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Corbet sucks in a breath, his panicked gaze darting over my person. “Gwen? What’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just a little sore from carrying all that weight.” I rub the spot where he touched, wincing slightly at the rippling ache. “Farm work rarely leaves me sore, it must have been the odd placement of the rod…”
“Or the fact that you placed someone’s success above your own wellbeing. Goddammit, Gwen.” The king’s chest heaves once, twice, his fist mashing to his forehead. “Having you in pain makes me feel sick.”
“It’ll be better in the morning.”
“No, you don’t understand. I need it better now.”
“But…” I don’t bother to hide my confusion. “It’s my pain, not yours.”
He’s rubbing at the front of his throat. “It doesn’t seem to matter,” he says hoarsely, circling around behind me. “Lie down on my bed. I have some salve I can apply—”
“Oh no. I’ve heard of this trick—” His thumb rakes up my spine and digs into the nape of my neck, massaging in a figure eight pattern, and bliss pours through my limbs in the form of tingles and contentment. “Oh my lord. Oh my lord, that feels so good.”
He continues to perform this sorcery with his fingers as he walks me toward the bed—and I can do nothing but go, putting one foot in front of the other, well aware that I’m probably heading for my doom. The king’s bed is not a good place to remember my resolve to fix my family’s problem. Especially when he is working on a decade of knots with rakes of his knuckles and twists of his fists.
“Lay down,” he breathes in my ear. “I’ll get the salve.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, as if in a trance.
Oh God, the bed is so comfortable, too.
I fall straight into it face-down and curl my hands beneath a pillow, sighing happily.
I can’t even remember the last time I laid down anywhere without having to clean the house and corral two young girls first. “This is a seduction,” I complain, cracking an eyelid—
And I find the king shirtless.
Somewhere in my brain, there is a protest or an admonishment rattling around, but I can’t seem to make it come out of my mouth. Simply because…my tongue is in a knot.
I don’t know where to look.
His powerful chest appears harder than steel, all molded brawn and red scars. His pectorals are broad and dappled with black hair that grows thicker on its way down his stomach—and oh, what a stomach it is. Slabs of stone shifting beneath swarthy skin, veins intersecting and racing each other into his waistband. Toward the rigid jut of his arousal where it curves out, stretching breeches that are already having a hell of a time containing his monstrous thighs.
“You, um…” I lick my dry lips. “You don’t seem all that upset about my pain anymore.”
His eyes darken. “Ah woman, I am. If we were in battle and not a civil gathering, I would have ripped the throats of my opponents out for doing you harm.” Holding a small, clear bottle in one hand, he reaches down and adjusts his manhood with the other. “If you’re referring to this hard cock, my anger on your behalf only makes it swell, eager to distract you from your pain.”
“No need for that,” I breathe shakily, my knees drawing together. “The salve will do.”
Corbet hums, his stride confident and unhurried on the way to the bed. I close my eyes when the bedding sinks down with his weight, my heart pounding wildly. What is he going to do? I receive my answer when the king tugs my blouse free of my skirt, revealing the small of my back, groaning while sliding the garment up to my shoulders. On instinct, I try to roll onto my back to hide my bare flesh, but Corbet leans down and speaks beside my ear before I can move. “Stay still, woman, and let me touch.”
“No man has seen beneath my clothes.”
“Good,” he grits out, a single one of his fingertips trailing down my lower spine. “None of them were worthy of this perfection.”
“And you are?”
“No.” He continues to push up my blouse, higher and higher until I have no choice but to lift my head, allowing him to remove it completely. “But I’m willing to work until I am.”
Corbet takes my hair in his fist and brings it to one side, leaving me untouched for a moment during which I hear the uncorking of the bottle, liquid meeting flesh and palms rubbing together. When those warm palms meet the tension of my shoulders, thumbs digging in gently, then harder, harder, I moan into the pillow, euphoria cascading from the crown of my head, all the way down to my toes.
I’ve never been tended to like this. Or in any way.
The exhaustion of my muscles is something I’ve learned to live with, but with every twist of the king’s fists, I know I’ll notice it forevermore. Because for these precious few moments, I’m without any worry or any tension. There is only pleasure, coming from this man’s spectacular touch, and I only want more. I want so much more, which is why I don’t protest when he unwinds the cloth that binds my breasts and tosses it to the ground, giving him access to more of my back, his fingers not hesitating to travel over those new regions, unburdening them of stress and aches.
