His hands were firm but gentle as he undid the buttons and stays of her clothing. He was efficient and quick as he divested her of the layers that hid the body he knew so well. The last time she had been entirely naked with him he had Claimed her. Now he was slow and methodical as he touched every inch of her skin.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. His hands were magic, lighting a fire wherever they passed. He brooked no argument but led her to the large tub that had been placed in the middle of the room.
As he took off his clothes she let herself stare. Though Perry had spent many years lost in drink, he had also balanced it with exercise. She had often seen him wield a rapier, fencing until sweat dripped from his brow. He had taken long, solitary walks. His body had not deteriorated at all. His broad shoulders remained taut and muscular despite his self-abuse. His dark hair was mussed and his eye color flickered between cloudy gray and intense blue. His features were sharp and angled, a change from the puffy, unhealthy pallor he’d had before he’d quit drinking.
He allowed her to look her fill, not moving, unashamedly aroused as evidenced by his engorged cock. She licked her lips and he groaned. “You would test a saint,” he muttered.
The water slopped over the sides of the tub as he stepped in with her. He sat down and pulled her to sit between his legs.
She expected him to drive them both to completion. Instead he picked up the soap the maid had left for them and lathered it up in his hands. It smelled sweet, like lavender. “I’ll have to wash your hair too,” he said calmly as he slid his hands over her body.
“Oh no!” she protested. “I can have the maid—”
“I want to.”
She twisted around to look at him. “Why?”
He smiled. “I watched a maid wash a woman’s hair once. She thought I was passed out, but I wasn’t. It seemed like a soothing, sensual experience.”
As if he had all the time in the world, he cleaned them both, taking special care to wash between her legs until she struggled to remain still. Even as hard as she tried, water spilled onto the floor.
He finished, helped her out of the tub and used one of the blankets left for them to keep her warm by the fire. He sprinkled soap flakes into the bath water and beckoned her toward the edge of the tub. Then he said, “Lean forward.”
She bent over and he began to slowly undo her hair. When her tresses were freed he slid the blanket away. He used the pitcher to pour the rest of the warm water over her hair. Gently, carefully, he washed the dirt and blood from her wet strands. He dipped his hands in the water to rub the soap in her hair. He slid his fingers through the curls that inevitably sprang up as he rinsed her hair. The water flowed over her as his mouth had on that fateful night he had Claimed her.
He was right. It was a sensual feeling, having his hands stroking her hair, the warm water, the sensation of being cared for. His hands were gentle, mesmerizing. He squeezed the excess water out and she reached for the blanket to cover herself but he stayed her hand. His gaze locked with hers and he made her stand naked in front of the fire.
With his heated perusal her arousal rose to an unbearable pitch and she longed to drop to her knees, to take his cock in her mouth, to touch him. Wordlessly he forbade her, staying out of reach. He retrieved her hairbrush and began to slide it through her damp hair.
Time seemed to stand still. The strokes of the brush through her hair soothed her and yet increased her need to touch. He took his time, as if he enjoyed the quiet moments between them.
“Did your mother brush your hair, Sarah?” His voice was low.
“No.” It wasn’t easy to talk about her family. “I was always different,” she said. She remembered how her mother had doted on her brothers, their every need her desire. With Sarah she had been distant, almost cold. Compared to that treatment, Lady North had seemed kind. “My father brushed my hair until I was old enough to do for myself.”
“You were lonely, weren’t you?”
Tears stung her eyes. Why would this bother her now? She understood things more now than she had then. Her mother, forced to bear children by a man she did not love, probably told that the girl child the family sought wouldn’t live to give her grandchildren. Of course her mother hadn’t wanted to love her. “My father taught me to shoot and he gave me Dr. Vanguard. I was spoiled as a child and allowed to roam freely with little interference.”
She had tensed unconsciously and realized it when Perry stopped brushing her hair to touch her forehead. He held her still for a moment before resuming his comforting brushstrokes. “I am sorry, Sarah.”
“For what?” She shook her head. “I was comfortable and, until my parents died, well cared for.”
“And after they died?” he asked gently.
His kindness was killing her. She didn’t grieve for those days. Some of the incidents had been her fault, not used to having her will thwarted. Her mother had always been unavailable and her father and Dr. Vanguard had doted on her. Her brothers had ignored her, so when she’d been faced with the prospect of being a dependent in a household filled with strong-minded people, she’d been unprepared. “I lived with Jasper for over a year. His wife disliked me.”
“Why?”
She turned her head and met his gaze. “I wasn’t very likeable.”
His expression was soft and sympathetic. “You were very young and frightened.”
Her throat closed. She barely managed to speak. “I was devastated,” she whispered, and Perry enfolded her in his arms. There was nothing sexual in his embrace, only comfort and warmth. The tears that had threatened slipped from her eyes.
“I am sure that I made things worse between Mariah and myself but I was so lost. Jasper continued to ignore me, leaving my instruction to his wife.” She pressed her lips together and Perry kissed away the stray tears that remained. “They had a frequent guest, a Mr. Taylor. He began to…admire me. Mariah was furious. I didn’t know then… I didn’t realize that…” Even now she couldn’t voice what she had come to believe.
“That Mariah was having an affair with Mr. Taylor.” Perry put it so simply. Yet it hadn’t seemed simple at all.
“Mariah accused me of seducing Mr. Taylor.” She was dry-eyed now and calm. “My brother was forced to choose between his wife and his sister. He sent me to Lady North.” When she took a deep breath she realized she felt looser, less bound.
Perry held her and kissed her temple. “I’m sure Lady North was not as cruel to a small girl as she had been to Joshua and myself.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I know very little of the years you were with her.”
Against her hair she felt the muscles of Perry’s jaw clench. “With Joshua she burdened him with responsibility yet undermined his confidence. Nothing Joshua did was enough.” His voice was quiet and sad. “I was less than nothing. I was too much like my father and, so she said, too forward.” He shifted as if impatient. “Her cruelty was deliberate. But she was never able to divide Joshua from me, though she tried. Once she determined that we would stand together, she made it clear she disliked us both.”
She twisted around to stare at him. “But you were children.” For God’s sake, Perry had been nine.
“We were worse than wild dogs to her. Had it not been for Jaimison’s father, she might have done away with us.” Perry pressed her head to his shoulder. “I assume she did not feel the same about you.”
Sarah snorted. “She told me I was special and destined for greatness. I was arrogant enough to believe her.” What a fool she’d been. She’d viewed Lady North as a motherly figure, kind and benevolent. “It wasn’t until I came to Arundale Hall that I realized that she wasn’t being kind.” Elizabeth had been the kind of mother Sarah had longed for. Close in age, she and Sarah had been more like sisters than employer and maid. It had been Elizabeth who had showed Sarah what motherhood should be. The way Elizabeth had loved her cousin Gerry and taken care of the estate when Joshua had abandoned her had been an example Sarah absorbed.<
br />
“Elizabeth will be a wonderful mother,” Perry said. “And so will you.”
“Perry, I am destined to die.” She turned and held his stare. “I was born to do it. It’s what is needed from me.”
“Not by me,” he said firmly. “We will view the scrolls and face what we find together. Whatever we decide to do, Sarah, you will not have to do it alone.”
For a moment she could only stare at him, take in his handsome features, so determined, so sure. Then she reached for him and pressed her lips to his.
Surprised, Perry was frozen, but only for a moment. Sarah had never initiated their intimacy and it was a gift. No matter what she said, she loved him. He felt it vibrate through her as he cupped her face to deepen their kiss.
He dropped the brush and pressed her onto her back without breaking the contact between them. She was blissfully naked, warm and his. But he wasn’t going to rush this. He’d taken her violently against a tree twice and he wanted this time to be slow, agonizingly slow.
When he broke their kiss she protested, a small whimper that made his cock as hard as a rock. He rose to his feet and, before she had a chance to move, lifted her from the floor into his arms. Two steps and he stood beside their bed.
Their bed.
He placed her on the soft mattress and remained standing between her legs, which dangled off the end. Her hands roamed over his belly, his hips and his upper thighs, driving him to distraction. When he cupped her face to hold her gaze, she trembled. “You once worried that I only wanted your body and not your mind or your soul.”
She blinked and stared at him. Then she licked her lips and nodded. “I’m still afraid,” she whispered.
Leaning down, he brushed her lips with his. “I will never leave you, Sarah. I failed once but I won’t fail again.”
She swallowed. “You can’t know that.”
“I swear it.” From his grave, no matter what happened, he would be by her side.
He didn’t move a muscle as she searched his gaze, hope and fear waging a war that showed on her face. Her hands shook but she reached up and placed them on either side of his head, closing the circle between them.
The wolf inside howled in triumph as he pressed her back on the bed, his lips close to hers. She closed the distance and kissed him.
He was lost.
All thoughts of being gentle and slow flew out the window when her lips touched his. He wrapped his arms around her and thrust his tongue into her mouth, demanding her response. She moaned and surrendered.
When he broke the kiss she tightened her grip but he only grinned at her. “Patience, love.”
She arched her back and her feminine core slid over his hard length. He placed his hands on her thighs and held her down. “Hold still. Don’t move.”
She froze and he traveled down her body, his mouth filled with the taste of her. Her breasts quivered as he sucked on her nipples, using his teeth to add pain to the pleasure. He could spend hours in the sweet valley between her tits.
He wanted to taste her sweet honey, the scent of it flooding his senses. The wolf growled beneath the skin and he dove between her legs, finesse the last thing on his mind. He groaned when her warm cream dripped over his tongue. He wanted her insane with need and he used every technique he had to drive her over the edge.
Her cries of pleasure made him clench his hands on her thighs. God, he wanted her and he wanted her now. Slow. Slow and easy. He reined in his desperate need to drive her to another orgasm.
“Perry,” she screamed. “Please.” Her voice was hoarse.
He lifted his head and kissed his way up her body to her mouth. “Please what?”
Her eyes widened and she squirmed beneath him. “Take me, love me. Please.” The last word was a frantic shout.
He held her gaze. “How, Sarah? Say it.”
She tossed her head back and forth. “Please,” she whimpered.
With gritted teeth he dipped the head of his cock into the entrance of her wet pussy, but only partially. Then he pulled out and pressed his cock against her clitoris. She wrapped her legs around him like a vine and thrust her hips toward him. He avoided her and held her hands away from him with his. “Beg me for it, love. Tell me what you want.”
“I want you inside me. I want to feel you come inside me.” She sobbed when he thrust his hips and his cock once again inside her entrance, but it was a shallow movement, giving her only a taste.
He withheld his hard length from her, only the head inside her, and demanded her attention. “You know what to call me,” he said sternly.
She lifted her hips and drove him deeper inside her. “Master. Master. Master,” she chanted.
They were both crazy, his hips working toward blissful friction. She strained against his hands and he let them go, wanting to grip her hair as he drove inside her. She scratched his back and tensed as she screamed her release.
For an instant he reveled in the sensation of her cream surrounding him and then he could hold on no longer. He shouted as he exploded, filling her, surrounded by her. It was messy and uncoordinated, passionate. This was love. Not the counterfeit he’d been given in his past. This. She wouldn’t say the words, couldn’t let him say them to her, but she couldn’t deny what they were to each other.
He gathered her closer and kissed her gently. Still embedded in her, he refused to break the connection, wanting to stay inside her forever.
She stroked his hair and his shoulders, her hands shaking. “Perry,” she whispered when he let her breathe for a moment.
It was in her gaze, the way she ran her fingers over his eyebrows, in the catch of her voice. She loved him.
And when they both slept, his softened cock nestled against her, he prayed he wouldn’t doubt it again.
Chapter Eleven
“Are you sure you’re well enough to move?” Sarah frowned at Jaimison as he gingerly sat down at the breakfast table.
“Well enough, miss.” His voice was curt and short. Sarah shot a glance at Perry, who rolled his eyes and shrugged.
“We will not require your services for a few days, Jaimison. Please don’t push yourself.” She could tell by the pallor of his face that he was not fully recovered.
“No, miss. I will go with you to the monastery.”
She recognized that tone. Nothing would dissuade him. She sighed and focused on her husband.
He looked remarkably smug and content, which she knew was due to the night before. She couldn’t keep the tiny smile from her lips as she remembered how he’d woken her twice in the night and demanded more. The smile died as she remembered their task for the day. The scrolls.
The copies Lady North had revealed had been faded and poor. What condition would the originals be in? The implications stated in the copies were bad enough. The ones at the monastery could be worse. Yet she was determined to do it, if for no other reason than because Lady North did not wish it.
She almost jumped when Perry’s hand closed over hers. His sympathetic expression made her heart melt. He stroked her hand with his thumb. “It will be as it should be, Sarah. Don’t fret.”
What could she say? She rose from the table and the men rose with her. “Shall we go?”
Perry still had hold of her hand and he pulled her closer until he could wrap his arm around her and brush her lips with his.
They walked to the monastery from the inn and Jaimison’s gaze swerved right and left, his watchfulness a comfort. Perry kept her arm and they kept their pace slow to accommodate Jaimison’s injuries. The town of Bayeux was a typical French port town, with shops that carried exotic items such as Indian spices and silk from China as well as local wines and perfumes.
Sarah reflected that she hadn’t felt at home in England, always aware that she was a product of a very un-English arrangement, but she didn’t feel at home here in France either. The only place she’d felt safe was in Perry’s arms.
As if he’d read her thoughts, he said, “When this is over, how do you fee
l about Jamaica?”
She stumbled but recovered quickly. “Jamaica?”
He squeezed her hand on his arm. “Yes. I think once we’re finished with this business we could start over there. Joshua still has his place out there.” His voice sounded so confident, as if what they faced were an inconvenient visit by annoying relatives or a tricky legal matter. “We don’t have to continue in the rum business, though it’s lucrative.”
“What business do you suggest?” She decided to join in. It was impossible, a fantasy, but she wanted to indulge them both.
“I have always wanted to grow coffee beans,” he said, and Sarah glanced at him, surprised.
“I know very little about coffee,” she admitted. “Is there much demand for it?”
Perry smiled. “Not terribly. Production has fallen in Jamaica since the emancipation there. But I have a friend who spent several years on a coffee plantation on Martinique. He was convinced he could make it out there. I think, with Antoine in charge, we could make it pay.”
It was a beautiful thought. Jamaica sounded exotic and exciting. For a brief moment she contemplated a future.
“Here we are,” Perry announced as they reached the Bayeux Monastery.
She shook her head. It was all a dream that would never come true. The sooner she faced her fate, the better.
The bishop had been expecting them and rushed down the long corridor with quick, mincing steps. “Welcome, welcome,” he said with a wide smile.
When he spotted Sarah he stopped dead. He was an older man with the pallor typical of a man who stays indoors. He did not have the massive girth of a greedy priest but resembled a man who fasted regularly. Sarah was impressed by his alert blue eyes and his strong, square jawline. His hair was gray and he was balding on top but he exuded energy and competence.
In his frozen state he seemed shocked, and that didn’t seem like an easy thing to do. He shook his head sharply and stepped closer to her. “The resemblance is uncanny,” he murmured.
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