The cloth moved from the hair-roughened wedge on his chest, inexorably down the flat plane of his stomach. It was as if she were on a mission of discovery, learning the shape, the planes and hollows of his body at the same time he was. She was quiet now, so very quiet, as if the intimacy of what they were doing had stolen her voice.
Hastily, a little clumsily, she moved to the corded sinews of his calves, his thighs, and as she came to his feet, delicately dabbing at each toe, he was damned sure the woman had refined the art of torture to new heights.
But it was when she began to dampen his hair, to work suds through the longish strands that Ciaran's meager hold on his self-control threatened to snap altogether.
No cloth, now, between her fingers and his scalp, her full lower lip caught between small white teeth, her dewy soft forehead puckered in concentration as she stroked and smoothed the lather into his scalp.
The sensation—strange and new and precious—took his breath away, an odd reaction for a man so depraved he had just leaped from a wanton lover's window. Yet with his memory gone, this might as well have been his first time beneath a woman's hands. And a part of him needed desperately to savor it before all the tawdry, cheap lewdness of the man he had been came spilling back to taint his memory.
The scent of her filled his head as she worked. She was so close now that the fullness of her breast was mere inches from his lips. He tried to shove the sight of it from his mind, but his appetite wouldn't be stilled. He trembled with the knowledge that he only had to lean forward to taste her through the damp material of her nightgown.
His shaft hardened beneath the meager veil of water. Bloody hell, what kind of lascivious monster was he, lusting after this innocent woman who had taken him in, an angry and battered stranger? This woman who trusted him?
His fingers shot out, manacling her wrist, shoving her away from him. "That's enough."
"But your hair—we need to rinse it."
With an oath, Ciaran ducked his head under the surface of the water. Pity was, the tub was too shallow to drown himself in. Soapy water stung his head wound, but he was damned certain that if he were flogged to within an inch of his life he wouldn't have suffered enough for taking advantage of Fallon this way.
He levered himself out of the water as if it had suddenly started to boil. Turning his back on her, he grabbed up one of the generous towels and wrapped it around his waist.
Damn, what had he been thinking, letting her bathe him that way? By morning he'd be gone. This was his only chance to be touched by Mary Fallon.
"Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you?"
"No." Ciaran ground out.
She'd done everything far too right, and given him the sweetest pain he could imagine. More guilt to carry with him when he left—and yet, he couldn't regret it had happened.
Damn, he needed to get dressed, to put sturdy, practical cloth between him and this fairy maiden before—before what? Before he kissed her? Tumbled her as if she had no more virtue than the likes of Vanessa Fyfe?
Drying himself with another towel, he spoke. "You said you'd brought me something to wear?"
"My father's clothes. I put them in the armoire." She crossed to the piece of furniture and opened its doors. Feminine things spilled out, holding the scent of last summer's wildflowers, as if the cloth itself had been steeped in the meadows she loved.
Mary Fallon of the Mist—a woman with legends in her blood and magic stroked into every curve of her face. The name "of the Mist" suited her far better than it suited him.
After a moment, she returned to him, facing him with eyelashes half-lowered and lips far riper than they had been before she'd put her hands on him in the tub.
She'd been affected by it, too. The knowledge rocketed through him. How could she not have been—a woman with Fallon's thirst for life, her passion, her quicksilver emotions?
He took the bundle of clothes, dragging on the shirt as if it were made of a chain mail that could banish the feel of her skin against his.
"While I was downstairs, I stopped in the library. There were some medical books there."
"Medical books?" Ciaran dragged on a pair of breeches. "Don't tell me. You're studying to be a doctor to wayward fairies?"
"No. My father had them sent here when my mother first got sick. I think he hoped he could do something to cure her. When he found out he couldn't, he left Misthaven, left all of us and never came back."
"He never attempted to contact you?"
"I was eleven when we got word he had died."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It should have been more painful than it was. But it was as if we'd already buried him the day we put Mama in her grave." She flushed, looked away. "Anyway, I looked up head wounds in the book, to find out how to treat them, and it says it's important that the patient not be allowed to fall asleep for long periods. Otherwise, you might slip into a stupor."
Her resourcefulness amazed him, as did the quick intelligence that shone in her eyes. Was there anything the woman hadn't thought of?
