Chapter Fifteen

L ottie fussed over Thatcher as he lay there in the bath, his body battered and bruised. Mindless to propriety or the fact that she was alone in a private bedchamber with a naked man—good Lord, what would her mother think?—she administered to his wounds, heat beginning a slow unfurling in the pit of her stomach at the nearness of him. At the nakedness of him. All those long, sculpted muscles, those broad shoulders, the dark patch of hair on his chest that led down below the water line in the most fascinating trail… Lottie’s cheeks flamed, and she yanked her eyes from the water’s surface just before her gaze dropped further. Avoiding eye contact, she soaked a cloth in the warm water and gently began to dab at the cuts and bruises on his face.

“Does this hurt?” she asked softly.

Thatcher winced as she touched a particularly tender spot, but gave a weak smile. “Only when you touch it.”

Lottie rolled her eyes playfully. “Well, I’m trying to help you, you know.”

He chuckled softly, and the tension in the room seemed to ease a bit, slowing, turning liquid and languid in a way unfamiliar to her, but that drew her like honey drew bees. “I appreciate it. I really do. It’s been a very long time since anyone has tended to my care.”

As she continued to tend to his injuries, she felt a growing closeness between them. Like this unexpected turn of events was bringing them together in a way that their work on the play hadn’t quite managed to do. For one, the play had never landed her in his private chambers in his home.

“You should be more careful,” she chided gently, sneaking a flashing glance at the dark thatch of hair teasingly just below the water’s steam-fogged surface. Drat. It was a fascinating patch, really. One she increasingly wished to see plainly. “Getting into fights and ending up like this… It’s not the behavior of a responsible playwright.”

Thatcher sighed, his gaze distant. “I know it’s not. But sometimes, life doesn’t go as planned. There are things you can’t control. Such as an attack on one’s person while strolling home.”

Lottie paused in her ministrations. “Good God, is that what happened? How dare someone accost you!” Protective anger washed through her, sending her decorum out the window. “Tell me who it is, and I’ll shoot the bloody bastards.” She looked him square in the eye. “I know how, you know.”

He looked at her then, his eyes searching hers for something she couldn’t quite identify. Emotions flashed across his sea-storm gaze, everything from amusement at her outrage, to vulnerability and shyness, before he settled into a lazy, hooded expression that turned her knees to melted butter. “Thank you. That means more to me than you know,” he murmured.

In that instant, it felt as if the world around them faded away. It was just the two of them, connected by something deeper than words could convey.

“I’m here anytime you need a foul fiend dispatched with accordingly,” she jested, trying to ease this rising restlessness in her body. She shifted, and her inner thighs brushed against each other under her skirts, the delicate skin lighting with sensation. Like a blush, heat bloomed between her legs, sweeping over flesh, trailing fire in its wake.

Unable to resist, she dropped her gaze once more to the water’s steamy surface. “I, um,” she started, quickly losing her thoughts when he shifted and water sloshed against the hard, flat plane of his belly. Her breath caught in anticipation. As the water receded, sloshing back the other way, the level lowered and she caught a glimpse of a thick, impressive manhood jutting straight as an arrow from a thatch of inky curls. “Oh my,” she whispered.

It was…it was…just so big.

The heat between her legs flashed, went achy. Suddenly she felt plump and slick with a need she couldn’t quite name. But she knew it absolutely had something to do with his thick, erect shaft, and that lazy, unreadable gaze he had locked on her.

“See something you like?” The way he said it, so soft and suggestive, sent that heat between her legs flaring a few degrees.

“I…” She trailed off, her gaze greedy on him. How could she possibly feel so shy and yet so tempted to touch? Lottie licked her lips. “I, um… That is…” Oh heavens, she couldn’t contain her curiosity anymore. “ Yes, ” she breathed.

She saw a whole lot of something she liked.

Every naked inch of Thatcher Goodrich.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Instantly, his large, hard hands were on her, pulling her close. One hand threaded through the hair at the back of her neck; the other boldly skimmed up her ribcage to the underside of her breast. “Christ, you’re shapely,” he growled, sounding hungry and pleased.

“I’ve never been the petite type,” she murmured, her thoughts flittering away as his hot hands commanded her attention.

“Good,” he said, adjusting his hand under her breast as if he was feeling its weight. “Curves are good. Yours. ” And then his mouth was on hers, hard and demanding. He pulled away long enough to order her, “Don’t ever lose them.”

Lottie couldn’t even if she tried. It was like asking the sky not to be blue. Her shapely form just was. “They’re acceptable?” she couldn’t help asking. Much of her life she’d worried she was too statuesque, too solid, too fleshy. Just too much body, period.

Thatcher gave a harsh laugh. “Acceptable?” His stormy eyes flashed lightning hot. “What does this tell you?” With that, he lowered his hand from her breast and guided her own hand down below the waterline. “This is what your body does to me, Lottie.” He placed her palm on his shaft, impossibly rigid and enlarged as it thrust toward her. “Fuck, that feels good.” He groaned and watched her through hooded eyes. “You’ve a body made for pleasure.”

“Pleasure?” she repeated, warmth spreading throughout her limbs. Oh God, his erection felt wonderful. So smooth and silky and hot, even in the water. She closed her hand into a gentle fist around him. When he groaned again and arched into her, pleasure flushed through her. How could touching him make her feel so much?

“Yes,” he replied in a low tone. “Pleasure.” And he closed his eyes and arched into her hand once more.

“Yours or mine?” she asked, emboldened by his response.

“Both,” he whispered hotly, flexing his hips under her exploration. “When done right, the pleasure belongs to both.”

“You’ve…experienced a lot of…pleasure…before?” How could she be envious of faceless, nameless women who’d received pleasure at the hands of this man? She knew them not. But the thought of any woman touching him where she did sent possessive want barreling straight through her. Mine, her everything screamed. This moody, infuriating writer was hers.

His hands, they were meant to explore her. Caress her. Learn her.

“There’s pleasure,” Thatcher said, low and seductive. “And then there’s pleasure. ” As if to emphasize his point, he flexed into her, groaning softly. “You, Lottie, are pleasure with a capital P.”

Well, wasn’t that just the thing?

Oh, she liked that. She liked that a lot.

*

If Lottie stroked him one more time with that sweet, innocently exploring hand of hers, he would come. Not that coming for her would be a bad thing. Her hot little hand was welcome to stroke him off anytime. Just not this time. “Lottie,” he grunted, and dropped his head to the back of the bathtub, forgetting every single punch and bruise and cut with each delicious slide of her hand over him. “If you keep that up, this will be over before it really begins.”

“You mean there’s more?” Her beautiful blue eyes widened.

“There’s more,” he agreed, thinking of all the ways he’d like to take Lottie Castlebury. All the ways he’d like to taste her. A shiver rippled down his spine as he thought about her perfect pink womanhood and what it would taste like there, right at her slick, plump entrance. “I could show you.” Please , let me show you. His cock throbbed with the need.

“Show me,” she whispered, leaning close to capture his lips in a kiss.

It was everything Thatcher never knew he needed. Those words on her lips unlocked something long buried inside him. “Fuck yes,” he growled darkly, the hedonist in him escaping. In an instant he was on his feet, water cascading off his bare skin, as he scooped Lottie into his arms and carried her to his bed. “I hope you rested well last night, love.”

“Why’s that?” she asked in that husky, melodic voice of hers that drove him mad with want.

Thatcher laid her on the bed, following with his big, bare body. “Because,” he said, nipping her full bottom lip and settling between her lush thighs, “I’m going to keep you up all night.”

“You are?”

“Mmm hmm.” He nuzzled the point below her ear, inhaling her scent. “ All night.”

Lottie raised her long, curvy legs, wrapped them around his waist, and pulled him to her. He groaned at the press of his cock into her. “Showing me pleasure?”

Hunger ripped through him, and Thatcher lost it, grabbing a fistful of her skirt and yanking. The fabric ripped up the seam, exposing her to his greedy gaze. “So much fucking pleasure, my lady. Neither of us will walk for a week.”

She slid a hand up his back, purring happily at the corded muscles she found there. “That sounds ominous.”

“Oh, it is,” he promised, need clawing at him. “Consider yourself warned.”

“So warned.” Her voice went even huskier, sultrier.

Thatcher gave in to his need to claim her, to touch and explore every inch of her luscious body. In moments her clothes were gone, flying across the chamber to land with a soft thump on the floorboards. “You’re mine.” The smile he gave her felt wolfish and wild—like his need for her.

“Show me,” she whispered again, meeting his gaze with boldness and passion.

And he did. For hours, Thatcher explored her, learned her every dip, every swell, every inch of her velvet softness. Over the brink he drove her again and again, until she was limp and satiated and sighing happy little mews. Only then did he allow his own blinding climax.

Finally, in the early hours before dawn, he wrapped her against his chest, content and at peace for the first time in his life. As she drifted into blissful sleep, Thatcher stared at the ceiling, his own heart in turmoil.

Tonight changed everything.

Tonight, Thatcher fell in love.

“Bloody hell,” he breathed, pulling Lottie closer. Bloody inconvenient hell.

What did he know about love?

Not a damn thing.