Page 87 of The King's Man
I shook my head, my cheeks turning hot. “It’s nothing… nothing serious. It can happen with anyone, even… not as, erm, large as you,” I said into my palms, pleading with God to open the earth and swallow me up because I wasnevergoing to be able to meet his eyes again. “It will heal without any intervention—” OhGod.How embarrassing.
“Dee…” he pried at my fingers, tried to pull my hands away from my face. “Dee, look at me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. I’m yourmate.”
When he said the word, something happened in my chest. I sucked in and my head snapped up of its own accord, as if the word were a summons I couldn’t deny.
Or didn’t want to.
Our eyes locked and he took my hands, twining fingers on the ones that were bound. “Never be embarrassed with me,” he growled. “You are the other half of my soul. Whatever you need, I need. Whatever is good for you, is good for me.”
I was stunned. How could this cocky, oafish, flirt suddenly speak my heart back to me?
But then the bond throbbed in my chest, and I gave a shaky, nervous laugh. “Well… okay.”
He arched one brow, but didn’t speak, just looked over my shoulder, his chest rising and falling quickly with his heavy breaths. “Is there water near here, safe for bathing?” he growled.
My cheeks flamed again. I’dalwaysimagined visiting the pools in this forest with my husband… then always told myself not to be stupid. If I was ever here with a man who loved me, it was likely we were on a mission and…
I swallowed hard and nodded. “About half a mile that way,” I nodded in the direction—off the path—because he had my hand twined with his. “Mineral pools. You can’t drink it, but it’s warm and good for your body—whoa!”I shrieked as Jann leaneddown and whipped me up into his chest, my arm bending oddly, but luckily the twist in the binding allowed our wrists to pivot against each other.
A moment later I was in his arms, held tightly against his chest as he plowed through the forest at a pace I thought had to be a run—until I realized, no. He had simply shortened his steps to walk with me when we walked together before.
Now, his long legs ate up the ground, and his jaw set, brows furrowed over his eyes.
“You tell me when to turn. We need to bathe and… soften your skin.”
His eyes cut down to me and the hint of a smile crept up on his beautiful mouth. My belly fluttered, and I discarded any idea of being coy with him. Instead, apart from the occasional whisper of a landmark to look for and directions, I wrapped my arm around his neck and made a study of tasting the skin on his neck and throat and under his jaw.
He was shaking by the time we broke into the small clearing where the steam of the mineral pools met the shifting mists.
The moment we were at it’s edge, he lowered me to my feet, then we set about undressing—a tricky undertaking with the binding. By the end, we were both laughing, and he’d used a blade to cut the length of my sleeve because I couldn’t get the shirt off otherwise, and he didn’t want me stuck in wet clothes.
Then, when we were both naked, he whipped me up into his chest again and plowed into the water carrying me. I shrieked when the splashes of his passage settled on my skin and chilled immediately in the cool air, but a moment later, he dropped, sinking us both below the surface, crouching and making himself my chair as he lowered us both into the warm water.
And the moment I sighed and turned my head to look at him, he kissed me again, and I stopped thinking.
With soft kisses, gentle stroking, and whispered words, Jann put me back on my feet, standing between his knees, and he began to bathe me, rubbing my skin under the water in a way that felt divine—and made my breath catch when his hand trailed up between my legs.
I’d been cupping my hand, pouring water over his shoulders and rubbing it to remove the salty sweat from his skin, but I froze, trembling, when he stroked mesotenderly.
“Here?” he whispered. “Is this where I hurt you?”
Oh God. My heart pinched, and that made the bond thrum, and that made me breathless.
“You didn’t hurt me, Jann,” I murmured, my free hand braced on his shoulder for balance, because his gentle, probing touch was making my breath come too quickly. I gripped his forearm with the hand that was bound to him, and would have been embarrassed, but his touch lit me on fire.
With a low rumble in his chest, and his breath audible in the cool air, Jann shifted me closer and closer, pulling me into his body, trailing one hand up and down my thigh and between them, teasing my flesh so that my breath caught, gently—hesitantly—inserting fingers and massaging my most private skin.
At first I did war with the intimacy of it, avoiding his eyes, keeping my head down and focusing on the delicious feel of him—but he caught me averting my eyes and his hand between my leg stopped. His free hand came up, tipping my chin, forcing me to look at him. I was afraid of what he’d say—but instead of speaking, when our eyes latched, he touched me again. So softly at first. So carefully. And then, as my breath quickened and I widened my stance to urge him on, he probed more.
There was something incredibly vulnerable about staring into his eyes as he touched me—seeing the shadows and flashes in his gaze, and watching him respond to mine. I was glad hedidn’t speak, because I thought it might overwhelm me in the all the wrong ways. I merely clung to him, panting, and urged him on with nods when a question entered his eyes.
I cursed the tears when they came—I was just tired! And the last few days had been so hard.
But Jann’s low growl of apprehension made me shake my head and hold his arm in place with my bound hand when he stopped touching me, and I lifted my free hand to cup the back of his neck and keep him there with me.
