She was still washing her hands in the basin, her back facing him, as he worked the buttons of his trousers and pushed them down his hips, shedding them with ease. Next came his smalls. Damnation and hellfire, but she was even lovely from this angle. All that glorious hair, so lustrous and soft, falling in a perfect curtain to just above the swell of her bottom. He imagined wrapping his fist in it as he kissed her senseless, which did nothing at all to abate the rigid state of his prick.
She whirled about just as he was preparing to turn away from her and dip his weary body into the bath awaiting him.
“Oh!” Her soft gasp of surprise and the way her honey-brown gaze lingered on a certain portion of his anatomy was enough to tempt a saint.
He stood there, allowing her to look her fill. Damn it, but he liked her eyes on him. Heated and wide, those eyes. Innocent and yet also with a hint of knowledge. The things he wanted to teach her. Wicked things. Filthy things.
“You…” she began before allowing her sentence to trail away. Blinking, she flicked her gaze back up to his. “You should get into the bath before it cools.”
“So you said before.” He could not keep the amusement from his voice.
She may still be harboring some anger toward him from what she thought she had seen earlier that day, but she could not deny she wanted him. Her need was written all over her beautiful face. And she was not wrong. His bath water was likely going to be as warm as the Thames before he managed to sink into it and soak his bones.
But there was a new heat flaring in the chamber. Not from the fire in the hearth. Not from the steam which had risen from the bath. But from the connection between them. He wanted to fuck her.
Hot and hard.
To show her she was his. To make her cry his name and admit she longed for him every bit as much as he did for her.
But he also wanted to take her in his arms and lay her tenderly on the bed, to take his time and lick and kiss and suck every inch of her delectable body.
Instead, he turned away and forced himself to get into the tub.
The water was warm but no longer hot. It would do. The manner in which his wife lingered on the other side of the chamber, however, would not.
He crooked a finger. “Come.”
To his amazement, she was moving. Heeding him. Crossing the chamber with that dressing gown flowing around her. In the absence of the stays she wore beneath her gowns, her breasts were on display in a new, mouthwatering fashion. Was it his imagination, or were those her hard little nipples poking out, all stiff and begging for his tongue beneath her prim wrapper?
“What would you have me do?” she asked.
Was riding him in the tub out of the question? He had a feeling it was, so he held his tongue on the request, gesturing instead to the soap and cloth. Winter’s soap, and curse it, he did not like the Winter family overly much, but Devereaux Winter made a damned good-smelling article.
“Wash me, wife.”
He was pushing her, and he knew it. But he also liked to see how far she would allow him to go. Was she still furious with him? Had his attempts at explanations done their job? It was impossible to tell.
He hated that he had hurt her.
Hated that he had caused her a moment of pain.
Christ, if he could, he would endure another lashing on the ribs rather than upset Octavia again.
But despite the conflict of earlier, she did as he asked, taking up the cloth and dipping it into the water.
“Tepid,” she said, “just as I suspected.”
The bath was cooling, but Jasper was not. His wife’s perfect, dainty hands were about to be on him once more. Separation by cloth scarcely mattered. She wetted the cake of soap by drawing the damp square over it.
“I’ve bathed in worse,” he said. “This ain’t bad at all.”
Especially since she was here.
He didn’t need to tell her that.
“Hmm,” was all she said, a feminine hum that should not have had an effect on him and yet somehow managed to.
But that was nothing compared to when she smoothed the soapy cloth over his chest. Her fingertips grazed his hungry flesh. Right over his nipple, a place he had never realized was particularly sensitive. He clenched his jaw and gripped the rim of the tub, steeling himself against the rush of desire.