Twice Tempted by a Rogue (23 page)

Her hand froze, trapping the sponge against her chest. “You never had the occasion to find out? I find that hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “I’ve never bathed with a woman before.”

“Yes, but surely you needn’t bathe with a woman to—” She sat up abruptly, causing a little splash of her own. “You said it’s been a long time for you.”

“Yes.” He drew out the word.

“Years, you said.”

He nodded.

“How many?”

Rhys had to think about it. “Eleven? That sounds about right.”

She stared at him. “Eleven years. You haven’t made love to a woman in eleven years.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever ‘made love’ to a woman, precisely. But I tupped a fair number when I was a youth. Whores, mostly.”

“Mostly,” she echoed, beginning to soap her other arm. She seemed too distracted now to make a true performance of it, but that didn’t keep Rhys from enjoying the show.

“Aye, mostly.” He hoped his honesty didn’t offend her, but he didn’t see any way around it. This was his wife-to-be. If she asked him a question, he would tell her the truth.

About most things.

He cleared his throat and continued, “My first was a local girl, at Eton. She was curious, and I was … sixteen. But the experience was so damned horrid for us both, I kept to whores after that. No more virgins.”

“But how did ‘no more virgins’ become ‘no more women’?”

Dipping his head, he scooped water in his cupped hands and sloshed it over his face and neck. When he surfaced, he shook himself and said, “I joined the army.”

“Somehow I’d formed the impression that even soldiers can find time for women. You know, at least an hour or two here and there, over the course of a decade.”

“Most do.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.” He suddenly realized that he might be making himself sound rather pitiful. Or worse, less than virile. He hastened to add, “It’s not that I stopped wanting women. Don’t misunderstand. But I spent most of those years fighting or recovering from injuries, so my options were limited by circumstance. And more than that … I guess I just decided I’d rather not lie with women who didn’t truly want me.”

She stared at him. “What woman in her right mind wouldn’t want you?”

He shook his head, uncertain how to explain it to her. To be sure, he’d had offers. Made by all the wrong women, for all the wrong reasons. Soldiers’ widows looking for a warm tent and strong protector. Married ladies of the
ton
who wanted to be tupped by a big, strapping, scary-looking brute, but who were just snobbish enough to eschew the footmen. Whores who couldn’t afford to be choosy.

He thought of Leo Chatwick, who could pick up a harlot in Covent Garden and have her half in love with him before the hour was out. Perhaps if Rhys possessed that sort of talent, he could have stomached paying for sexual pleasure. But the harlots seldom came to him willingly, and even when they did, they didn’t care to linger.

“Once I’d gone that long without bedding any women, it seemed worth waiting to bed the right woman.” Just in case it needed saying, he added, “That’s you.”

“Really?” Her face softened, set aglow with candlelight. “Rhys, that’s terribly sweet.”

Sweet?
Well, he supposed he’d take sweet. It was better than pitiful.

She lifted one of her legs from the water and propped it atop his bent knee. Despite the cool temperature of the bath, he could have sworn drops of water sizzled between them.

When she leaned forward to soap her ankle, he took the sponge from her hand. “Let me.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Taking time to enjoy it, he dragged lather over every inch of her soft, supple calf and thigh. When he’d finished the first leg, she lowered it back beneath the water and lifted the other for his attention. As he stroked her, she hummed low in her throat.

Emboldened, he slid the sponge up her inner thigh. She caught his wrist and pulled his hand higher. Over the smooth slope of her belly, all the way up to her breasts.

“Wash them, too,” she urged.

He obeyed, stricken mute with lust as he swirled white foam over each milky breast and pale pink tip. He teased her nipples to peaks with the rough sponge, then ran soap along the vulnerable, hidden curve beneath each breast.

Then, casting the sponge aside, he cupped her breasts in his bare hands. His fingers slicked over her soapy skin, and he clamped his thumbs tight over her puckered nipples to anchor them. She moaned her approval as he stroked and kneaded, but when he slid his fingers down toward her sex, she stayed his hand.

Hell. He’d done something wrong. Gotten too greedy. She didn’t want him to—

“Your turn,” she said, her lips curving in a seductive smile. She reached for the sponge and soap.

His turn? Was she serious? He was about to spill in the bathwater, just from washing
her
. He didn’t think he could tolerate being on the receiving end of such ministrations.

But apparently she didn’t mean to ask his permission.

Puffs of scented white foam bloomed as she squeezed the sponge. She began with his arms, washing each from wrist to shoulder. The jasmine fragrance calmed his nerves. Sensations rippled and slid over his skin. God, it felt so … so good. There was no other word for it. Just pure, simple, straightforward
good
. Damn good. She had him so relaxed, he thought he would dissolve into the bathwater.

Until, stretching forward, she swabbed him under the arm. He flinched and bolted upright.

“I knew it. You
are
ticklish.”

“I suppose I am.”

Looking pleased with herself, she kept right on working, lathering his chest, neck, shoulders, legs. And he loved every moment of it, even when she teased the bottom of his foot and he convulsed with shock and laughter, and they lost half the bathwater onto the floor.

“Come here.” Grasping her waist with both hands, he pulled her to him. Her legs bent and doubled, forming a wall between his chest and hers. He wrapped his own big legs around her, planting his heels at the base of her spine. And then he kissed her, long and hard and deep. Tasting each of her lips in turn and exploring her mouth with his tongue. She tasted of wine and spice, and just faintly of soap. Both intoxicating and innocent. He went dizzy with the knowledge that tonight he needn’t hold anything back.

Grasping his shoulders, she pulled up and repositioned herself until she knelt between his legs. He kissed her again, and oh, God. Now her firm, soapy breasts pressed to his chest, slipping and rubbing against his scarred flesh.

She wriggled one hand between them, and Rhys felt her slender fingers close over his erection. Pleasure jolted through him as she gently stroked. Up, then down.

“Stop,” he said hoarsely, tearing his lips from hers. “Stop. It’s been eleven years. If you keep that up, I won’t last eleven seconds.”

“I know,” she said, pressing little kisses to his mouth and jaw. “I know. It’s all right. Let me do this for you first, and then we can take our time.” She sat back on her heels, still stroking him. “Let me touch you, Rhys. I’ve been wanting to touch you. You feel so good.”

He groaned as her fingers explored his full length, tracing each vein and ridge, skimming over the swollen, sensitive crown. Rhys dug deep down inside himself, fairly down to the beds of his toenails, searching for the willpower to grab her hand and make her stop. It was a fruitless search.

“Merry …” Damn it, he thought he’d finished with these one-sided sexual encounters, where all the enjoyment was on his end. “I want to pleasure you.”

“Oh, you will.” Her eyes danced with ripples of silver. Her fist tightened around him, and she began to pump faster. “Believe me. This is for my pleasure as much as it is for yours.”

He doubted that. As her hand sweetly massaged, he couldn’t even put words to the sensations coursing through his body. No, no words. Just hoarse sighs and ragged moans. She worked him in a steady rhythm, and he reveled in the newness of it. All the ways it felt different from when he pleasured himself. Her hand was smaller and so much softer than his own. Her grip wasn’t as tight, and her pace was slower than he would have set. Still, he fought the instinct to thrust his hips or urge her faster. Instead he closed his eyes and forced himself to be patient, to submit to her rhythm and the bliss mounting by steady, slow degrees.

Another small surrender, so torturous and yet so sweet.

“God.” He gripped the sides of the tub, and every muscle in his body went rigid with the effort of restraint. “You have to stop,” he said through gritted teeth. “You have to stop now, or I can’t …”

“Shh. Just let it happen.”

He didn’t have a choice anymore. Free will had ceased to exist. The crisis building in his loins was as inescapable as destiny itself, and twice as powerful.

With one last snarling growl, he let the climax take him. His hips bucked off the tub’s copper base, and he jerked into her tight fist, spurting jet after jet into the tepid water.

When the waves of pleasure subsided, he stared unfocused at the ceiling as he tried to catch his breath. All the while, she kept caressing and stroking him, smoothing those talented fingers over his spent body. He couldn’t believe the small miracle of it: that she not only
wanted
to touch him, she would keep doing so willingly, after the deed was finished.

And he felt the same about her. He wasn’t filled with self-loathing and a sudden, irresistible urge to yank on his clothes, toss a coin on the table, fling himself on a horse and ride away so hard, so fast, he just might finally outrun himself. No, he wanted to stay right here, and a team of draft horses couldn’t have dragged him away. He would touch and caress and kiss and stroke and lick and pleasure her all night long. Just as soon as some strength returned to his limbs.

“You were right,” he said moments later, still blinking up at the ceiling. “That is remarkably fine scrollwork.”

She laughed and leaned forward to kiss his cheek.

He sat up with sudden purpose. “Let’s get out of this bath.”

Beside the tub were two pitchers of clean water for rinsing. He stood up and raised one over his head, quickly dousing himself clean, then shaking like a wet dog.

“Rhys!” she squeaked, holding her hands up as a shield.

“What? You’re already wet.” He stepped out of the tub and directed her to stand in the center. Hefting the second pitcher in one hand, he told her, “Now turn your back to me, hold up your hair, and be still.”

She did as he asked, and he rinsed her slowly, allowing just a trickle of water to escape the pitcher as he moved it over her shoulders and neck. When the water cascaded down the elegant curve of her spine, she shivered and laughed. He poured water over the taut, pale globes of her backside, watching gooseflesh ripple over her skin.

“Turn around.”

Smiling, she turned to face him. He dashed water over her collarbones. Then, with great concentration, he applied a small trickle to each of her breasts in turn. Carefully aiming the stream, he poured water directly over her nipple. Between the chill of the bath and this new stimulation, the round nub puckered tighter than ever. Which was, of course, exactly his hoped-for result.

Still holding the half-empty pitcher at his side, Rhys bent his head and sucked that lovely pink nipple into his mouth. She jolted with surprise, but he slid his free arm around her waist to steady her.

Damn, but he’d been waiting to do this forever. And thanks to her selfless efforts in the bath, now he could take all the time he pleased. Alternating between her breasts, he sucked and licked those delectable buds, pressing his face close to breathe in the fresh, clean scent of her skin.

Curling her fingers around his shoulders, she released a low, breathy moan. And though he’d just experienced a devastating climax not five minutes ago, Rhys felt his loins beginning to stir again.

Reluctantly, he pulled away from her breasts. Her nipples were darker and harder than ever. They looked like a pair of tightly furled rosebuds, glistening with dew. He moved the pitcher over her belly and poured a stream of water straight over her navel. The water quickly overflowed the small depression, channeling down to her pelvis and between her legs.