So tempting, to watch the rise and shift of her breasts. No. This wasn’t easy for her. It had to be done and he’d do it without sidetracking. A pity though. When hadn’t he thrilled at the idea of a woman restrained to the headboard by cuffs? Mentally, he shook his head at himself.
He stood. “June, the key, please.” He caught the tossed key, unlocked the cuffs, and relocked them with the joining chain threaded behind the metal lattice of the headboard, feeling the trembling of Claire’s muscles as he did so.
“I’ll be as quick as I can.”
He carefully folded back the dress, just enough to see the three sutured wounds. Puffy, red, maybe some infection starting, and fresh blood leaked where falling had jarred the edges. The cuts were about six inches long. He’d forgotten the extent of the injury. Still, one treatment would do wonders.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
The first electrode pierced her skin, and she grunted at the pain, jerked on the cuffs. He watched her expression, waiting a moment until he saw her nod.
“Good girl.” That drew a glare. Touchy. Jabbing her infected wound with a pin was okay, but calling her “girl” made her look as if she wanted to stick something sharp into him? Curiouser and curiouser.
As the doctor handed him electrodes, he slipped the pins, equally spaced, under the skin at each side of one laceration. “Doctor. Turn it on, please.”
Green current sizzled for a minute across the first wound. He shifted the electrode tips, treated the second, then the third cut. Apart from gnawing her pretty lip and a few sharp intakes of breath, Claire didn’t move.
She rose in his estimation yet again. None of the ladies, or likely even the lords he knew, would have borne this so stoically. Before he released her hands, he brushed the lock of hair from her brow. “Well done.”
The startled, bemused look she shot him pierced his heart as surely as an arrow. His blood thumped fiercely. Here was a puzzle he wished to solve. A man’s touch unsettled her? He’d thought her a sexual companion. The more he saw of her, the less likely that seemed. Who and what was she?
*
The next day he returned to administer the galvanic treatment. The doctor, irked by all the goings on, begged off attending, though June stayed as a chaperone, sunken in her chair, observing without interfering.
Claire lay on the bed wearing a blue dress this time—one a little shorter than the red, with fabric as sheer as his housemaids could discover among the archive of clothes. A small trick—he wasn’t completely deaf to Dankyo’s arguments. Claire might be a woman, but her casual application of a fingerlock on the doctor spoke of some training. Escaping would be a damned sight more difficult in a flimsy dress. As an added bonus, this way he could admire her form without being too obvious.
During this treatment he left his hand on her thigh while he studied the wound. Her breasts rose a little quicker when she breathed, her lips parted, and the tiny hairs on her legs stirred in goose bumps.
Why this delightful reaction? Ah. Of course.
His fingertips had strayed a half inch under the dress and were only three, four inches from the apex of her legs. He slowly withdrew his hand, then casually laid it on her ankle, watching her as he traced circles with his thumb on her warm skin. Though she shifted her leg an inch away, when he put his hand back, she did nothing, as if hypnotized by the stroking.
The faint aroma of arousal came to him. She was wet. Desire had caught her up the same as him. His nostrils flared. She felt their connection. Manners said that he shouldn’t take this further unless she assented, yet even so he let his fingers drift around her ankle and loosely hold her there—the first step of possession.
She would give that assent to him, and once he gained her permission, he didn’t plan to do anything less than give her the most thorough ravishing any woman could experience.
Chapter Three
On the third day, he knew the pain would be light enough that he didn’t need to fasten Claire’s hands out of the way. When he strode toward the bed, she put her uncuffed hand above her head, joining the one already fastened there.
Her shoulder muscles slid, sculpted by light. Such a simple movement—yet the shift of curve on curve slew him. The widening of her pupils, the visible beat of her carotid pulse, the willingness, it all spoke to him of submissiveness. He caught his breath as his foot swung to touch floor. Need trickled, then poured into him. He wanted this woman at his feet, held by his will, wanted to wind his hand into her hair so tight she couldn’t move, to tilt her head to one side and sink his teeth into her glorious long neck. It called to his blood. God.
The moment broke a second later. She stirred and took down her hand, her face flushed.
*
Why do I have my hands above my head? Confusion swallowed her as Theo arrived at the side of the bed, all towering and male, those adorable black curls that begged her to twist them round a finger. She lowered her unsecured hand, speaking to cover up how lost she felt. “Good morning.”