Wherever he’d learned it, she was grateful. His hands dug into her and sometimes even hurt her, but she soon found that when she relaxed the pain stopped. Fingers massaged along her spine, kneading out the soreness from crouching in the alleyway for hours. Cramps in her legs and calves relaxed, and when he started on her feet new areas of her body sank deeper into the soft mattress. It amazed her that even her arms could be tense, but Travis’s hands loosened knots of tight muscle and made them limp.
Since Regan was too relaxed to move, he turned her over as if she were a heap of rags and began on her front. From the feet up, he rubbed, pummeled, stroked, gouged, caressed every pore of her body. When he reached her face, his thumbs gently touching the muscles in her cheeks, and around her nose, she was near senseless.
Feeling so relaxed, she wasn’t aware of the sensuality of the massage, that the feel of Travis’s strong hands, his eyes on her nude body, had awakened her passion. She felt like a big cat stretching in the sun, every muscle quiet, awaiting the adventures that lay ahead.
When Travis’s hands returned to her thighs, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. A sweet, knowing smile curved her lips as she kept her eyes closed, preferring only to feel, to give her mind over to her senses. The change of pressure in Travis’s hands, perhaps his own lust coming through his fingertips, was subtle, but she understood it.
“Yes, love,” he growled throatily, his breath extraordinarily deep.
He didn’t use his lips or any other part of his body except his hands—those marvelous, big, hard hands that she’d seen used to toss grown men about as if they were weightless. Wide, callused fingers were artfully agile, deliciously provocative as they reexplored the skin they’d just touched.
Regan felt a deep hum inside her, some primitive piece of machinery beginning to work. Arching slightly, rhythmically, she gave herself over to him. “Please,” she whispered, her hands rising up his arms, fingers tracing the muscles. “Please.”
Travis lost no time in obeying her, as he was close to the breaking point. The sheer sensuality of their lovemaking and the beauty of her slim young body had fascinated him, and when he entered her it was slowly, very slowly, never once relinquishing the gentle, ethereal quality of their pleasure.
Regan had learned enough about lovemaking to know to prolong their movement, and she followed his lead as if they were two heavenly bodies joined in a union that would last through eternity. Yet she could not hold off long, and soon she began to breathe quicker and to dig her hands into Travis’s flesh. Within seconds their gentleness turned into ferocity, their hunger equal, greedy, starving.
When at last their passion peaked, Regan cried out and felt tea
rs coming to her eyes at the violence of her release.
For some minutes she lay still, afloat in a sea of nothingness, sated and happy, relaxed and deeply quiet.
Slowly, Travis rolled off her, propped his head on one elbow, and looked down at her. His brown eyes were dark, and she noticed the thickness of his short lashes.
Who is this man? she wondered. Who is this man who makes my body sing to some heavenly music? He didn’t say a word, and she felt she was seeing him for the first time. He held her prisoner, yet he took care of her, acted as if he valued her, and even a few times seemed remorseful about enslaving her. What sort of man could be so gentle and so strong at the same time?
Studying him, she thought how little she knew of him. What thoughts went through his mind, who were the people he loved, and, yes, who loved him? She put her hand to the side of his face, running her fingertips along his cheek. Could this man, who seemed to think the world was his for the taking, ever be made to love? Could a mere woman ever make a slave of this man, hold his strong, pounding heart in her small hands?
She moved her hand to his bare chest, felt his heart under her palm, twined her fingers in the hair on his chest, and then on impulse gave it a sharp pull.
“Stop that, you little imp,” he growled, then kissed her fingers. “I’d think you’d be more grateful after the way I just made you squeal.”
“Grateful!” she gasped, but concealing a smile. “Since when does a slave thank her master?”
Travis refused to take the bait but merely grunted and gathered her to him. He seemed to give no thought to the fact that he twisted her body into an impossible position.
Regan started to protest that she could not possibly sleep entwined about him in such a way, but even as she formed the words they disappeared. Feeling rather like a vine twirled about the trunk of a great oak, her body relaxed, and she drifted into a deep sleep.
Chapter 6
REGAN’S LANGUOROUS, CATLIKE MOOD DISAPPEARED ASTOUNDINGLY quickly the next morning when Travis roughly pulled her out of bed and then dashed a handful of cold water in her face. Gasping for air, she finally managed to open her sleepy eyes just in time to see a towel flying at her.
“Get dressed,” Travis tossed over his shoulder as he jammed clothes, hers included, into the too-full trunk.
Seeing her torn velvet dress further mutilated as he wadded it into a tight little ball, Regan flung herself at him. “Stop that! I will not have you treat my beautiful dress like that,” she said, taking it from him and smoothing it lovingly.
Pulling back, Travis eyed her with interest. “It’s torn anyway. What good is it except for a dust rag?”
“It can be patched,” she said, folding the dress carefully. “I’m very good at mending my own clothes, and, besides, the nap of the velvet will hide the repair work.”
“Since when have rich young English ladies had to patch their own clothes?”
She whirled on him. “I never said I was rich,” she smiled smugly.
“There must be money involved somewhere, or you wouldn’t have been thrown out on your ear.” Eyes twinkling, he caressed her bare buttock. “Or should I say thrown out on your pretty little rear?” Before she could give him the scathing reply he deserved, he smacked her smartly. “Now get dressed before we end up back in bed and the ship leaves without us.”
Thoughtfully, she began to dress; then on impulse she turned back to him. “Do you think I really could tempt you to…to do something?”