Page 63 of A Winter Scandal

“Not take, my dear. Share.” He whipped his shirt off over his head and dropped it to the floor.

Thea looked at the tub. “You must be joking. We shan’t both fit.”

“Of course we will. It just takes putting the pieces together right. Like a puzzle. You like puzzles, don’t you?”

She gave him an exasperated look, but found it difficult to maintain since he was sliding off his breeches, revealing his long, muscled legs and, well, everything else. He reached out and twitched the bedcover from her grasp, dropping it on the floor beside the tub.

“Gabriel!”

He ignored her protest as he stepped into the tub and sat down. He did fit, which she had rather doubted, though he had to sit with his knees jackknifed to do so. He reached his hand up to her, as debonair as if he were helping her over a threshold or into a carriage. She took his hand and stepped into the tub as well, placing her feet carefully between his legs, turning her back to him as his hand nudged her to. She sat down slowly, his hands sliding up her body to her waist to guide her.

They did manage to fit, she found, as she leaned back against his chest and propped her feet up on the end of the tub. In fact, they fit almost perfectly, the warm water rising up over their lower bodies and lapping lazily at her breasts. She reached up, pulling her hair back and twisting it to wrap it in a looped knot at the base of her neck.

“No.” He reached out to still her hands. “I like it down.”

“It is wild and a nuisance.”

“Yes, it is wild, but not a nuisance at all.” He took her long, thick hair in his hands and wrapped it around behind his neck, bringing it up across his face and drawing in the scent. “It’s soft and smells like—like you. I could lose myself in your curls.” He nuzzled the back of her bare neck.

“It will get all wet.”

“Then I shall have to brush it dry in front of the fire.” He kissed his way along her collarbone to her shoulder, and Thea gave up her protests.

His hands moved slowly over her water-slicked body, and Thea let her head loll back against him, her eyes closing, lost in the pleasure his touch brought.

“You are beautiful,” he murmured, his teeth gently worrying the cord of her throat.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“You doubt me?”

Thea snorted. “Of course I do. You needn’t use blandishments to woo me. I have already given you what you seek, and we both know that I am not the sort of woman who is … pleasing to men.”

“I beg your pardon. I am a man, and I find you quite pleasing.” At the little twitch of her mouth, he went on, “I’m perfectly serious; I’m not trying to seduce you.” He paused, then added, with a demonstrative stroke of his hand, “Well, I am trying to seduce you, but not with flattery. I find you beautiful.”

Thea swallowed against the emotion that tightened her throat.

“Your wild curls captivate me,” he went on in a low voice, his breath drifting tantalizingly over her hair and face. “From the moment I saw them tumbling all about your face, I wanted to sink my hands into them and kiss you senseless.”

“To shut me up, no doubt,” she shot back tartly.

He chuckled. “That would have been an added benefit, no doubt, but it was not the motivating force, I assure you. Why do you think I kissed you in the church? Not because I was trying to challenge the Almighty. I could not keep from doing it. I have not been able to stop myself from kissing you a number of times, as you may have noticed.”

“I think that is more due to your nature. We have already established that you are … shall we say, an expert with women?”

“I confess, I have enjoyed the charms of more than a few of the fairer sex. But that only serves to prove my point—I am clearly a judge of female beauty. An expert, as you say. ’Twould be foolish to gainsay me.”

“You are an expert at wagging your tongue.”

“That, too.” He tickled her ear with the tip of his tongue, making Thea giggle. “Shall I tell you more? About how you enticed me?”

Thea shrugged, unwilling to admit that his words warmed her even more than the water around them, so that she felt as if her heart were blossoming inside her chest. Some part of her brain told her she was foolish, but she could not keep from soaking up his words.

“I am sure you will be surprised,” he went on gravely, “when I say that it was not your sweet tone or compliant manner that made me dream of you the past few nights and wake stiff and sweating like a hard-run horse, my heart thundering.”

Thea’s breath caught in her throat, the now familiar ache beginning to pulse deep inside her, his words stirring her almost as much as the velvet touch of his lips on her neck.

“It was the thought of your breasts and how they would feel in my hands. I knew they would fit perfectly.” He cupped her breasts in his hands to demonstrate, and his forefinger traced around the nipples, making them prickle. The heat in Thea’s abdomen grew, swelling and throbbing and spreading out.