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She turned her head away and he let her, but he didn’t release her. If anything, he moved nearer, lewdly pressing himself against her, holding her against the door with his hardness and strength.
Aislinn squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lower lip in fear and humiliation. His long, tapering fingers strummed her throat, moving up and down in an evocative rhythm.
“Well I have been in prison for a long, long time.” His fingers slid down her chest. He hooked his index finger on the top button of her blouse, then fiddled with it until it popped open. She whimpered. His face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath falling warmly on her skin. It struck her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. She inhaled it by necessity, hating the forced intimacy of breathing the air he expelled.
“So if you’re real smart,” he warned silkily, “you won’t give me any ideas.”
When she realized what he was telling her, her eyes sprang up to meet his. They clashed, a meeting of wills and a battle of tempers. For a long moment they seemed suspended, taking each other’s measure, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses.
Then gradually he pulled back. When his body was no longer making contact with hers, she almost sank to the floor with relief.
“I told you I needed food and rest.” There was a strange new quality to his voice now. A gruffness.
“You’ve rested.”
“Sleep, Miss Andrews. I need sleep.”
“You mean...you intend to stay? Here?” she asked, aghast. “For how long?”
“Until I decide to leave,” he answered obliquely. He crossed the room and turned on the lamp beside her bed.
“You can’t!”
He returned to where she still stood by the door and took her hand. This time he pulled her along behind him. “You’re hardly in a position to argue. Just because I haven’t harmed you yet doesn’t mean that I won’t if I’m desperate enough.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Yes you are.” He dragged her into the adjoining bathroom with him and slammed the door. “Or you should be. Look, get this straight,” he said through clenched teeth, “I have something to do, and nothing, especially not an Anglo princess like you, is going to stop me from doing it. I knocked a guard unconscious to escape prison and I made it this far on foot; I have nothing to lose but my life, and it ain’t worth a damn where I’ve been. So don’t press your luck, lady. You’ve got me as a houseguest for as long as I want to stay.” To punctuate his threat, he yanked the knife out of his waistband.
She sucked in a sharp breath as though he had pricked her belly button with the tip of the blade. “That’s more like it,” he said, gauging her fear. “Now sit down.” He hitched his chin toward the commode. Aislinn, keeping her eyes trained on the knife, backed up until she bumped into the bathroom fixture and then collapsed onto its lid.
Greywolf laid the knife on the edge of the bathtub, well out of her reach. He pulled off his boots and socks, then began tugging the tail of his tattered shirt from the waistband of his jeans. Aislinn, sitting as motionless as a statue, said nothing as he peeled it off his shoulders and shrugged out of it.
The center of his chest was smattered with dark hair. The brown skin was stretched tightly over curved muscles that looked incredibly hard. His nipples were small and dark. The skin of his belly was stretched as taut as a trampoline, and the shallow part of it around his navel was dusted with black hair. The crinkly fan narrowed into a sleek stripe that disappeared into his jeans.
He began unbuckling the silver belt at his waist. “What are you doin
g?” Aislinn asked in alarm.
“I’m going to take a shower.” He undid the belt, letting it hang open as he bent toward the taps in the bathtub. He turned them until water was gushing from the faucet full blast. Even over that roaring sound, Aislinn heard the rasp of his jeans’ zipper as he lowered it.
“Where I can see you?” she cried.
“Where I can see you.” He calmly pushed the jeans down past his hips and buttocks and stepped out of them.
Aislinn’s eyes closed. She was overcome by a wave of vertigo and gripped the lid of the commode beneath her to keep from swaying. Never in her life had she been so outraged, so insulted, so assaulted.
Because to look at his nakedness was to be assaulted by masculinity incarnate. He was perfectly proportioned. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep. His limbs were long and leanly muscled, testimonies to agility and strength. Where his skin was smooth, it looked like polished bronze, yet alive and supple. Where it was hair-dusted, it looked warm and touch-inviting.
He raised the lever of the shower and stepped beneath its powerful spray. He didn’t draw the curtain. Keeping her head averted, Aislinn drew in several restorative breaths.
“What’s wrong, Miss Andrews? Haven’t you ever seen a naked man before? Or is it seeing a naked Indian that has you so visibly upset?”
She whipped her head around, stung by his mocking tone. She wouldn’t have him thinking she was either a prudish old maid or a racial bigot. But her verbal barb died unspoken on her tongue. She was unable to utter a sound, paralyzed by the sight of his lathered hands as they slid over his sleek nakedness. The water must have been hot, for the mirrors were fogging up and the atmosphere was as steamy as an Erskine Caldwell novel. The mist settled on her own skin. She could barely draw the heavy, sultry air into her lungs.
“As you can see,” he taunted as his soapy hands slid to the lower part of his body, “we’re equipped just like any other man.”
Well, not quite, Aislinn thought with a secret part of her mind, as her eyes took one forbidden glance down his torso to where that beautiful body hair provided a dense, lush base for his impressive manhood.
