"Not if it will save me time getting you into bed."
"Are you always so bold, sir?" Alanna had responded to his suggestion in the same teasing tone in which it had been given, but he looked startled rather than amused, and she realized there was no question about his boldness with Melissa. Loath to mention her cousin, she turned away and began to peel off her dress.
"I do hope there'll be time enough to bathe before supper arrives. The clerk praised the cook's talents, but I suppose that's to be expected."
Alanna opened her valise and removed her nightgown before slipping out of her dress. Hunter knew why she had changed the subject. Equally unwilling to speak Melissa's name, he walked over to the window and looked out until she was seated in the tub. He wanted only the two of them to occupy the room, and he didn't kneel down beside the tub until he had successfully banished all thoughts, save those of his bride.
He lathered up the soap and washed her shoulder. "You have freckles now from running around in your chemise. Look, they're sprinkled all the way down your arm."
"They'll soon fade."
"I hope not. I like them."
"They aren't considered ladylike."
"You've done a great many things which aren't l
adylike, since meeting me," Hunter reminded her. "Having a few freckles is the least of them."
"Yes, I suppose you're right." Alanna leaned back to get more comfortable, and closed her eyes. "Do all Seneca braves spoil their wives as shamefully as you're spoiling me?"
Hunter leaned close to kiss the hollow of her shoulder.
"Why do you ask? Do you want another Seneca for a husband?"
"I can't even imagine myself being married to another man."
"Good, don't even try." Hunter slid his soapy caress down her arm and across her breasts, slowly circling the pale tips and flicking them with his thumb, until they formed pert buds. Alanna opened one eye, but his smile silenced any protests she might have been about to make, and he moved his hand down her ribs.
"You're much too thin," he lamented softly. He deliberately let the bar of soap slip through his fingers, and had to pull off his shirt to keep from wetting the sleeve, as he felt between her legs to retrieve it. In a playful mood, he did not really look for the soap until Alanna reached down to grab his wrist.
"I thought you wanted to give me a bath?"
"That's what I'm doing."
"No, it isn't." Alanna leaned forward to kiss him, and his passionate response made any further complaint about his methods too trivial to mention.
Hunter wound Alanna's long curls around his left hand to keep her mouth pressed to his, while he continued to tease her with his right. Made slippery by the soap, his fingertips slid over her inner creases and folds in an exotic dance that played upon her senses, until she shuddered beneath him in an ageless gesture of complete surrender. He sat back and waited patiently, but she didn't speak until the bathwater had grown cold.
"If we'd been in the river, I would have drowned."
"I'd not have let you drown," Hunter assured her. Pausing often to give loving hugs, he helped her to her feet, wrapped her in a towel, and then slipped the white cotton nightgown over her head.
Alanna could not help but wonder if he would respond in the same fashion if she were to bathe him with such an intimate caress, but the maid knocked at the door before she could make that suggestion. Hunter again stepped behind the screen, but the girl saw his buckskin shirt lying on the foot of the bed.
"I see your husband's here, ma'am. I'll tell the cook to fix your tray."
Alanna followed the maid's glance, but because buckskins weren't worn exclusively by Indian braves, she felt no need to explain her husband's choice of attire. "Would you please?" She moved aside as the girl emptied and removed the tub, then closed the door behind her.
"Do you really think you still need to hide?"
Hunter crossed to the window, but while they had been playing in her bath, it had grown dark, and there was nothing to see but the glow of the street lamps in the distance. "Do you remember how you ran from me?"
"I've begged you to forgive me for that."
Hunter sat down on the windowsill. "I have, but for all we know, that maid also lost her family in an Indian raid. Let's not give her any reason to go shrieking from the room."
Alanna toyed with the lace trim on her cuffs. Hunter had told her that he had not killed anyone before fighting with the militia in the Ohio Valley, and she wanted to believe him. His expression was the honest, open one she had come to expect from him, and certain he was wholly good, she quickly forced away the gruesome images his comment had brought to mind.