Chapter Twenty-Eight
T WENTY - E IGHT
“Bishop!” I yelp as he plunks me into the water. “I’m still wearing my drawers and my chemise!”
“I know. I’m getting you in there before I take them off, because if I did, we’d have been a repeat of earlier today. Maybe faster.”
I laugh as I sink into the tub.
“I’m glad you’re amused,” he grumbles. “What do you think you are doing, walking about looking like that?”
I arch one brow. “I was not walking anywhere, and I’m not the one who undressed me.”
“I mean what do you think you’re doing existing, looking like that. Fully dressed, you’re more than enough. Undressed? Entirely too much.”
“You haven’t seen me undressed yet.”
I start to push up. He takes my shoulders and holds them so the water stays at my neck level.
“That’s enough,” he says. “Between the water and your chemise and the lamplight, I can see plenty. Now where is the soap? I’ll wash your back.”
“While I’m still dressed?”
He lifts a finger as he turns to look for the soap. When he swivels back, I’m holding out my sodden chemise and drawers.
“You’ll want to put these in your washbasin,” I say. “They’re very wet.”
“You are determined to undo me,” he says.
“If I wanted to do that, I’d stand up.” I slide deeper under the water. “There, does that help?”
His gaze goes to my chest, my nipples poking above the surface. “Not at all.”
“There is a distinct lack of water,” I say.
“No, there is a distinct abundance of breast.”
“One can be remedied. The other cannot.” I lift one languid arm over the edge. “You may wash me, since you’re so insistent that I bathe.”
I expect him to continue the banter, to keep playing the game, pretending he wants me to bathe when he’s only stalling, slowing us down and drawing out the anticipation.
Instead, he drops to one knee, ducks the soap into the water, takes my arm and runs the bar up it, the glide of the soap so soft I shiver. He takes his time, washing my arm and then sliding a damp cloth over it, the fabric rougher than the soap but no less delicious.
“Continue?” he says.
“Mmm, yes, please.”
I close my eyes, lean my head back, and relax, and that makes him chuckle. He finishes my one arm and nudges me forward to run the soap and then the cloth over my back and across my shoulders to the other arm.
I sigh my pleasure as he does something that I would never have considered remotely erotic. He isn’t near any of the places that would set me aflame, but he doesn’t need to be. His touch is enough.
I’m not accustomed to even simple touches.
My mother would hold my hand as we walked.
My grandmother would cuddle me on her lap.
Since they left my life, the most I could hope for were quick embraces from friends or stolen kisses with young men.
I didn’t realize how much my body longed for this. For someone to touch me.
Bishop moves to my feet, washing each with such care and perfect pressure that I don’t jump once. As he moves up to my ankle, I lift my leg from the water, and he gives a low growl of appreciation. I have to smile at that. I had done it as easily as lifting my arm, but I suppose a leg is different.
Instead of tickling the soap down my leg, he lathers his hands and runs his fingers up my calf to my thigh, and the higher his fingers go, the faster my heart beats. I even helpfully lift my hips, only for him to chuckle and push them back down.
His fingers tickle along the inside of my thigh, and I moan softly, parting my legs, which makes him chuckle again, ragged now. Yet just when his fingers are mere inches from where I want them, he diverts course, and my eyes fly open in a glower.
“I missed your stomach,” he says.
“It’s clean.”
He smiles and runs his hands over my belly, which feels perfectly nice, but not at all what I want.
I grumble and settle for leaning back again, closing my eyes and enjoying his touch.
Then his fingers begin to creep up my belly, and I moan in fresh anticipation, hoping he doesn’t divert course there, too.
He does not divert course. His hands cup my breasts, washing the outside before cupping and lifting them out of the water. The cool air of the room tickles my nipples, and he chuckles as they harden. Then he runs his thumbs over them, his touch so light that I arch up for more.
He touches and tweaks and teases as I moan. I know, obviously, that men find breasts arousing, and I’ve kissed boys who pawed at mine, which always annoyed me. The area I wanted touched was significantly lower. Now, I confess my mistake.
The problem had been partly that having my breasts touched through multiple layers of clothing was like touching them while wearing three pairs of mittens.
The other problem was the pawing. Bishop does not paw.
He knows exactly what to do, and soon he has me writhing in the tub, panting and moaning.
When his hands move away, I arch up, letting out a whimper. His fingers trail down my stomach, and when I realize where he’s going, I sigh and lean back, legs parting.
Of course he doesn’t go there directly, damn him. The man relishes drawing this out. No, he relishes driving me mad. Mad with want for something only he can give me.
His hand tickles across my belly and then skims to my legs, sliding under the water and stroking the inside of my thighs until I think I’ll die of anticipation. Or grab his damned hand and show him where it goes.
Even when he reaches the spot, he teases around the outside as I wriggle and moan.
Then his fingers plunge in, and I arch, gasping.
His other hand returns to my breast, toying with it as his fingers slide in and out of me, and his thumb finds exactly the right spot, the one I’ve heard women in the brothels say men never seem able to find, even with help, and if they do, they have no idea what to do with it.
Bishop knows what to do with it even better than I do, and the crescendo rises so quickly, I almost want him to stop, to slow down.
I pull him down into a kiss, and then, as if I somehow cast a communication spell, he slows at exactly the right moment, thumb moving off that spot, his other hand staying at my breasts, caressing one and then the other, still kissing me, his kiss as gentle as his hand.
Once my heart rate slows and I relax into the tub, he resumes, his touch light and deliberate.
He breaks the kiss and shifts down the tub, one hand cupping my breast, teasing my nipple with his tongue and then teeth.
Again, he knows exactly when to slow, and when I reach that point a third time, as incredible as this is, hunger burns through me, and I’m ready to grab his hands and keep them there until I finish.
But this time, he doesn’t stop. Instead, his mouth goes to mine as his fingers send waves rocking through me, not the gentle waves from earlier, but hard ones that have my head thrown back, breaking the kiss, as I cry out with pleasure that feels like diving, free fall, ending not with a thud but with a collapse into the softest, warmest bed that rises up to cradle me.
It takes a moment to realize I am being cradled. Lifted by Bishop’s arms, held against him and then lowered onto an actual bed, soft and warm and smelling of him. When he crawls in and hovers above me, I try to pull him down on top of me, but he resists, kissing me instead.
While those kisses aim for sweet and languid, matching my mood, hunger edges through them, his hunger, a reminder that he has been very patient.
When I press my breasts against his chest and deepen the kiss, that hunger licks through me, as if I’ve just finished a very satisfying dinner only to smell dessert and realize I’m not sated.
My hands slide down his bare sides. He still wears his trousers, and my hands ease across his stomach and down to the top button, only to have him pull away.
I break the kiss and look up at him, still over me, pushed up on his arms to keep some distance between us. “If you’re worried I’ll try to break your vow…”
He kisses my chin. “I’m not. But I’m also not done.”
“I know. I’m trying to remedy that.”
He nuzzles my neck, chuckle vibrating through me. “I mean I’m not done with you.”
His kisses move down my neck and then to my shoulders and over my breasts, and I sigh as they continue down, over my belly and then my thighs, sliding inward.
I arch back, waiting for those kisses to move to the heart of my hunger, all the while thinking that sweet and light kisses there will be very nice, although not quite what I want, not quite what I need.
But I don’t get sweet and light kisses. I get a flick of his tongue that has me jolting upright onto my elbows.
His head rises from between my legs. “No?”
“I… That wasn’t what I exp— Yes. That’s what I meant to say. Yes, please.”
Another of those devilish chuckles, and I remember what Julius said, about how Bishop is very good at pleasing women.
I’ve thought about that a great deal. Maybe I should have been jealous, hating the thought of Bishop with other women.
Instead, I was fascinated, wondering what he did with them, how he pleasured them, curious and even, gods help me, aroused by the thought.
Now, when he chuckles, I understand how much he likes this part. Oh, I’m sure he enjoys taking his pleasure, but he enjoys giving it, too, and I could attribute that to a generosity of spirit, but that chuckle and that glint in his eyes reveal the hunter in him.
He doesn’t chase down unwitting prey. He doesn’t lure women into a trap. He doesn’t need to. Bishop Daniels catches them honestly, and then delights in making them exceptionally happy that they stepped into his lair. That’s power, with delicious rewards for surrendering to it.