Page 86 of The Scot Beds His Wife
She gasped as her chilly limbs tingled with the sudden heat of the water. How strange and wondrous it felt to be submerged after so many weeks of heating just enough ice-cold river water over the fire at Erradale to rinse off the grit of the day with harsh charcoal soap.
With her calf draped over the ledge like it was, her split legs allowed the heat of the water to flow against her parted sex. The sensation was both delicious and alarming and brought every bit of her attentionthere. To that place suddenly swollen and throbbing and astoundingly hot.
Another moan escaped her before she could call it back.
Hovering to her left, still bent over the tub, her husband whispered in her ear. “I’ve given diamonds to a lass that elicited less effusive pleasure.”
“What the hell would I do with diamonds?” she breathed, allowing her eyes to flutter closed as she luxuriated in the masculine scent of his soap and aftershave that lingered from the bath he’d taken prior to their wedding. “Oh, I know,” she amended. “I’d buy a thousand of these baths.”
Gavin said something against her ear in his native tongue that produced shivers along every inch of her bare skin. No mean feat for one submerged in warm water.
Turning toward him, she was struck by how dangerously close their lips were. How sweet his breath felt as it cooled the moisture beaded on her cheeks by the steam. “What did those words mean?” she whispered.
“I’m not sure, myself,” he answered.
Suddenly it was all too much. The erotic golden glow of the fireplace burnishing his bare torso a celestial color. The appeal of his parted lips. The heat between her parted legs, some of which, she had to admit, had nothing to do with the water.
Samantha retreated the only way she could think of, sliding down to dunk her head.
Opening her eyes, she saw through the filter of the rippling surface that he’d stood and left her. Had she not been submerged, she’d have breathed a sigh of relief.
Resurfacing, she slicked her hair back and wiped her eyes, blinking them open to note that her husband was nowhere to be seen.
“Gavin?”
“I like it when ye say my name, bonny.” The rumble came from behind her, but before she could maneuver for a look, his hands rested on her scalp. Strong fingers quickly produced a sudsy lather in a rhythmic massage that turned her bones to hot wax and her muscles to puddles of pleasure.
“I noticed ye were right this morning,” he said conversationally, as he kneaded the tender hairline behind her ear. “Ye’d not been able to wash the soot from yer hair. Forgive me the oversight.”
In this moment she’d forgive him just about anything,and as soon as her tongue started working, she intended to tell him so.
He gently pushed her shoulders forward, so he could gather the length of her hair from behind her back and work the suds into it, as well. Then, he dipped an ewer into the water. “Look to the clouds, lass,” he prompted.
Obediently, she looked up, and noticed for the first time that a skylight had been installed over the fireplace. Of course, in the storm, no stars were visible, but his hand cupped over her forehead to protect her eyes as he poured the water over her hair, and then dipped the ewer to repeat the action until all the soap had been washed away. She could think of nothing so luscious as the slide of the water and soap over her shoulders.
“What is the skylight for?” she asked, doing her best to dispel this strange, heavy sensation building between them. Nothing like a little small talk to do just that.
“Inverthorne is older than Ravencroft by a few hundred years,” he murmured in a silken baritone, dipping the ewer a third time. “More a fortress than a manor, ye ken? They tend to be rather dreary and dark. But I like to study books here by day, and the stars at night, when I can see them.”
“Oh,” she said, rather idiotically, as he took an unbelievably fluffy towel and blotted her face with it.
Setting the ewer aside, he picked up a bar of white soap specked with what appeared to be tiny purple herbs.
Samantha reached for it, but he easily held it out of her grasp.
“Allow me,” he said with a solicitous smile.
“No. I can do it myself. It’s only my leg that’s injured. My hands work just fine.” Suddenly self-conscious, she once again covered herself as best she could, crossing onearm over her breasts, and cupping the other one between her legs.
A devious smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Glad to hear it, bonny, and we’ll test that claim in a moment, but I’ve just acquired a wife, and I believe I’d like to thoroughly inspect my acquisition.”
“And you may,” she retorted, holding out her hand for the soap. “Just as soon as she’s clean and presentable.”
“Ye might not know this about me…” He knelt by the bath, dipping the hand that held the soap dangerously beneath the calm, now opaque surface of the water. His skin was slightly flushed, even in shadow. “But I prefer my women… a wee bit dirty.”
Three successive flashes of lightning broke the darkness in the room, illuminating eyes that burned above the crests of his cheeks a more startling green than usual. It distracted her enough that she didn’t flinch when the hard surface of the soap slipped along her arm.
“I’ve imagined more than once what yer foul mouth could do to me.” The soap slid up her arm to her shoulder, and then angled back down over her clavicle and down the expanse of her chest. “I doona care if ye’re tarnished. Or filthy. All to the good, in my opinion.”
