Page 74 of Bride of Fire
Before he could object, she stepped with brash entitlement into the bath.Hisbath.
His mouth went dry as his gaze traveled up her long legs to her soft nest of downy amber curls.
He couldn’t breathe, letting his eyes trace the womanly contours of her body. The sensuous curve of her hips. The slope of her narrow waist. The perfection of her generous breasts.
A lusty jolt of lightning struck between his thighs. He pressed down hard against it with his clasped hands, trying to will it away.
“Ohh,” she sighed in wonder as she sank slowly into the water. “This is heavenly.” The deep tub allowed her to submerge up to her shoulders.
Heavenly, he thought. Aye, that was one word to describe the lass.
“’Tis the biggest tub I’ve ever seen,” she said.
“Is it?” His voice was not his own. The words came out as taut as a drawn bow.
“Mmmm.” She teased the surface of the water with her fingers. “And woodruff is my favorite.”
Yesterday, Morgan didn’t know what woodruff was. Now it was his favorite as well. He’d never again be able to smell it without envisioning the tempting lass as she was now. Leaning her head back against the edge of the tub. Sluicing water up over her arms. Sighing with delight.
Morgan couldn’t tear his eyes away. No matter how unwise it was to hunger after a sweetmeat he couldn’t have, it didn’t stop him from doing it.
When she held her breath and immersed her head, his breath caught as well until she emerged again. Her golden hair was now dark amber and dripping. Her face was bedewed with droplets that caught the light of the candles.
She cast about for a moment in the water and then looked up at him. “Do you have a rag for washing?”
He gulped. He did. He was wearing it.
But certainly he could find something else. There was a stack of rags on the table beside his son.
Wary of both waking the bairn and exposing his arousal, he cautiously made his way to retrieve a rag for her. The wise thing would have been to wad it up and throw it to her. But that would have been discourteous. Besides, as weak as he was feeling, he would be lucky to clear the bed.
So he bit the inside of his cheek and conveyed the rag into her hand with a stiff bow.
He tried, and failed, to overlook what lay beneath the surface of the water. Rose-tipped breasts, lapped by the warm waves. Impossibly long, lean, and shapely legs. Gently wafting curls at the juncture of those legs.
Closing his eyes against temptation, he swung around and tried to find something, anything, to distract him from the beauty bathing before him.
From the moment Jenefer melted into the fragrant water, she thought she’d never felt such warmth. The waves seemed to permeate her skin, filling her with heat that eased her muscles and penetrated her bones.
Gone were her cares. Gone were her defenses.
But then Morgan brought her the rag, and she glimpsed the naked lust in his eyes.
Instantly, her blood surged like molten iron through her veins. Tongues of flame lapped at her womanly core. The drops of water clinging to her face felt like beads of sweat.
When he turned away, her gaze followed him, drifting down the captivating wet locks of his hair, the beautiful hollow of his back, locking on his lean, firm buttocks, defined by the linen drawn tightly across them.
She swallowed hard.
He wanted her.
And she wanted him.
“Morgan,” she breathed.
He didn’t turn around. “Aye?”
She cast about in her mind for an excuse to bring him close. “I can’t…reach my back.”
