“Hmpf!”
He lifted her by her waist and lowered her, feet first, into the middle of the shallow stream. It came to just above her ankles, and she gasped as her feet became several degrees cooler.
“Cold? Good. Now sit.” He pushed her down, and she braced herself as her backside hit the water. Thankfully, the rocks were smooth from centuries of pummeling.
John splashed into the water behind her. She heard him squat or kneel, then felt him play with her fingers, stroking them, holding them, as if he contemplated… something she could not be sure of. Then he touched behind her head and untied the rope there, loosened it in many other places, slithered it off her body, until only her hands were bound.
Po tongued her mouth, her lips, worked her jaw, and wondered how best to be scathing without angering him too much. He was, after all, of the nobility. Something of that must remain.
“Release me fully,” she said. “I will wash.”
“Hell, no. Do I trust you anymore? No. I must recalibrate, re-plan. You are untrustworthy. You lied.”
“I… did…” Shivering, she felt her nipples become erect, those miniature beacons of sexuality. “Not.”
“Crap.”
How she wished to quieten her betraying nipples, to shoo them away. She eyed him as he undressed. His clothes were also muddy.
“You were, abominable and disgusting. Your words at the border crossing were vile. What else could I do in the face of your threat to defile me?”
“You mean defile your holes? Those?” Grinning, he slipped off his coat and black stovepipe-straight pants and laid them on the bank. Next, his shirt was gone. The man had quite a few sculpted muscles, all over him.
My.
Apoplectic, with emotions rushing about in her head, she switched from that to a whole other… topic. Po swallowed.
She was naked, so was he.
Decorum had been tossed aside. Again.
Her mouth had opened and so she closed it, abruptly. She’d not seen a naked man, except at a distance… ever… and found it difficult to take her eyes off him or that rigid member that bobbed upright before him. If her nipples were beacons that was a…
Aghast, she shook her head. Stop.
John sloshed toward her, small bowl in hand. “Now, I get to wash you again.”
Why did that seem a threat? Because it was?
She pursed her mouth, dreading his hands on her, yet feeling her body stir with heat, a swirling, rising, heavenly heat. Her heart beat faster. Her lips seemed to swell, to become more obvious, as did that part of her at the apex of her thighs. Wherever he might easily touch became a target.
After stooping to fill the bowl, he lifted it. She screeched as water cascaded over her. Head lowered, she watched the water tumble over her breasts, sure that he too was watching. Po pressed her legs together.
As he massaged her hair and poured more water, her wet tresses fell across her face.
“You won’t be utterly clean, but clean enough to let you dress.” He paused, straddling the stream. His gaze ranged over all of her, slowly, then he resumed drowning her. “Luckily, this isn’t actually clay, or we’d be here a long time.” His voice was deep, calm, mellow. With every word he spoke, it seemed as if he caressed her.
His large hand swished in her sodden hair, then he rubbed her ears, her face, her neck, venturing over and beneath the curves of her breasts.
There, it was so potently sexual.
She wondered what he was thinking.
His finger circled her belly button and her wondering fell apart in the face of this intimate touch.
“I think we are done. You’re definitely less muddy. Except… what is down here?” His fingers trailed even lower.
“Nothing.”
She closed her eyes and simply allowed him to do it. She would endure.
“Oh, you will not escape me so easily. Open your eyes. How can I humiliate you if you pretend I’m not here?”
When he grasped her jaw, fingers digging into her skin and bone, she glared.
“There you are!”
“Humiliate me? You are an oaf, a pervert, a vile vomiter of words I was taught never to say, and I do not trust you!”
“Then we are in a deadlock, for I do not trust you. Except there is one thing.” His open hand arrived on her upper thigh, his fingers splaying.
Her tongue tip slipped along the divide of her lips.
How close he was to where he must not go.
She met his eyes. It was as potent as a blow, seeing him looking back at her, with all her intimate secrets on display. Her throat closed in. She knew where this was going and feared it and wanted it, and her shivering was no longer simply from the cold.
She could not fend him off, and that too aroused her.
“Are you a bad princess?” he asked softly, eyelids lowering, his hand squeezing her thigh. Then he slipped his hand to where her legs squashed together. “Open yourself. Do I need to manhandle you? Or should that be princess-handle?”
He reached behind her, and she felt him gather her wet hair then twist it, until the sharpness of his hold pulled at her scalp and rendered her even less in control. He could do whatever he wished to.
“I know you like this. You say you do not lie. Then you should protest this. Tell me you hate it. Your very last chance.”
He kissed her then drew away, and she gasped, tried to shrug from the hold on her hair and could not budge. She stared at him, transfixed, fascinated by him as much as by herself.
He was right. She must… protest.
Yet, she could not keep herself from looking at his erect cock. It had
