The Loner And The Lady

The water was ready, he admitted silently. He wasn’t ready, but he stood anyway. He’d better go get her before the stupid woman tried to hobble in here on her own.

She wasn’t smiling at him now. In fact, she couldn’t seem to get her gaze past the third button on his shirt when he stooped down and picked her up. “Listen,” he said, “if you’re having second thoughts—”

“No. No, I’m embarrassed, I’ll admit, but I’m dirty, Seth. I have to have a bath.” Shy as a butterfly, her glance lighted on his for a moment. “I trust you.”

Well, now, that meant they were both fools, didn’t it?

She was as perfect as he remembered. Exquisite, with her soft, white curves peeking out here and there as he unbuttoned the blue shirt. He tried not to look—tried, at least, not to get caught looking—while he helped her ease her incredibly naked body into the tub.

Her nipples weren’t hard now, as they had been the first time he saw her breasts. Which was good, he told himself as he released her to the water. He must have gotten it warm enough in here for her to be comfortable. God knows his own temperature was nothing to judge by. It had shot up with the first button he’d unfastened while she sat there, docile and patient.

The little moan of satisfaction she gave as the warm water closed around her almost had him groaning, too. He turned away quickly. “There’s soap and a washcloth on the ledge,” he said gruffly. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

She thanked him and started bathing. She made little splashing sounds, which had him picturing the way the water beaded on her bare skin. After a minute she started humming. It was a country tune. Well, he told himself, desperate for distraction, she was from Texas, judging by her accent and the way she’d recognized her location. Everyone in Texas knew some country songs, whether they—

A splash, too big and too loud, made him spin around.

She was all the way under the water.

Probably she would have been okay anyway. Probably. She hadn’t knocked herself out again or anything, and was already pushing herself up when he got his arms around her and pulled her sopping body up against his chest.

“Dammit, woman.” His heart galloped like that blasted mare had the day she refused the jump and broke his collarbone. “Dammit all. You’re getting out right now.” But he didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

“No, listen—” She pushed against him in the feeblest way. He managed to relax his hold a little. The face she tipped back to look at him was as pale as milk, like it had been when she was unconscious. The smile she tried on wouldn’t stay put. “I’m all right. Really. I bent over to get my hair wet so I could wash it, and I got dizzy for a second. But it passed. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you’re fine and I’m Little Boy Blue.” He grunted as he shifted, needing to get his legs under him better before he lifted her. Kneeling like this made his thigh hurt.

“No-please!”

He paused. His shirt clung to his chest, wet with water from her very naked body. Her breasts—the breasts he’d been trying not to look at—just brushed his chest. His blood sang a hot, hot song.

“It’s the blood,” she said. “I can’t stand having that dried blood in my hair any longer, Seth. Please.”

This was a mistake. He was positive this was a mistake. So he was stern with her. “All right.” She was getting some color back in her face already. That was good. “I’ll wash your hair, though, not you. You took twenty years off my life when you went under like that. I won’t let it happen again.”

This Wouldn’t take long, he told himself. Her hair was already wet, so he just had to do the shampooing and then pour some water over her head to rinse. He dug around under the sink until he came up with an old mason jar to pour with.

Bracing her with an arm at her shoulders while he poured shampoo into the palm of his other hand was awkward. It brought him much too close to—well, to everything, all those warm, bare inches of her. Shoulders. Arms. Skin that looked even more delectable all wet, with little drops of water beaded on it, than he’d imagined it would.

“Seth? I can sit up.”

Did she sound any different? Uncertain? She wasn’t getting scared of him, was she? “Sure.” He took a quick peek at her face, which was flushed. But the bathwater was pretty warm. No wonder she was flushed.

She was also very close. His soap definitely smelled different on her.

He cleared his throat. “I guess you can’t tip over while I’ve got my hands in your hair,” he agreed, and straightened enough to use both hands to lather the shampoo into her hair.

Mistake. Oh, yes, this was a huge, glaring, enormous mistake. He hadn’t made one this large in years. He hurt. He was hard, and hurting, and he had to sound…normal. Unaffected.

“Almost done,” he told her with dreadful, forced cheer. He urged her head back and poured water over her sudsslick head, water that ran down her back, glistening with soap bubbles. Quickly he rinsed again. He ran his fingers through her short, water-darkened curls to check for lingering soap, doing his best not to look below her forehead in front, but that left his gaze traveling down her back, down her straight spine to her narrow waist and on to the round cheeks of her bottom.

His skin was too tight and too hot. His thoughts thinned and his hands lingered rebelliously at their task as the rest of his blood went south to that most willful, demanding part of his body.

Her wet hair was silkier than that old mare’s nose had been. Her eyes drifted closed and her lashes lay, long and pale, against the petal smoothness of her skin. Skin that was all pink and white, like blossoms. So pretty. Like her breasts, where the nipples now pointed out perkily.

Uh-oh.

His mouth opened as he stared at those hard little nipples. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked up.

Her eyes were open. They’d darkened from grass green to pure mystery. He heard her breath catch as their gazes locked. He reached out with one hand, brushing her cheek as gently as he knew how. “Don’t be scared,” he said. Don’t be frightened. I won’t let my scars touch you when I kiss you now, when I touch that wonderfully soft, wet-skin of yours and suck those perfect breasts and—

Rocky’s deep bark from directly behind him startled Seth so thoroughly he almost fell into the bathtub.

He pulled his hands back, clenching them into fists. Closed his eyes, and counted to ten. He’d been about to…very ready to…and his body still insisted on it, on the warmth and skin-to-skin closeness, and especially the part where he put himself inside a woman, inside this woman, and watched what happened to her shamrock eyes while he moved within her—

Rocky nudged his foot with her nose.

He opened his eyes.

Sophie hadn’t moved. She sat in the cooling bathwater and stared at him with big, trusting eyes, her face still flushed with desire, looking as vulnerable as a new-hatched chick.

Which, he told himself with painful honesty, is what she was, in a sense. She didn’t know who or what she was, had no memories to act as defense against the man-woman hunger that flared white-hot between them.

If, that is, she was telling the truth.

He thought she was. He didn’t see how anyone could lie so convincingly while concussed. But amnesia, the sort of complete amnesia she claimed, was as rare as whooping cranes. Which was all the more reason for him to back off.

“That dog’s always hungry these days,” Seth growled as he grabbed the big towel he’d left on the ledge beside the tub. “Come on, get out before you catch a chill.” He didn’t actually lift her out. Didn’t trust himself enough. Just slid his arm around her and held on while she got her legs under her. Together they got her sitting on the ledge again.

He promptly shrouded her in the big, blue towel. “How’s that? Better?” Definitely better for him, with her all covered up like this. He started drying her hair with a second towel, which was another improvement. Now he couldn’t see her at all. “Rocky’s appetite is something these days. But then, she’s probably eating for eight or ten, judging by the size of her stomach.” He tried to wrap the towel around her head, turban style, so she wouldn’t get chilled. “It looks as if those puppies are going to pop right out of her skin.” Did he sound as stupid as he felt? He hadn’t talked this much in months.

“Seth-”

“Ready to get back in bed? Hold on one more minute, and I’ll have a clean shirt for you.” How in the hell would he keep his hands off her while putting a shirt on her? How would he keep himself from learning the feel of those hard little nipples and the soft skin around them?

She touched his arm. “Seth?” Her band was small and warm and much too welcome. Her eyes searched his—lovely eyes, a little eager, a little scared.

He made his expression harden. He couldn’t afford to let her find whatever she was looking for in his face.

She glanced away, at the dog who’d plopped down beside him. “I didn’t know you had a dog.” She pushed the towel turban out of the way when it slipped down, and gave him a shaky smile. “It’s all right. I know you’re not going to ravish me or anything.”

She sure as hell knew more than he did, then. “Come on,” he said grimly. “Let’s get you back in bed.”

Seth was a bully. An oversize, gentle, worrywart of a bully. Sophie figured this out by the time he stuffed another pillow behind her and told her to behave and be still while he got her some more juice to drink with the supper she was finishing. He wouldn’t let her get out of bed. He’d barely let her feed herself. He hadn’t let her bathe herself…

Oh, but she couldn’t regret that. She should, shouldn’t she? She ought to be ashamed of the way she’d felt about having him look at her body—all hot and luscious, like melted fudge flowed in her veins instead of blood. Eager.

She wanted to feel that way again. Wanted him to look at her. Wanted…him. Was she the kind of woman who was casual with her body, then? The kind who, when she saw a man she wanted, thought that was reason enough for intimacy?