But the two long red scratches anchored him to the present moment. He lifted the lathered towel and put it gently to her skin.
She let out a little hiss as he moved the cloth, and he stilled. “It hurts?”
“No.” Her throat moved beneath his hand as she spoke. “Well, yes, perhaps. A little bit.”
He turned the towel over, stroking it lightly over the scratches. The deepest cut, near the base of her throat, had bled freely at first, but it had already clotted. He wiped away the dried blood near the subtle ridge of her collarbone. His thumb brushed her skin, and he felt her intake of breath, slow and a little uneven.
“I don’t mind,” she said softly. Her voice sounded like dusk, like the last dip of the sun below the horizon, like everything coming right at once. “Pain. A little pain. I like it.”
He dipped the towel in the pitcher. At least, he thought he did. He felt cool water on his fingers.
He couldn’t seem to see clearly. His senses weren’t all working together. Cool water. Roses. Matilda’s dusky voice in his mind, and oh, he was never going to stop hearing those words.
Pain. A little pain. I like it.
He put the wet cloth to her neck, rinsing away any traces of soap. When he was done, he lifted the silver-topped bottle of liniment and tipped some of the bittersweet liquid into his palm.
Matilda’s pert freckled nose wrinkled. “What on Earth is that?”
He rubbed his thumb through the liquid on his palm and then lifted his thumb to her throat. As he watched, she closed her eyes and lifted her chin again. The queen of the milkmaids.
“Liniment,” he said. He could scarcely trust himself to speak. She would hear it in his voice—how much he craved her. The dark things he wanted to do to her, here in this one dry bed.
She would hear it, and she mightwantit, and that was the worst thing he could imagine. Because then how in hell would he make himself stop?
“Liniment?” She sounded incredulous. “Is that not for horses?”
Even through the desire swamping his mind, she made him want to laugh. He could not recall the last time he had laughed so often and so freely. “Yes. I also use it if I cut myself shaving. Stop talking. It’s only a little oil and elderflower. Should take the sting away.”
She hummed out her assent. He felt the soft, wordless vibration against his thumb as he stroked carefully up her pale throat. First one scratch. Then, slowly, the second.
There was nothing now between his hand and her skin. Her breasts rose and fell with her unsteady breaths, and his heart was beating so hard he could feel it throughout his body. Her skin was soft. She would be soft all over—her generous breasts, her hair, her mouth. She would be soft between her legs. Hot. Wet.
His hand kept moving, as if it was beyond his control. He stroked up her throat, then traced the edge of her jaw. His thumb went to the place beneath her ear where the two freckles taunted him. He brushed against them, a slow caress, the rest of his fingers tangling into her hair.
Her head tipped farther back. Her eyes were closed but her mouth—her mouth came open on a little gasp.
“I wanted to see,” he said, “if you’d any other scratches.”
“I don’t think so.” Her dusk voice. He was close enough to feel the whisper of her breath.
He leaned in closer, and then he gave in. He lost all control of his hands. He shifted his fingers into all that fiery red weight and wondered why it had not burned.
Maybe it had. Certainly he would not come out of this unscathed.
He shifted her hair away from the side of her neck and let his fingers trail up and down the skin beneath her ear. Part of him was sounding a distant alarm—surely he did not need to use hisfingersto confirm that her skin was unmarred by feline claws?
But the rest of him relished every whisper of contact. He would rather have died than let her go.
He tangled her hair into one fist and leaned in closer, close enough to smell the scent ofher,of Matilda, beneath the rose soap. The back of her neck was clear of marks, and he used the fistful of hair to turn her head so that he could run his fingers over the other side of her neck.
She let herself be positioned, and oh, yes, he liked the way she let him take control. And as much as it aroused him, her submission also satisfied something deep inside him. She trusted him. She would let him care for her.
And he liked it even more because he knewsheliked it—from what she had told him and from the way her cheeks grew pink, the flush that stained her throat as he watched.
He needed to let her go. It was done.
She had no more cuts on her skin. He had cleaned her wounds and looked her over, and there was no more reason for him to have his fingers in her hair, his palm pressed to her neck, her pulse under his hand.
