Standing at the foot of the bed, she turned and grabbed the intricately carved poster, presenting him with her back. His hands were slow and steady as he loosened her lacings, while hers had begun to grow damp with the slightest bit of trembling in anticipation of his touch grazing over more than cloth. “You should probably remove your waistcoat and shirt so they don’t get wet.”

She didn’t much like the hint of breathlessness in her voice, but when he pressed his mouth to her spine at the base of her neck, the hint disappeared completely as her ability to draw air into her lungs deserted her.

“What a wise woman you are. Can you handle the remainder of your clothing or shall I see to it?”

“I can handle it.”

She mourned the loss of him when he moved away. “I’ll give you a few minutes and then join you at the tub.”

Nodding, she listened as his footsteps heralded his departure. Then she dashed to the tiled room, quickly shed her clothing, piled it in a corner, and sank into the incredibly warm water, hotter than she’d ever had the patience to make it. Carting in heated water had never been her favorite task, and she usually did it only long enough to get the water comfortable. She would have to rethink the value of the effort because this was lovely.

Hearing a slight scrape, a bump, she grew still and waited. She thought she should have been nervous, but she’d never not felt comfortable around him. And he had done deliciously wicked things to the most private and intimate places of her body. She wasn’t hypocritical enough now to tell him he couldn’t touch, especially when she loathed her very skin. She’d nearly scrubbed it raw that afternoon.

He was so quiet she barely heard him when he walked in. His waistcoat was gone but his shirt remained. He placed a stack of books against the wall and set a lamp on top of them. “You didn’t let down your hair.”

“It doesn’t need to get wet. It takes forever to dry.”

“Mmm. We’ll see.”

He disappeared and the light above went out, leaving her in a room barely lit with shadows dancing around. When he returned, the shirt had been discarded and she found herself staring at a smooth, finely chiseled chest as he crouched before her and offered her a glass of wine. She did wish he’d left the light above on. Some of the dips and shallows were lost to the shadows, and she couldn’t see them as clearly as she’d have liked. Beneath the water, her fingers flexed in want of a touch. She had to calm them before lifting one hand from the water, focusing on the stem to wrap them around, rather than the breastbone over which they longed to trail.