Page 88 of Bride of Ice
“I know how to give a man a bath.”
“No doubt.” His voice cracked on the words as he imagined her sliding her palms over his chest, his stomach, and lower. “I just meant ye needn’t trouble yourself.”
“’Tis no trouble.”
She planted the candles on the table and plucked a bottle from the basket. Removing the stopper, she poured a generous dollop of clove oil into the bath water, swishing it in with her fingers. Her eyes skimmed the surface of the water with cool indifference. But her hand stirred an agitated current beneath, and when she lifted her hand to shake the water from her fingers, it was with an abrupt flick of her wrist.
“Unless you’dprefersomeone else,” she said. Her casual shrug was unconvincing. “I suppose I could call Bart back if—”
“Bart?” he squeaked. Bloody hell, did she honestly think he wanted to have his back scoured by a scrawny youth with grimy knuckles? “Nay, thank ye.”
On the other hand, the way the lass was stirring his blood, perhaps a good rough sponging was just what he needed to scrub the lust from his body.
From the moment she’d entered the bedchamber, Hallie had been determined to foil Isabel’s efforts at fomenting romance. She’d intended to remain aloof yet civil. Thorough yet perfunctory. To perform the task with the same efficiency she used to polish a suit of armor.
But Colban an Curaidh was not a suit of armor. He was a living, breathing man. He had thoughts and feelings, opinions and desires.
He also had eyes that could drown her in their depths. And a body that could make her forget she was a warrior lass.
The way she felt right now—off-kilter and distracted—he could easily bend her to his will. And that would be perilous indeed.
So, like a nervous novice in her first skirmish, she found herself sizing up her foe. Measuring his mettle. Delaying engagement for as long as possible.
“The water’s growin’ cold,” Colban said.
She exhaled her worry on a sharp breath. She could do this.
“Climb in. I’ll lay out the linens.”
She rummaged in the basket, dropping a sponge into the bath. Lifting the linens one by one, she arranged them painstakingly atop the coverlet of the bed. She lit the candles from the flames on the hearth and replaced them with trembling fingers.
Meanwhile, from the corner of her eye, she watched Colban strip off his leine.
She saw men in all states of undress every day. It was inevitable when one spent as much time as she did in the armory. Colban was no different than most of the fit Rivenloch knights with his powerful shoulders. Broad chest. Well-defined arms. Flat stomach.
But the way his shoulders flexed and his muscles rippled took her breath away. And when he removed his trews, baring his firm hindquarters, her heart began thumping like a fulling mill. As he climbed into the water, he looked like some magnificent god returning to the sea.
Her fascinated gaze was drawn again and again to his enticing contours. And the sight of him—so close, so real—muddled her brain and tied her tongue in knots.
But it was too late to withdraw now. She’d committed to giving him a bath. With a shaky sigh of resolve, she knelt beside the tub.
Colban was staring hard at the water between his knees, as if he might boil it with his focused glare. As she neared, he moved his hands casually to his naked lap, cheating her curious eyes.
She told herself Colban an Curaidh was only a man, not a god.
As if further proof of that, when she lifted her wet sponge to his brow, she noticed a faint scar at his hairline. That was good. Perhaps if she could focus on his imperfections, she wouldn’t be distracted by his perfections.
She nodded to the thin white line. “How did you get that?”
His fingers traced the mark. “Glancing blow of a dagger.”
She nodded and rubbed across it with the wet sponge.
He closed his eyes. She continued laving his face, trying to employ what Isabel called “a woman’s touch.”
She dabbed lightly at the mottled flesh beneath his eye. “Your bruise is healing.”
He nodded.
