The Accidental Courtesan (29 page)

“Lean forward.”

She looked behind her and found her face very nearly eye level with the front of his breeches. Gavin sat on the spindly stool, legs spread wide open to better reach her. Proof of the effect of her bare body still showed beneath the perfectly cut cloth of his breeches. His desire for her hadn't waned. The outline of a lingering erection was visible beneath fine stitching.

Forcing her eyes up, she saw he was holding soap and a cloth in his hands. One eyebrow hiked up as her cheeks burned. She realized he'd been fully aware of where her gaze had rested. Inwardly, she winced. For a woman who just minutes ago had offered her body to him without compunction, she certainly was racked with a sudden bout of shyness.

This wouldn't do. She had to remember she was a courtesan-adventuress, and keep her flushes and fumbles to herself. Otherwise, Gavin would never seduce her and satisfy both her curiosity and the terms of their wager.

“I thought I would start with your hair, My Lady,” he said, his voice husky. A slow grin tipped up his mouth. “Unless you'd prefer I start with your breasts?”

L
uckily for Noelle, Gavin was behind her and couldn't see what she suspected was a burning red face. Try as she might, she couldn't pull up the adventuress inside her and make some sort of tart reply. The idea of his hands on her wet breasts left her flustered. It was easy to speak boldly about desires. It was another thing to put those same desires into practical use.

Especially when one was an innocent.

“My back would be fine.” She jumped when the cloth touched the back of her neck. Never in her life had anyone unnerved her as Gavin did. Nothing in her entire existence up until this moment could compare to the contradictions she felt in his presence: a tangle of good and bad Noelle, with the bad Noelle struggling to win out.

“I can call for Mrs. Hill.” Gavin swiped the cloth over one of her shoulders and then the other. “It isn't too late.”

She closed her eyes. He was being a perfect gentleman. It was the light brush of his fingertips as his fingers traveled across her skin with the soapy cloth that made it impossible to remain unaffected. It felt so good. She wanted to return to his earlier offer and ask him to start with her breasts instead. But her mouth wouldn't wrap around the words.

“The window isn't locked,” she said, reminding him of her earlier threat to jump from it if he called for the housekeeper. To get over her hesitation to give herself to him, she had to overcome her anxiety. “Continue as you were.”

She didn't have to see his face to suspect he was smiling at her discomfiture. She leaned forward in the shallow water, and he slid the cloth down her spine to the cleft of her buttocks and back up again. With precision, he covered the entire surface without touching anything he should not be touching.

Still, the act did have some effect on her. A little tingle here, a little shiver there. She was naked, after all, and he was the perfect male specimen with whom she wanted to eventually share a bed. And his hands were anything but soft. Each time a callused fingertip gently scraped across her skin, she nearly moaned aloud.

With her ingrained belief that bedding a man was entirely for procreation, and his pleasure, why did she want to bed him at all? It was as if her rapidly warming body knew something her mind did not. Was it possible Gavin could actually satisfy her carnal urges? That she might truly find some pleasure frolicking with him among tangled sheets?

He had pleasured her in the coach.

Though Eva seemed to find satisfaction in her marital relations, not all women felt that way. Noelle had always considered herself somewhat frigid. Was it reasonable to believe, now, after the seductive coach encounter, that she was capable of making love with Gavin and actually enjoying his skills?

Suddenly, she wanted more than anything to find out what it felt like to have his hands on her private parts. The brief time in the coach had been only enough to tease her to curiosity, and she'd been fully dressed.

Unfortunately, he wasn't making any effort to comply. He seemed very content to wash a groove in her spine and keep well away from her bum, her breasts, and the juncture between her legs. Any normal man would take advantage of the situation by at least “accidentally” touching something inappropriate.

Not Gavin. He was entirely proper.

“I think my back is satisfactorily clean,” she grumbled. “Move on, please, before you wear a hole in my skin.”

“Yes, My Lady.”

Noelle felt a tremor of frustration build when he lifted her right arm. He swept the cloth down the underside, then over her rib cage, careful not to touch any part of her breast. He moved to the left arm and repeated the action until her underarms had to be sparkling clean.

She gnashed her teeth. Her breast was uplifted with her arm over her head, yet he didn't once move in for a fondle, a nipple tweak, nothing. And she was intently hopeful he would. She jerked her arm out of his grip and petulantly stuck out her bottom lip. The place between her legs pulsed, and she was burning up.

The man was certainly not acting like a lover. Any maid could serve just as well.

A sound came from him, and she wasn't sure if it was frustration or humor she heard. Was he purposely tormenting her, or was he as uninterested as he appeared?

“Close your eyes,” he commanded.

He squeezed the cloth above her head, and soapy water trickled over her face. She blew water off her lips and scowled. Frustration made her grumpy. He washed her hair and rinsed it from the bucket. Not once did he comment on the gentle curve of her neck or the satin texture of her skin. He was treating her with clinical care, and she hated it with everything inside her. She had to bring an end to this torture.

“Wash the front, please.” Noelle flopped back in the small tub and water splashed about. She hoped she'd gotten his boots wet. It would serve him right. “My breasts are highly soiled.”

It didn't matter if her breasts were covered in lard or as pristine as well-polished silver. She wanted him to touch her intimately, even if she had to pull his hand to her nipples or shove it between her legs.

Her entire body burned.

Pressing her legs together didn't help squelch her need. In her discomfort, she was shifting in the water. She couldn't help herself. Never had she felt such a driving ache.

How could he not sense her struggle?

The warmth of his low chuckle teased her senses. “Yes, My Lady.” Gavin stood up and dragged the stool around to the side. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, but the water had gotten on them anyway. The fine hairs that she remembered on his broad chest showed beneath the open collar of his shirt. Where dampness from bathing her had wetted the front of the linen, it clung to him in patches.

She wanted to draw her tongue across the damp spots and feel the warmth of his body beneath his shirt. She wanted to climb into his lap and rub her core against him as she had done in the coach, to fulfill her driving need.

Staring at the man through besotted eyes made him appear even more desirable to her than he had during their first meeting. However, even if they were both old and wrinkled, she knew she'd always find him the handsomest man in all of England.

“Left or right?” His voice cut into her seductive musing.

“Left or what?” she asked absently. She pulled her attention from his chest to his face. He had a blank expression.

“Left or right breast?” he asked again. His face was a stoic mask, but there was devilishness in his eyes he couldn't hide. “Where would you like me to start?”

It took her no more than a second or two to realize he was tormenting her on purpose. He knew she was heated up, and he'd do his best to keep the fire lit. She shot a glance to his open legs and his erection pressing the limits of the seams. Gavin wanted her as badly as she wanted him. He was keeping his emotions in check to torture her.

And doing a right fine job of it, too.

Wickedness raced through her mind. If he could play games, so could she. By the end of the bath his suffering would be the likes of which he'd never suffered before. He'd beg her to ease the pain between his legs, regardless of her weakened condition. The courtesans had mentioned the aches men felt when they couldn't satisfy their urges. Her reluctant lover would suffer a similar fate.

“Left, please.” She hid a smile. “And be sure to put extra effort in. I have been wallowing in filth long enough.”

Noelle stretched out as much as possible in the limited space and dropped her knees open against the sides of the tub. The soapy water was just deep enough to hide the patch of curls between her legs from view. She put her arms on the edges of the tub and leaned back with her eyes closed, knowing her nipples were pointing upward for his perusal.

His breathing took on a ragged quality, and she wanted to grin like an idiot. Finally!

Squish
. The cloth slopped over her breast, and her eyes opened. Gavin's stare was innocent. He jerked the cloth left and right like he was buffing a tea service. “Like this?” He swirled the cloth around her nipple, and the peak hardened. “I am not well schooled in the art of breast washing. You might have to give me detailed instructions.”

Oh! The man was intensely exasperating! Then why were her nipples already forming tight, rosy peaks?

“Do what you will,” she snapped. Just as quickly as she had wanted to play this game, the desire to best him fled. She'd not beg him to help end her suffering. “Just be quick about it.”

Leaning her head back, she waited for his awkward fumbles to finish. For all his handsomeness and, she suspected, his great knowledge of bedding women, he was clearly as clumsy as a schoolboy in the art of pleasing a woman in her bath. She wondered how she would spend her winnings from the wager; how far she'd travel on one of her beautiful new ships.

With all her mental grumbling, she wasn't immediately aware of the gentle caress of the cloth over and beneath her breast until the sweep of his rough fingertips brushed the hardened peak.

Noelle looked down and found that his scrubbing back and forth, like a washerwoman on a marble floor, had been replaced by a more seductive stroke. Slowly he moved to the right, to begin a sensuous assault on her other breast. He swept and swirled the cloth over the sensitive nipple, sending a shocking wave of heat down her body.

Her woman's core pulsed harder in response.

Gavin leaned to place his mouth to her ear. His breath caressed her like a feathered kiss. “Better?”

Noelle nodded dumbly. Rivulets of soapy water ran down her chest as Gavin soaped and caressed her breasts as only an experienced lover could. He'd decided to stop his torture and give her what she needed. She arched back and lifted her buttocks off the bottom of the tub. The thatch of curls danced on the surface of the moving water. She couldn't turn her eyes away from his hand as he lowered the cloth to circle her navel.

She moaned helplessly.

“Yes. More.” She didn't realize she'd spoken aloud until the cloth dipped beneath the water and over her inner thigh. He drew it up between her legs, and it skimmed across the sensitive bud he found there. She let out a small cry.

Somehow the cloth disappeared in the water and was replaced by his searching fingers. Noelle gasped in shock when his fingertip brushed her most intimate place. He teased and played with the bud until her body responded by bucking recklessly against him. Gavin dipped his head and pulled a nipple in his mouth, sucking the peak until she was mad with heat. With a gasp-cry, her body exploded into a mass of sensation as he brought her to a shuddering release.

Noelle's breaths came in small gasps before he caught her mouth with his and kissed her deeply. She played her tongue with his and lifted her hand to run through his soft hair. When he broke the kiss and peered deep into her eyes from beneath his tumbling hair, she knew that even if she lived to a very old age, she'd never love another man as she loved this man.

“My thanks,” she whispered as her lids drooped. Sated and fatigued, she hardly felt him quickly finish her bath and step away. Beneath halfway lowered lids, she saw him spread a clean sheet across the bed and make an awkward attempt to smooth the edges. The result was a lumpy mess across the surface.

“Your skills lie elsewhere, Mister Blackwell,” she teased softly. She couldn't bring herself to leave the bath and help. “However, we are not abed. The wager still stands.”

Gavin gave up on the sheet and returned to her. He pulled her to her feet, dried her with a well-used towel, and carried her to the bed. Easing her down, he tucked a warm blanket around her. She nestled in, knowing he'd sacrificed his own pleasure to satisfy her need. Once she was well, she vowed, she would return the gesture tenfold. He'd be her lover even if she had to get him thoroughly drunk and take advantage.