Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“The water is perfect,” Laurence said. He lifted his fingers from the bath and flicked them, sending little droplets sprinkling over the steaming surface of the water.
Ellen said nothing as she stood near the doorway, her hands clutched tightly around her upper arms. She had thought once Benedict was arrested she would feel some sort of relief, but now that she knew what had happened to her father, such an emotion seemed out of reach.
She wanted to rush into Laurence’s arms again. Wanted to bury her head in his chest and cry and take comfort in him. She couldn’t, though. Not if he was going to send her away.
“How badly do you hurt?” Laurence asked gently when she did not move.
Ellen took a moment, letting herself sink fully into her body for the first time since she’d fought Benedict under the bushes.
She’d managed to block some of the soreness out, but as she lowered that mental barrier, it all came flooding back to every part of her body.
Her lips parted as she let out a sudden, sharp inhale of agony, and in the span of a second, Laurence had gone from standing by the tub to right before her.
“Your head?” he asked, using that same gentle tone as his fingers hovered above the light bruise on her temple.
She nodded, too exhausted to pretend.
“Where else?” he asked, his worry-filled eyes searching her face, then her body.
“My arms,” she confessed, still clutching them tightly. “He grabbed them quite a bit. And my neck. He…he shook me rather violently in the carriage.”
Anger flickered in Laurence’s gaze as the muscle in his jaw feathered, but when he spoke again, his voice still held that same gentle tone.
“Let me see. Let me…let me help you,” he implored, carefully closing his fingers around hers.
Ellen remained tense for another moment, but as she felt his fingers softly trying to pry her own away from her arms, she loosened them and allowed him to lower her arms to her sides.
He reached for the ties of her dress next, pulling them and her corset away with such gentleness that it almost made her cry.
Laurence’s gaze dropped to her full, bare figure for just a moment, hunger blazing anew in his eyes—but only for a moment.
When his eyes found the bruises on her upper arms, they went flat with rage, and again, that muscle in his jaw feathered as he gritted his teeth in frustration.
Ellen was vaguely aware that she should feel shame for being so exposed to a man who did not intend to stay married to her, but it wasn’t shame that slithered into her veins and made her womb grow hot and tight.
He raised his hands to her arms, skimming his fingertips lightly over the ring of bruises on each, but froze when she flinched.
“Sore?” he asked, the ache making his voice grow husky and deep.
Ellen could only nod as a blush of desire bloomed in her cheeks.
She watched as his gaze slowly traveled up her right arm, over her bare shoulder, then to her throat.
“And your neck?” he asked. “Where does it hurt?”
Ellen only reached up and slid her still-trembling hand around the nape of her neck, tears forming in her eyes as she remembered the flash of pain from being shaken so violently. She dropped her hand away quickly.
Laurence followed the path her own hand had taken, his touch sending sparks of delight through her skin until he reached that place of hurt.
When she felt his fingertips there, she squeezed her eyes shut and steeled herself for the ache—but instead, Laurence’s careful fingers kneaded the flesh there, sending relief skittering down the bruised nerve endings.
She could not help the whimper of relief that poured from her throat as he helped ease her pain.
It ended far too early, though, as a second later he slid his hand up the back of her head, and his lips came down in a gentle kiss on her forehead.
“I will make it all better,” he murmured against her forehead. “If you will permit me to get in the bath with you?”
Ellen slowly lifted her head, suddenly far too tired to fight her wants with practical notions of space.
“Yes please,” she whispered.
For someone so afraid of hurting her, Laurence was utterly gentle as he helped her into the bath and eased her into the water.
Ellen hissed at first at the warmth, but within a second, she felt her aching muscles beginning to relax.
By the time Laurence climbed in behind her and guided her to lie on his chest, she felt like melted honey in his hands.
Part of her, the part that had long ago started longing for the man holding her, was acutely aware that for the first time, their naked bodies were flush against one another.
She could feel his manhood at her lower back.
Feel it pulse and stir to life. Even through her pain, she was tempted to feel more of him, but she didn’t.
Instead, she lay still, letting her head be cushioned by his muscular chest and her body be washed gently by his powerful hands.
“You were so brave today,” Laurence’s husky voice whispered into her ear.
With effort, Ellen opened her eyes. His washing had been so soothing, so lulling, that she had nearly fallen asleep.
“I was a fool,” she murmured back. “I should have listened to you. You deserve to be angry at me.”
To her surprise, a throaty chuckle was Laurence’s first response, followed by a kiss on the shell of her right ear that sent pleasure scurrying through her veins.
“I think you deserve to be angry with me as well,” he replied, trailing his fingertips up her arms and to her shoulders. “But I am willing to participate in a mutual apology and then move on, if you are.”
Yes. She supposed she did deserve to be angry with him. Keeping the secret of her father’s demise to himself had hurt her at first. However, like him, with everything that happened that day, she was willing to let it go.
“Apology accepted,” she sighed tiredly.
“Apology accepted,” he agreed, nuzzling his chin lightly atop her head. His fingers then began their magic work again, massaging those aching muscles in her shoulders and at the back of her neck, and she nearly cried with the relief it brought her.
It was a long, quiet moment before she spoke again.
“I was not that brave,” she countered, the soreness leaving her body reminding her of her fight with Benedict under the bushes. “He still got the better of me. I was weak.”
Laurence’s fingers stilled their massaging for just a moment.
“Bravery isn’t about winning,” he countered, beginning his ministrations once again. “It is about doing what is right. You did not just allow him to take you, Ellen. You fought against him. You understand your worth and wants, and you fought to protect them. That is incredibly brave.”
Then he let out a chortle as he added, “I saw the wreckage under the bushes. You put up an amazing fight. He struggled greatly before he took a dirty advantage. I am so proud of you.”
Warmth surged through Ellen’s veins as she heard the genuine feeling in Laurence’s voice, and she could not help but smile at his words.
“If only I’d had a fire poker,” she dared to jest.
Laurence’s answering laugh was hearty and genuine, making his entire body shake and sending tiny ripples into the water. Her smile grew wider as she traced her fingertips along the water’s surface, chasing those little rings as if catching one would mean capturing Laurence.
Her smile started to slip as she realized she was having such a thought, but before she could dip into the sadness that was waiting for her, Laurence’s hands slipped down to her waist, and he wrapped his arms around her there as he nuzzled into her neck.
“You have no idea how relieved I am,” he rasped, his lips leaving long, sensual kisses over the nape of her neck and shoulders, “that you are alright. The panic I felt when Madalene told me you were gone was choking. I could not think or even see for a few seconds.”
Ellen swallowed, torn between the sensual touch of his kisses, the longing starting to ebb in her lower belly, and the heartache that she knew was just around the corner. Laurence worried for her. Protected her. Perhaps even cared for her.
He did not love her, though, and because of that, and now that Benedict was in prison, their marriage was going to cease to exist.
Soon. Soon, but not right now—and right now, all she wanted was for Laurence to keep going.
She lifted her arms, an ache shooting through her tired muscles as she boldly slid them around the back of Laurence’s neck.
“I was thinking of you as well, you know,” she confessed, arching her back into his chest.
A low groan poured from Laurence’s throat as her backside slid sensually against his length, and with one arm still pinned around her waist, he drew the other up, his hand creating a necklace of fingers around her throat.
“You were?” he asked, his voice dipping into the deep, husky tone she loved so much.
“Yes,” she breathed, shudders moving down her body as the arm around her waist shifted, and fingertips began to draw gentle trails from her navel, up to the valley of her breasts, then down to the apex of her thighs.
“Tell me,” he rasped, those magic fingers of his starting to swirl in slow circles over the bud of nerves between her legs; it was already sensitive and hungry with need.
Ellen let out a soft whimper as those slow strokes drove her deeper into languid desire.
“I thought that I would not see you again,” she confessed, her voice turning low and breathy as her body surrendered to the pleasure. “That I would never get to feel you touch me like this again.”
Laurence brushed another kiss along her throat as his hand circled her throat and dipped to her breasts. He teasingly thrummed his fingertips against her already taut and sensitive nipples as his other hand continued making those lovely swirls over her clitoris.
“That sounds like torture,” he rasped, then gently dragged his teeth across her shoulder. She gasped at the slight pain, but it quickly shifted into a moan as his tongue lapped over the small abrasion, taking the sting away and replacing it with pleasure.
“Yes,” she gasped, arching further into his touch.
“But you came back to me,” he murmured, his fingers dipping to her tight sheath, “like the wonderful little wife you are; you came back to me.”
A moan poured from Ellen’s throat as Laurence slid two fingers into her tight, wet channel. Tiny white fireworks began to explode behind her closed eyes as he set his hand to a steady, sensual rhythm, rocking her in such a way the bathwater began to lap at the sides of the tub.
“Such a good little wife you are,” he crooned into her ear, squeezing her breast as he pressed her tighter to him. “I do not say that enough. There are many things I do not say enough, but I plan to.”
Ellen whimpered, her climax growing closer as Laurence worshipped her body.
“I can understand how a man could become obsessed with you,” he whispered, a growling undertone entering his voice as his fingers moved harder, faster. “You are so, so very good, Ellen. Only a fool would be blind to your beauty, your goodness, your strength.”
It was too much. The heartache of what was about to happen. The praise that contradicted what he was about to do. The pleasure that was building within her core at such a heady speed.
“Don’t say such things,” she whimpered, caught half between a sob and a moan, her heart breaking at the same time as her pleasure was reaching its earth-shattering pinnacle.
“You know it is true,” he whispered, his deep voice dragging her further toward the pleasure as the world began to spin.
His fingers dove faster, further, reaching a spot inside of her she never knew existed, and with that touch, her mouth fell open, her back arched, and she let out a strangled cry as her world shattered into pleasure-filled starlight.