Chapter 20

Being in love would kill him. Tristan drooped beneath the water in the big copper tub Bashton had ordered to his room and footmen had set before the fire. A light, unnecessary flame leapt in the grate. If the heat of the air didn't make him sweat, loving Andromeda would. When he'd seen her plunge into the ocean, his heart had jumped out of his body after her, and he'd had no option but to follow.

She'd been fine. Of course, she'd been fine. But his heart had become a fool in regard to her, and he'd likely fight more of its foolishness to ensure her safety, her happiness. He raised above the water and pushed his hair back from his forehead, breathing deeply. Gave a groan because he could not close his eyes without seeing Andromeda writhing beneath him, without seeing pleasure move like shadows across her face, seeing her sated smile. And he could not see all that without finding himself hard and ready for her once more.

She'd mentioned waiting a year to wed. Could he do that? He might have to. But what if—bloody hell. What if there was a babe? Born in nine months, around the same time as Alex's birthday.

Bloody hell. He had to marry her. Now. Right now. Surely, Clearford could procure a special license, and—

The door opened and closed behind him, and Tristan turned with a splash. The footman had brought everything he might need earlier—the tub, the water, the soap, the linen to dry off, even bath oils. But it wasn't the footman.

Andromeda smiled from the doorway, sheepish and sweet in an overly large dressing gown that belonged to someone much larger than her.

She rubbed her hands down it, smoothing the unwrinkled garment. "It belonged to Bashton's wife. He was married many years ago, he says. Still had this."

"The gown from earlier?"

"Mine. I brought it as well as another change of men's clothes. I'll wear them tomorrow on my way home." Her gaze roamed everywhere about the room but him. Shy? After what they'd done at the beach?

He held out a hand, water dripping from it. "Join me."

She shook her head. "Bashton provided me with a tub as well. All clean." A grin.

Had she used the oil? What did her skin smell like now? Not like salt and sea anymore. He bounced his fingers into his palm a few times. "Come."

She finally looked at him, her eyes glowing with desire, and she bounced off the door, walked toward him with an easy, swaying gait that reminded him how good her hips felt beneath his hands.

When she dragged a chair behind the tub and sat, he cocked a smile and settled back into the tub. Her fingers tangled with his hair almost immediately, and he rested his head on the back of the tub to look up at her. She smiled down at him, her shyness having drained away in her walk across the room.

"What brings you here?" he asked.

"Should I leave?"

She should. They still had nine months and six days till absolute safety. "No."

The water around him rippled as she slipped her hand into it and lifted, trickling water off her fingers and onto his shoulders, neck. "You're beautiful."

He snorted. And hardened.

"It's true." Her hand replaced the water droplets, smoothing down the line of his neck. He tilted it to the side to give her more space to explore.

She could even now carry his child. Had she considered it? If she had, it did not seem to trouble her.

"Where's the… ah." She reached past him, and her breast brushed his cheek as she leaned over him, snagging the soap from the water. "Here it is."

"And what will you do with it?"

"I've a sudden desire to help with your ablutions. I saw a picture once. Of a man and woman bathing together." Still leaning over him, she lowered her hand into the water and found his calf, drew the soap up the length of it. Her cheeks blushed prettily.

So close. So very intimate. He could and should take advantage of their proximity, of the few layers between them.

"No touching, Mr. Kingston," she said. "I'm recently dry, and I'd like to keep it that way. Mostly. Besides, I'd rather not ruin this lovely dressing gown that Bashton leant me."

"When we return home, I'll give you one of mine to wear every evening and every morning until you can have me draped around you instead."

She sighed, dragging the soap up and down his thigh. Her hand, the soap, lathered over his hip, brushed his cock, and he tightened, hissed.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No. Andromeda?"

"Hm?" She rubbed the soap in circles over his abdomen.

"This is a full body bath experience, yes? No, ahem, bit of the body left uncleaned?"

She stilled, then the blush bloomed brighter. "I… I believe it is. I shall omit nothing." But she did not trace the soap to the center of his body. She dragged it upward, cleaning, caressing his chest, his shoulders, his neck. "Lean forward now."

He did so, resting his chest on his legs and propping his chin on his bent knees.

Her hands stilled, and she leaned away from him, back into the chair behind the tub. He felt the ripple of her arms leaving the water, then she said, "Oh, Tristan, I do so like your back."

"Good. What shall you do about it?"

The hot press of her lips seared his skin between his shoulder blades, and she rubbed the soap up and down his back.

He cleared his throat. "You've seen pictures of women washing men?"

"Mm. Yes."

If only he could see her face, but her firm hands on his back, sinking lower beneath the water to wash the muscle of his arse, kept him pinned as thoroughly as stout chains.

"Those sort of pictures—women washing men," she said, "are more prolific, as far as I've surmised, than the opposite."

"I'd like to wash you."

"Someday."

Nine months from now.

"Other than wash a man," he said, "is there anything you've read about you'd like to do?"

He was already hard as stone, so why not torture himself further?

Her laugh caught between them and warmed his back with her breath. "I'd never actually thought I'd want to wash a man. It always seemed too… subservient. But when I walked in here and saw you, I understood the appeal. It's not an act of servitude. It's one of—"

"Claiming." He looked over his shoulder so she could see how serious he was. "I'm yours."

She licked her lips, but it could not hide her satisfied smile. "What shall I do with you?"

"You seem to have a very good instinct for that."

Kissing his cheek, she said, "Turn back around, you."

And he did, his heart full to bursting.

"Do you know," she said, her tone light yet thoughtful, "despite four years of loaning the books, collecting them, I've not had much… carnal curiosity about them. My dedication has been to the scheme, to keeping a part of my mother's life alive. I needed to keep everything as much the same for as long as possible. All my sisters together and happy. Our mother's work continued. An impossible task I'd set for myself. A destructive one, too, I think."

She sounded sad. Could he pull her into the tub and banish her sorrow? He should. He flexed and moved to turn, grab her, but she pressed him back into place with a hand to his shoulder.

"You don't have to give it up." He lifted his arms and gripped the edge of the tub. "Nine months and six days, and you can do whatever the bloody hell you please. I'll laugh in the faces of anyone who says you can't."

She stroked her fingernails down the muscle and bone of his back. "Thank you. But no. I'm ready to move forward."

"You cannot fully leave the past behind. I know. I've tried."

"Have you? How?"

"All those years at sea, chasing adventure. Chasing a Tristan who could be something other than a bawdy earl's by-blow."

"Why did you return home?"

"Because I realized I didn't really want to deny who I was. Alex was a part of that Tristan, and I could not abandon my brother so easily as I could abandon my father. Myself."

She kissed the back of his neck. Laid her cheek against the muscle of his back for a breath. Then she lifted and set to work soaping the length of his arms, leaning over him to do so, her hair tickling his cheek, his temple, her breasts pressing against him. "I tried to abandon myself, too. I thought, when my mother died, that I was no longer the girl I used to be, that she'd died with Mama. I buried myself and all my dreams in the ground with my mother." A pause of body and voice, her hand holding the soap becoming a claw against his forearm. Then she loosened and continued her ablutions. "You asked me recently what she wanted and what I want. I had no answer for the latter because I still rather thought that girl was dead. Like you, I thought I could simply… leave her behind. But like you, I can't. I don't want to. I want the same things she did—home, a family. Love."

Did she think he'd keep his hands off her now? Now, when she'd opened herself up to him fully, shined a light on every dark corner of her soul for him to peer into. He turned.

She pushed him back around with a laugh, kissing his cheek. "That is, in fact, what I came in here to tell you. On the beach, you said you loved me. And I believe you, and you deserve the same from me." She rested her chin on his shoulder and tilted her head to whisper in his ear, "I love you, Tristan Kingston, and I have since the first time you kissed me." She sighed, and the breeze of her breath warmed him to the core. "Hopeless romantic, I know, to fall in love so quickly, so foolishly, but—"

He stood and wrapped his arms tight around her and pulled her into the water.

She cried out, but he swallowed the sound with a hungry kiss that softened as he sat them both in the tub, settled her facing him, her legs wrapped around his waist, her middle pressed against his throbbing cock. He kissed every inch of her he could.

Her head fell back with a sound, half sigh, half moan. "Oh, I do love you."

He kissed her temple. "I love your mind, Andromeda." He kissed her lips. "And the funny things you say." He nibbled around her small, pert breasts, then laid his ear against her chest to hear the beating of her heart. "And I love your spirit, your daring soul."

As she wrapped one hand around his neck, her other crept between their bodies. His cock twitched, anticipating, hoping, but she laughed, shaking away a large fold of soaked dressing gown her hand tangled with.

"Poor Bashton."

"I'll buy him a new one. But it's ruined now. No need to keep it on." He pulled one shoulder down, revealing the snowy white shift beneath. He rubbed a finger down it. "How many of these did you bring?"

"Just the one. It's being washed with my other clothes at the moment. This is one of Bashton's nightshirts. Did he loan you one, too?"

Tristan chuckled against the skin between her breasts where he scattered kisses. "Don't need one, Captain."

"You don't sleep in a nightshirt?"

"No."

"Just your smalls?"

"No."

"Then… oh! Oh. Well, that's fascinating. Without one stitch of clothing."

"Would you like to experience it?"

"I… I think… yes, yes, I would." Then her hand found his cock, and somehow, she still had the soap, and she wrapped her clever, lithe fingers around him and dragged her hand up and down. "Am I doing this right?" The words came on heavy breaths. "I've seen—"

"Let me guess. Pictures?" Each word a burden with the tension her attentions curled through his body.

"Yes." A breathy admission. "Am I? Doing it right?"

"Perfectly. I've never felt such pleasure as your hand on my cock."

A shocked gasp.

"Except," he continued, "for when I was inside you."

Still her hand stroked, her thumb swiping over the head now and then as she explored him. She cupped his check with her unoccupied hand. "I want you inside me."

He wanted that, too. Desperately. He was supposed to remind her of something, but each stroke of her hand obliterated every half-formed thought. He wrapped his arms around her and said, "Hold on, love." He stood, sadly breaking the hold she had on him as her arms flew to circle his neck and he stepped from the tub. He tore off her clothes, throwing the dressing gown and night shirt into the tub, and he rubbed her clean with the waiting linen towel.

Once he had her laughing and pink and almost dry, she snapped it out of his hold. "My turn." She rubbed warm circles into him with the linen and licked a drop of bath water from his biceps.

A curse he'd learned aboard a sailing ship broke from his lips at contact of her wet, pink tongue against his skin, making her laugh more.

"Dry enough," he hissed, picking her up and throwing her on the bed. He crawled onto the mattress and over her body. Just as he dipped down to drink from her lips, her expression changed from siren to imp, and she rolled, ducked beneath his arm, and rammed into his torso. Her insignificant weight barely budged him, but he fell for her, as he'd already fallen for her, as he would always fall for her, and rolled onto his back, which seemed to be right where she wanted him. She crawled onto him then, straddling his legs so that his cock rose between them, hungrier than before.

He grasped her hips and rubbed his thumbs over her hip bones. When she made a humming sound of delight, he felt the thrill of absolute victory, absolute happiness. She wrapped her hand around his cock once more and stroked again. Her gaze on him felt purposeful. He could not look away from her blue-green eyes, did not wish to. Never would.

"In another picture," she said, her voice husky, her stroking hand twisting his every muscle into madness, "the woman is on top. Can we…?"

"Yes," he hissed. "Yes."

"How?"

"Just as it looks, love." He helped her position herself over him, helped her begin the slide down and—

She hissed.

He stopped, frozen in horror. "Does it hurt?"

She winced. "It's a bit uncomfortable. Earlier, the first time, it was, too, but I've been reassured that the pain goes away."

"I won't hurt you." Which meant he'd have to stop, and stopping might kill him.

Her wince became a frown. Then as if the sun rose in her face, the frown lightened. "I know." She bounced off the bed and rummaged around the tub. "Ah. Here. Excellent."

He propped himself up on his elbows as she returned. "What's that? The bath oil?"

She nodded, straddling his legs once more. "Lady Chawton says oil can help… ease the way." She unstopped the bottle and drizzled some into her hand.

Hell. The most arousing sight he'd ever seen. "Your knowledge is not just pictorial and academic, then."

"The ladies like to talk at our monthly salon." Her grin was wholly wicked as she applied her palm once more to his cock, stroking the oil up and down, coating him. "And though I am unmarried, they somehow always seem to forget that in their… passion for the subject. But"—she bit her lip and rolled her hips against his thighs—"I do not wish to speak of them."

He grasped her hips once more, and she rose up on her knees, placed herself again just over the head of his cock and lowered. Slowly, so damn achingly slowly, but this time with no wincing or soul-crushing gasps of pain. When he was finally fully sheathed inside her, he lifted to cup her jaw and kiss her hard, a kiss that lasted for a mere moment. She gently pressed him back into the mattress with a warm palm, which she rested on him, just over his heart, as she leaned her weight into it, rocked her body against him.

He played with every bit of her he could find—her breasts hanging, her tight thighs working, her belly soft and perfect—and he met her rolling up and down with his own thrusts, slow and gentle and rhythmic so he could watch her, watch her skin glow in the shadows cast by the orange embers in the grate beyond the tub, watch her grasp her own hair with a moan as her pleasure rose with his. He found curls and circled that little pearl he knew would make her shatter, pressed it gently, wanted to taste it again. Later. For now—ah hell—for now, he watched her lose control, watched pleasure ripple along her muscles and leave her body on a breath of a cry. Her passion unhinged him, and he shattered, too, pleasure ripping through him like lightning, love settling deep down in his bones.

She collapsed against him, panting, her ragged breathing matching his own. They lay in perfect peace for a lifetime's worth of breaths, and then he rolled and settled her on the mattress at his side, left the bed, and gathered an abandoned square of linen. He wet it in the now cool tub and returned to her.

"Let me clean you this time."

She lay still, her eyes closed as he tended to her, and as he washed the oil from her inner thighs, the thought he'd been trying to remember earlier snapped clear and insistent into his mind.

"Hell."

Her head popped up, eyes open. "What?"

He finished his work, then tossed the linen at the tub and lay down beside her, curving her into the hollow of his body as he rolled onto his side. "We can't do that anymore. Not until we're married."

Silence, her heart thrumming faster beneath the hand he'd pressed to her breastbone. "Hell and chaos, you're right." A heavy exhale. "What was I thinking? I suppose I was not." But she wiggled closer.

And he twitched at the attention.

"I should leave, shouldn't I?"

"No, you should not. Stay here. We have nine months and six days' worth of lonely nights ahead of us. I'll take this one night for myself. For us."

"Unless…"

He placed his other hand over her belly. "A child."

"Likely not."

"Likely not."

"But if…"

"Then we marry right away," he assured her. "And Alex will be fine. Lady Eldridge can't know about this, after all."

"No, but even if we wed by special license tomorrow… anyone who can count will know. She'd guess. Everyone would. As soon as my condition became known."

He set his chin atop her head. "Don't worry, Captain."

She yawned. "I'll try not to, but worrying keeps you safe."

"And keeps you hidden sometimes, too."

"Yes." She yawned again and playfully slapped his arm nestled round her waist. "I hope I can count on you, newspaperman, to keep my secret, my sisters' secrets?"

"Oh, I suppose so." He kissed the top of her head. "Since they are to be my sisters. But I'll need something in return."

"Oh?"

"Don't give all the books to this new lady you speak of. Keep some for us."

She nodded but gave no other answer, and when she fell asleep, he did not because if he had to wait nine months for another night holding her, he'd stay awake for every moment of this one.