Eileen Wilks - The Loner And The Lady

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?

Or did she just want Seth?

He was back with her juice. “You haven’t finished your soup.”

“It’s delicious, but my appetite is a little off.”

He studied her, then took the almost empty bowl away. “All right. But you’re looking tired,” he said in his definite way. Bossy. “You need some more rest.”

“I’m not sleepy, Seth. I’ve slept for most of the past forty-eight hours.”

“You were unconscious for fifteen of those hours, and you get dizzy when you try to do anything. I’m no doctor, but that sounds like a concussion to me. You need to stay in bed.”

She ignored the last statement. “What are you, then? You’re not a doctor, but you seem to know what you’re doing.”

He hesitated, then set the bowl down. “I’ve had some paramedic training. These days, though, I’m a student.” He tried to pull the covers up.

She swatted at his hand. “You are not tucking me in again. What are you studying? Medicine?”

“No. They don’t offer medical degrees through correspondence courses.”

Correspondence courses? “Yet you think you can boss me around.” She tipped her head to one side, pleased when it didn’t feel as if it were going to fall off. “I know. You’re getting a degree from The Terminator School of Nursing, right?”

“No.” But for all the terseness of his reply, his face relaxed. He was almost smiling.

Had she seen him smile? Since he rescued her and her memory started, had she once seen him really smile? She wanted suddenly, urgently, to know what he looked like when he was happy. “Ah,” she said. “I’ve figured it out. You’re embarrassed to admit it because you’re a man, but you shouldn’t be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cooking.” She gestured at the bowl on the table beside her. “You’re taking cooking courses, and you’ve been practicing your lessons on me.”

He shook his head. His hair swung loosely around his face, and she wondered if the scarred side was as sensitive as the other, if that skin felt the tickle of hair as acutely as unmarked skin. She wanted to find out. To touch him, and learn where he was sensitive…

His thin, cleanly shaped lips almost turned up. Almost. “Not cooking or nursing.”

He liked being teased, she decided. He wasn’t giving anything away, but he liked her teasing. The knowledge sang through her veins like a heady liquor. “Magic,” she said softly.

He looked startled.

“I’ve figured out your secret. The five sides to your cabin give you away. You’re a warlock, or at least you will be one when you graduate from Dr. Faust’s Correspondence School of Magick. I’ll be able to prove it,” she added, “if I can find your gramarye.”

“My grammar?” His lips twitched. “Do warlocks worry a lot about dangling participles, then?”

“Gram-ar-ee. You know, a magician’s occult knowledge. A book of spells.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Ah, you must not read any fantasy.”

“Do you?” he asked casually.