Traveling light had its benefits. True, she wouldn’t have her own sheets tonight, but on the bright side, all they’d had to do was walk Aramis off the ship and go straight to the inn. There was no waiting while trunks were loaded and wagons arranged. The result was that half an hour after leaving the ship, her bath was ready.
Behind the dressing screen, she slipped off her robe and sank into the water. Ah, it felt good. This was heaven, right here in the tub next to the fire. The innkeeper had thought she was crazy for wanting a bath so early in the morning. But this was absolutely divine, or at least it would be. She smiled to herself. She was missing one thing. She could hear him moving around in the room beyond the screen. Elowyn called out, “Grahame, come join me. I hear warm baths work wonders for stiffness of all kinds.”
“I wouldn’t want it to work too well.” Grahame came around the screen, already pulling his shirt off. “For the record, I do think this is a trick to see me naked.”
“It seems to be working.” Elowyn laughed. She was feeling decidedly giddy, a combination of elation and lack of sleep. She leaned her head back against the rim of the tub. “Stand over there.” Elowyn gestured a bubble-covered hand toward the foot of the tub. “I can see you disrobe better that way.”
“Brazen wench.” Graham grinned and bent to pull off his boots. “How is this? Can you see me now?” he teased.
Elowyn sent a splash of water his way. “Yes, I can. There’s just not much to see, yet.” Although there was. Grahame was bare-chested, showing off the tanned, smooth musculature of his torso in all its glorious planes and ridges. Certainly, she’d felt the power of his body when he held her, but to see the proof of it so boldly on display was another thing entirely. There were scars, too, reminders that this power had been tried and tested. Her hands wanted to trace those scars. She wanted to hear those stories.
Grahame’s hands dropped to his waistband, his eyes a wicked gleam of silver as his gaze held hers. “I hope this will change your mind, a little something for the girl who hasn’t seen anything good yet.”
He was a consummate flirt beneath that officer exterior of his. She wondered how many people ever saw him like this. More important, how many women saw him like this? It wasn’t a very ladylike question to want to know but it was driven by curiosity. She knew so little about him, technically, and yet she felt she knew him in ways she’d never known her other lovers, or had wanted to know them. She’d been happy with the physical level of those liaisons. She’d not even been tempted to take them further.
That was not the case with Grahame. Physical intimacy had simply whetted her appetite for more emotional intimacies. She wanted to know him and there was danger in that. Nothing could come of this beyond momentary pleasure.
Grahame pushed his trousers and smalls down past his hips too slowly for her tastes. She let out a breath and blew bubbles in the water while he grinned at her impatience. “Good things come to those who wait, my dear.”
They most certainly did. There at last, he stood before her entirely naked. Last night it had been too dark. There’d been no time to study him. But now, in the morning light, she wanted to study every glorious inch of him, although her eyes had a will of their own. They wanted to rest on the long, jutting phallus and the other manly accoutrements of him. He was absolutely, splendidly male. “You make my mouth water.”
Grahame laughed and slid into the tub behind her, making the water rise and slosh as he wrapped his legs about her and pulled her close, that envious phallus pressing up against her bottom in the suds. “I’ll taste better when I’m clean, I promise.” Grahame dropped a kiss along Elowyn’s jaw and nibbled at her ear. “Mmm. You taste better already.”
Chapter Ten
“It’s the soap,” Elowyn murmured, settling into him. She reveled in the feel of his body, the strength of his legs and the ease with which his arms wrapped around her. She closed her eyes and let her head loll against his chest. “It’s lavender. It’s good for relaxation.” Not that either one of them needed to relax. They were both bone-tired after their night crossing.
“You pack the most interesting items.” Grahame’s voice caressed her ear. She heard him pluck the washcloth up from under the water. He was washing her, moving the cloth over her breasts and belly. “You had a few minutes to grab essentials and what did you grab?” He repeated the languorous washing pattern, sluicing warm water over her body. “You grabbed lavender soap, lavender oil and a white, satin dressing robe.”
“All of which I’ve used less than twenty-four hours later,” Elowyn argued. “I think that’s the ultimate test of what is practical. Those items are small and hardly take up any room. You make it sound as if that’s all I brought. I brought other things, too—; undergarments, a spare dress, a hairbrush, toiletries, a nightgown.”
He interrupted her with a laugh. “Let me guess, you brought that French-silk thing.”
“I most certainly did and you’ll be glad to thank me for it later. In fact, you should be thanking me now. Without my lavender soap and oils you wouldn’t be having this bath.” She tipped her head up to catch his eye.
“Well, you may have a point.” Grahame looked down at her and smiled. Her stomach flipped. She really ought not to like him so much. He was arrogant and usurping. He’d upset her plans on two occasions now by barging into her house, into her room and demanding unscheduled departures. And he’d been right to do so. If they’d not left when they had, they’d have been cooling their heels in Dover for an indefinite period of time. It was hard to find fault with such a man.
“Would you like me to wash your hair?” Grahame murmured. His hands were busy kneading her breasts, his thumbs brushing her nipples into erect peaks. The warmth of pleasure was starting to build at her core ever so gradually.
She managed a drowsy response. “It will take too long to dry.”
Grahame nipped her ear and pulled on the lobe with his teeth. She loved that, just the right hint of fierceness. “I’m not talking about the hair on your head.” His hand dropped into the water between her legs, the bar of soap running up and down her inner thighs. Then came the cloth, washing, rinsing, massaging, pressing intimately around her furrow, her pearl, until her core was pulsing with want.
“How do you know what to do? You know my need before I do.” Elowyn was barely cogent, drowsiness and need demanding her reserves for themselves. He knew just how to touch a woman to make her scream, to make her beg, to make her boneless in the bathtub. She had no idea how she would rise up out of the water without help.
His voice was a low litany at her ear, guiding her toward completion and she did as she was told. Her body had decided for her; it was her only choice. “Lean against me, Elowyn. Slide down a bit, yes, like that. I can take you where you want to go.” He rubbed his thumb across the source of her bliss, once, twice more and she was there at the promised destination. She pushed back hard, sloshing water out of the tub as the intensity of release hit her.
Slowly, she came back to earth. The water was cooling and it was time for his pleasure. “If you stay in here much longer, you’ll wrinkle.” Elowyn said coyly.
“Where shall I go?” Grahame played along.
She rose first, amazed she’d found the strength. “To bed, Grahame. You’ve had a long—” she paused and cast a glance downward “—night.”
Grahame laughed and put a hand to his chest in mock disappointment. “You wound me! A long night, indeed. Perhaps I will wait and hope for better compliments.”
She gave his phallus a contemplative look. “I wouldn’t wait much longer if I were you. Wrinkles are starting to settle in.” Elowyn handed him a towel that had been set to warming by the fire. “This should help.” She watched him stand in the tub and wrap it kilt-style about his hips.
“I might never let you wear anything else,” she said appreciatively. “Now, lie down. It�
�s time you let me pleasure you.”
* * *
He shouldn’t allow himself to enjoy this, shouldn’t allow himself to let the intimacy she wove like a spell seep into his bones any further than it already had. But he was helpless to halt it. He let Elowyn strip away his towel. He let the scent of lavender fill his nostrils when she opened her vial. He let her pour the oil on his skin, warmed by her breath. He let her put her hands on his back, his shoulders, his buttocks. He let her. The words played in his head like a mantra.
When had a woman last pleasured him? When had a woman ever captivated him so entirely in bed and out? She had risen admirably to the occasion yesterday, taking the need for a premature departure from Dover in stride. The princess who had needed two trunks for a single night had met the challenge of packing a single valise for interminable days on the road, proving her versatility and her fortitude. She’d given up clean sheets and gowns because he’d asked it. He’d been selfish to ask it of her. He knew full well his personal agenda to reach Vienna had driven his decisions. Nonetheless, she’d not questioned his motives and she’d been brave. She’d been terrified on the boat, but hadn’t given voice to it; that’s how he knew she’d been brave. Facing terror without complaint was the ultimate test of bravery, and she’d passed admirably.
He was about to be selfish again, taking the pleasure she offered with no real hope of anything coming from it. A woman like her would never want a man like him, not if she knew who he really was. But that didn’t stop Grahame from giving himself over to her ministrations, his body finding its own relaxation in her touch, his muscles casting off their strain. Her hand slipped between his buttocks and cupped his sac. He gave a groan. Even relaxed and tired, his body roused to her willingly.
“Roll over,” she whispered. Any number of fantasies raced through his head. Would she?
She straddled him, massaging his chest as she had his back, her hands moving ever downward until she gripped the very root of him, her hand slick with oil. She stroked him hard and firm, her thumb rubbing the tender tip of him. Her other hand squeezed his sac. “You like that?”
“Yes, dammit, I like that,” Grahame managed. What man wouldn’t? She was looking up at him from her place at his thighs, her hair spilling over her shoulders. He thought he might spend right there in her hand.
“Shall I put my mouth on you, Grahame?” Her voice was all sultry persuasion.
“Would you like to?” The power of speech was rapidly leaving him. He would be reduced to caveman—like grunts any moment if she kept stroking his head like that.
She gave him a wicked smile. “I would like to very much.” She parted his thighs, and bent to him, taking his manhead in her mouth, her tongue licking and swirling him into boneless compliance until his body could stand the exquisite torture no longer. He watched her sit up just in time to take him in her hand and catch him as he spent, coating her fingers in his seed. He’d never done, never seen, anything as intimate as what she did next.
Elowyn held his gaze, a courtesan’s smile on her lips as she lifted her fingers and licked them one by one, sucking on the tips in mimicry of how she’d sucked on him. She ran her tongue along the last finger. “You’re right. You do taste better after a bath.”
“I don’t deserve you,” Grahame sighed, settling her against his side. He wanted nothing more now than to sleep. The sleepless night and the exhausting exhilaration of his climax had taken the last of his strength. Even the insatiable Elowyn was drowsy. They would sleep, then they would eat and then make their plans. But sleep had not quite subdued Elowyn yet.
“How many women have you had, Grahame?” She idly traced the areola of his breast with a finger, both of them too spent to do more.
“That’s hardly a ladylike question.” Grahame tried to demur with a playful scold. It was the question he least wanted to answer at a time he least wanted to answer it. He’d arguably had the most personal sexual experience of his life, a moment of intimacy that had been solely about him and his pleasure.
“Tell me, Grahame. I know there have been others,” she cajoled.
Too many to count, actually, but he couldn’t tell her that or why. “There’s been enough to know there’s never been one like you.” It wasn’t truly an answer but it would have to do. There never were good answers to those questions. At least this answer was true, far too true. This glimpse of what life could be like with Elowyn Bagshaw beside him was far too tempting, far too close to the fantasy he hungered for in his heart. But like all fantasies, it could be shattered with a confession or two. That’s how he knew it wasn’t real.
Chapter Eleven
Life with Grahame Westmore was one giant adventure. The longer the adventure lasted, the more convinced Elowyn was she didn’t want to give it up. Neither did she know what to do about it. Nothing lasted forever. She would genuinely miss him when it was over. But she’d miss her principles and her control more if she prolonged this beyond what was prudent.
She’d not thought things would progress this far. She’d waited, fully expecting the novelty of the road would wear off amid the dirty, dusty realities of travel. She’d waited, thinking the sensual edge he roused so thoroughly, so regularly, would dull after nights in his arms. But neither had happened. If anything, the sensuality between them had grown, enhanced by long conversations throughout the day. Theirs was no longer the physical joining of strangers but the intimacy of lovers who knew one another. Although she had begun to wonder lately if there were a stronger emotional attachment on her part, especially since she was certain he was keeping a secret, suggesting perhaps that the intimacy didn’t run as deeply for him.
She was conscious, too, that the journey bore the stamp of the surreal. From the moment they left Ostend and headed south for Vienna, this adventure was a time apart, not truly part of the real world. Their world was no longer about schedules and the demands others made on her time. There was no household to organize, no entertainments to attend. There was only her and Grahame. He was the sole focus of her world and she of his. It wasn’t normal. Reality didn’t work that way.
Reality was full of items that competed for that time and attention. When they reached Vienna everything would change. She would have her father to look after, a house to coordinate, new people to meet. And Grahame would do what? She didn’t know. He’d probably go back to England. His job would be over unless she could induce him to stay. Perhaps she could appeal to her father to get him a position with the British consulate there. The closer they got to Vienna, the more such plans dominated her thoughts.
“Watch out for the branch!” Grahame called, breaking into her thoughts just in time for her to avoid a collision with a low-hanging tree limb. Elowyn pulled her mare, a purchase in Ostend, to the left and smiled apologetically.
Grahame pulled Aramis up alongside her. “You were wool-gathering. Is everything all right?”
No, everything wasn’t all right. They were two days out from Vienna. She was going to lose him and she didn’t have a coping mechanism in place. Usually when it was time for an affair to end, she merely began to distance herself but she didn’t want to employ such tactics with Grahame and waste the time they had left.
She couldn’t confess to any of it. He wouldn’t want her to cling to him and feel pushed into a corner where his honor demanded him to do something contrary to his wishes. Most of all, she didn’t want to compromise their last two nights together.
“I was thinking we’ll be there soon.” She could say that much, at least.
Grahame gave her one of his boyish grins. “I’d wager you’re already dreaming of a hot bath.”
“Among other things.” She didn’t think she’d ever bathe without recalling their intimate bath in Ostend and the pleasure that followed. Elowyn eyed the gray sky. “Perhaps what I should be thinking about is where we’re going to shelter for the night. It looks
like rain.” Again. There’d been plenty of rain on this trip and plenty of mud.
“There’s a village five miles ahead if the last road sign is to be believed, but I don’t think the rain will hold off that long.” A fat, heavy drop fell on Grahame’s nose in concurrence. He wiped it away. “There was an abandoned barn a mile back.” He raised his dark eyebrows in question. “What do you think? The barn or the village?” The drops were starting to fall with more frequency. The village meant an inn, a dry bed. Elowyn curled her fist in her glove, feeling the press of the gold ring she’d worn on her fourth finger for the sake of validating Grahame’s presence in her room whenever they encountered inns. But they’d be soaked to the skin before they reached it. An abandoned barn wasn’t much better. It meant they were at nature’s mercy, dependent on the quality of an old roof. But there would be absolute privacy, a chance they would reach it and still be relatively dry. A barrage of cold raindrops decided it. “The barn.”
The barn was in better condition than the last one they’d taken shelter in. The roof was tight and they were able to find a corner that wasn’t wracked with draught from the cold wind. Elowyn set up “house” as she privately liked to think of it. After multiple nights on the road, she had her routine. While Grahame settled the horses into the vacant stalls and searched out clean hay, she set up their belongings—their two tin cups and eating things, acquired along the road when it became apparent they wouldn’t always have an inn at their disposal. She went outside to gather firewood. There’d be a fire pit to make and food to lay out—cold meat pies from the little town they’d passed through that morning and a jug of ale.
Elowyn shook out their blankets and reached for Grahame’s valise. He’d be wet when he came in and he’d want his dry shirt. Normally, his spare shirt was on top but today she had to hunt for it. There it was! Elowyn pulled out the shirt and a folded letter fluttered out, too. She bent to pick it up. The heavy paper felt expensive in her hand. She should let it be. This wasn’t her business but resisting curiosity had never been her strong suit.
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