Instead, he kept it within his own. His warm, broad, and impossibly steady palm wrapped around her smaller one.
Cixi followed his every movement with a puzzled, unguarded expression and quivering breath that had started to turn shallow without her permission.
Then, with annoying patience, he lifted her hand and drew it towards himself. Cixi's cheeks turned immediately red. Why was he looking at her in a way like a sailor gazing at the distant shore after years at sea, longing to touch the earth.....?
He placed her palm against his chest, and an electrifying wave coursed through her veins.
His hand remained over hers, pressing her gently against the firm warmth under his shirt. She felt the hard plane of muscle, the heat of his body, and beneath that — the strong beat of his heart.
Cixi swallowed hard.
Her lashes trembled as her gaze dropped at last from his face to where her hand lay trapped between his chest and his hand.
