The Marquis who Mustn't (Wedgeford Trials Book 2) by Courtney Milan

Author:Courtney Milan [Milan, Courtney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937248758
Publisher: Femtopress LLC
Published: 2023-10-16T18:30:00+00:00

13

Naomi’s morning dawned cold and blustery. March had arrived, and with it, early rains. The Wedgeford Trials—a cross between a fair and a competition—would follow in the next month, and Naomi had much to do.

The next ambulance class was tomorrow. The inn’s stores needed to be examined. Time could not be wasted.

Yet she found herself daydreaming as she mixed egg into her rice, watching the yolk swirl and dissolve, coating each grain.

Thoughts of Kai’s hands kept intruding on her breakfast.

Which was her fault, because she’d come up with the clever idea of putting salve on his hands. Regularly.

She thought he’d been working hard when he was rebuilding the kiln. Now that he’d started producing pottery, though, she had to slip away in the afternoon just to find him to apply her salve. Which she still did, for the purpose of scientific inquiry.

She would walk up and sit in his outside work area for a few minutes, waiting for him to finish.

It turned out that watching a man at work did something to her. Something soft and yearning had taken residence alongside her vital organs.

The first time she’d watched him at the wheel, he’d silently pushed the clay up, up, into a smooth, round, peaked mountain, then somehow taken the head of it in his hand and pushed the length of it down once more. Her mouth had dried. She’d thought of Chloe and the rubbers she’d mentioned. She’d thought of Kai’s expert handling of what appeared to be a pillar of dark clay, raising it up and then doing something with his hands, pushing it down. There was something about a man handling a long, thick length of dark brown clay that made her itch from the inside. He was just so…proficient. With his hands. With his whole body, really—kicking the wheel to spin, leaning in, thighs and arms steady, his entire core solid as he made the clay do his bidding. It truly was not fair how utterly arresting the sight was.

Chloe and her stupid comment about condoms had not left Naomi’s mind.

Kai would see her arrive, nod, bring his work to a finish, then rinse his hands and equipment in a barrel. Washing clay off was a messy business, but Naomi was a medical professional. She could apply salve without thinking impure thoughts.

Except… She was more medically adjacent than actually medical. And she was not really a professional. Maybe semi-professional. Professional-ish. If professionals had taken one three-hour class, with two more on the way.

At no time in that single course had anyone told her how to not feel things about her false fiancé’s hands.

Naomi had thought things would get easier when he started to fire his work in the kiln. But that involved him moving great quantities of brick, plastering up the entrance, and stoking fires. When the fire burned out, the brick came down and the pots were removed. Kai examined the work that came out with care. Sometimes, when one didn’t pass muster, he’d toss them with a great crack in a pile of rejects.

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