“Shall I dry you off if you have finished your bath?” she asked him.
The decidedly naughty thought of licking the water from his skin occurred to her, but she kept it to herself. What would he think of such an improper suggestion? The lover who burned in her arms every night would be pleased. The cool stranger who spoke to her of the news over their morning breakfast would likely be scandalized.
Who was he? Which Gabe was he, deep within? Or was he a complex combination of the two men he presented to her?
“Damn you, woman, how do you make the most innocent of suggestions sound wicked?” he asked, stepping from the tub.
The towels which had been laid on the surrounding tile absorbed the water running from him. But Helena still could not help but to find the southward trajectory of those rivulets utterly fascinating.
Instead of answering him, she distracted herself by fetching a fresh towel and blotting off the moisture on his chest. The ends of his mahogany hair were damp and dark, clinging together and falling over his brow in a rakish manner that was utterly irresistible.
Tenderness and desire hit her simultaneously.
“Here now,” he said gruffly, taking the towel from her. “You are not my manservant, and nor shall I expect you to tend to me as if you were.”
He was attempting to resurrect the walls he had erected earlier at dinner. That much was plain to see. Helena, however, was in the mood for victory this evening. Neither defeat nor surrender were options, and they never had been.
She snatched the towel back. “I tend to you because I want to, Gabe. Because tending to you pleases me. You are my husband.”
His jaw hardened, but he made no move to reclaim the towel. “You do not need to, Helena. I am not your duty.”
“There it is again,” she observed, drying off his well-delineated chest muscles. “Your favorite word, I dare say.”
“Duty?”
“Yes.” She dried his abdomen and then moved behind him, dabbing at the water running down his broad back with the towel next. “It seems to be a favored word in your lexicon.”
His back was perfection. Strong and wide, tapering to his lean hips and his buttocks. Helena could not help but to admire him there as well as she dried his lower back.
“Duty is important,” he said, his voice low. “It is the force that drives us through our every day, leading us on. And when we falter from it, duty brings us back to the course which we are destined to travel.”
His response brought a twinge of sadness to life within Helena. She did her best to diminish it as she toweled off his rump.
“Did you falter from duty when you kissed me the first time?” she asked, for the question had been burning within her for some time now. She had come to believe she understood him, at least in a small sense.
“Of course I did. And from honor as well.”
How stiffly he held himself now.
Duty was all-important to Gabe. It was why he had been betrothed to Lady Beatrice. Why he had fought his attraction to Helena so much. Why he fought it still. But there had to be other reasons, reasons which she had yet to unearth. Reasons aside from the lie she had told to force his hand. Reasons why he would make love to her so passionately and then withdraw by the light of the morning. She would simply continue digging until she discovered them all. Until she knew and understood everything there was about her husband.
On a wicked whim, she worked her way lower, drying off the firm backs of his thighs, the well-formed calves all the way to his ankles. Once there, she quietly knelt.
“Turn,” she told him, summoning every bit of boldness she possessed.
He did as she asked, his blue eyes burning into hers. “Why are you on your knees?”
“It is most assuredly not because of duty.” She tipped back her head, aware of every sense in a way she had not been before. The scent of him—citrus from the water, sandalwood from his soap—was heady on the air. Heat wafted from his bare skin. Steam rose from the bath, enveloping them both in a delicious mist. Even her own curls, trailing down her back until they tickled the soles of her bare feet peeping from beneath her bottom, were a cause of sensation.
“Helena.” Though he said her name in a warning fashion, he stroked her cheek. “This was not my intention this evening.”
Of course it had not been. His intention had been to send her away from him so he could continue clinging to the barriers he needed between them.
Pretending her only interest was in drying him, she forced herself to apply the towel to his thighs. First the right, then the left. Then lower. Down the rigid slant of his shins. All the way to the tops of his feet.
Only then did she glance back up at him, marveling at his height and strength, the firm, decidedly masculine musculature and sinews of his body. She had seen her husband naked on numerous occasions, but most of those had been in low gaslight, with him poised above her. Here, now, she had the opportunity at long last to admire him as he deserved.
And more, she hoped.
