She squeezed those eyes shut, not certain she really wanted to see him showering such intimate attention on another. Not that she’d ever allow him to shower it on her.
Opening her eyes, she licked her lips. She was being paid to deliver a service and had known from the beginning that certain aspects of it would be unpleasant. However, she needed to be able to describe an action seen not merely heard. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she eased closer and peered around the doorjamb.
Her mouth quite suddenly became as arid as a desert, and her skin felt as though it had been enveloped by the sun.
Bared from the waist up, dew glistening over his skin, facing away from her, Bishop sat on the edge of a short backless bench, with one hand grasping a leather strap with what appeared to be a heavy iron bell attached to it and lifting it to his shoulder before lowering it to do the same on the other side with another bell. His movements were smooth, purposeful, quick, and she couldn’t look away from his muscles bunching, knotting, and rippling with his efforts. Up, down. Up, down. Over and over.
Then he stopped. One bell raised. And glanced back over his shoulder. With his penetrating gaze, he pinned her to the spot.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he lowered that mass of iron before twisting slightly and snatching up the linen that had been draped behind him over the bench. “You returned earlier than I expected.”
Had he been expecting her? She didn’t think that’s what he’d meant. She wasn’t certain what he’d meant, however, because she could barely reason as she watched him wipe the sweat from his brow and then his throat. Had she ever noticed that a man’s throat was such a powerful aphrodisiac? Not that she’d ever seen that many and certainly not so much of one, onethat flowed down into shoulders and chest. Jolly good thing that men wore neckcloths.
“That’s not the gown you were wearing at the Fair and Spare.”
“No. I took advantage of the transportation you provided and had your coachman stop by my aunt’s on the way so I could change back into my usual frock. I have little use for gowns in my current position. I hope that was all right.”
He merely shrugged.
“Did you get your matter tended to?”
His smile was self-effacing. “Not as well as I would have liked.”
“May I ask what you’re doing?”
He stood, and only then did she notice that his feet were also bare and his trousers fit him remarkably snugly as though his legs had been melted and then poured into them. “Strength training, something I began doing when I was younger, much younger, a gangly weakling, all limbs and not much else. I was around seven when I ran across a book on strength training at a bookstall. It recommended having something heavy to lift and suggested church bells. Hence one night I crept into a church tower and stole some small ones. Began working with those. I suppose I gained some strength at that tender age, but I was thirteen, fourteen before I detected any true muscle.”
While his arms rested at his side, his hand was knotted around the linen as though it held him securely there.
“You must have a formidable punch. That’s the reason that fellow didn’t want to accept your invitation to go outside.”
“Most likely. I trust the other gentlemen in attendance treated you properly.”
She nodded.None were as interesting as you.“I danced in the ballroom for a while.” Then for some reason she couldn’t decipher she felt compelled to add, “I didn’t traipse up those final stairs.”
One corner of his mouth hitched up. “You don’t owe me an explanation of your evening.”
“Of course not.” She watched as a drop of sweat rolled down his chest and along the hollows of his stomach until it reached its destination and was absorbed into the waistband of his trousers. His hand flexed around that linen, once, twice. He was chiseled like a Greek statue or a Roman god. What would he do if she moved toward him and captured with the tip of her finger or her tongue the next droplet that began its journey? But doing so would compromise her integrity. Even being here now was cause for concern. As much as she wanted to stay, she had to leave. “I should abed. Chores begin early.”
He nodded.
“Thank you for ensuring I do get to sleep in a bed and not on the stoop.”
His response was a short grunt.
She gave a quick bob. “Good night, sir.”
Another nod from him, and she was rather certain she’d overstayed her welcome. Quickly she departed, grateful for, and yet wishing she didn’t now have a more revealing glimpse of the scenery the women who visited his bedchamber enjoyed. She was beginning to despise each and every one of those damnable ladies.
With a groan of agony, Bishop dropped onto the bench, his teeth clenched so tightly that his jaw ached, the hand gripping the towel throbbing with pain. Creating the torment had been the only way to keep his body from hardening in response to the way she looked at him with wanton desire. His damned trousers fit so tightly that how badly he wanted her would have been revealed.
It hadn’t mattered within the shadows of the Fair and Spare. She’d not been able to see what he’d not been able to control when he’d stood so remarkably close to her while her back was pressed against that wall. Hopefully, she’d also not been able to detect how desperately he wanted to know the taste of her upon his tongue, the feel of her skin against his palms, the fit of her curves against his planes. The press of her breasts to his chest.
The need to lean in and take her mouth had nearly overpowered him. It had required a strength of purpose he hadn’t realized he possessed to leave her in that shadowed corner untouched—except for the glory his fingertips had experienced trailing along her warm cheek and his flared nostrils had enjoyed in absorbing her violet fragrance.
Did you get your matter attended to?She’d asked the question so innocently that she couldn’t have known the silent battle waged within him.
After leaving the Fair and Spare, he’d come straight to the residence, to this room where he’d gone to war with the bells. Pushing, pushing, pushing himself until his muscles trembled and screamed in protest. Until his mind was finally devoid of every thought of her.
