her hand fall away from his arm. “What kind of questions?” As though she didn’t know.

As though she hadn’t known for years that there would come a point when she had to answer them.

She wished he would put on a shirt.

No, she didn’t.

Except, if he was to press her into telling him about that night, ages ago, when she’d made a dozen life-altering mistakes, perhaps it would be best if he were fully clothed. If he were not so close. If he were not so suddenly compelling.

It was not sudden.

“How is it that you know so much about tending wounds?”

It was not the question she expected, and so she was blindsided by the images that came in response. Blood and screams. Knives and piles of red-stained linens. Her mother’s last gasp of breath and Kit’s tears and her father’s cold, brutal face, revealing nothing. Not emotion. Not guilt.

Certainly not remorse.

She looked down at her hands, the fingers now twisted together, a confusing tangle of cold skin, and she considered her words, finally settling on: “Twelve years has afforded me much opportunity to tend any number of wounds.”

He did not reply, and the silence stretched for an eternity before he slipped a finger beneath her chin and urged her to meet his serious black gaze. “The truth, now.”

She tried to ignore the way the simple touch shattered her concentration. “You think you know me well enough to see when I am lying?”

He did not speak for a long while, the tips of his fingers stroking across her cheek to her temple, then around the curve of her ear, reminding her of the way he’d whispered and kissed at that place in the dressmaker’s shop. She caught her breath as those wicked fingers slid down the column of her neck, resting on the place where her pulse threatened to thunder from beneath her skin.

And through it all, she kept her gaze on his, refusing to be the first to look away. Refusing to let him win, even when he closed in on her, tilting her face up and to the side, until her lips were parting at the promise of the caress he threatened.

The caress she found she wanted more than anything.

He almost gave it to her, his lips stroking once, twice, featherlight, across hers, until every inch of her ached for the touch to come firmer. To deliver on the whisper of a promise.

She sighed against his lips, and a dark, wicked sound rolled in his throat, sending a thrill through her. Had he growled? How scandalous. How wonderful.

But he didn’t kiss her properly. Instead, he spoke, wretched man. “I have spent a lifetime watching men lie, Mara. Gentlemen and scoundrels. I’ve become a tremendous judge of truth.”

She swallowed, feeling his fingers at her throat. “And I suppose you never lie?”

He watched her for a long moment. “I lie all the time. I’m the worst kind of scoundrel.”

Now, as she hovered on the edge of the caress with which he teased, she believed it. He was a scoundrel. Worse.

But it did not stop her from wondering what it would be like to tell him the truth. To unload it like a bricklayer into a perfect little pile right at his feet. All of it.

And if she did? If she told him everything—all she’d done, and why? If she laid herself bare and let him judge her for her good deeds as well as her sins?

“Tell me the truth.” The words were a caress. A temptation. “Who have you healed, Mara?” and the echo of patience in them—as though he would wait an eternity for the answer—was enough to make her ache to tell him.

Nothing you could say would make me forgive.

His words from earlier echoed through her, a threat and a promise. A warning not to give herself over to him.

He wanted his retribution, and she was the means to that end.

She’d best remember that.

Truth was a strange, ethereal thing—so few ever used it, and it was so often only noticeable in the lies one told.

“No one of consequence,” she said, “I am simply good with a needle, as well.”

“I would pay you for the truth,” he said, and even as the words came gentle, like a caress, they stung, harsh and unpleasant. This was the game they played.

She shook her head. “It’s not for sale.”

He was not through. She could see it in his gaze. And so she did the only thing she could think to distract him. She came up on her toes, and kissed him.