What a Duke Dares (Sons of Sin 3)

She acted a complete ninny. A brazen ninny at that.

“Leave me alone,” she said, grabbing uselessly after the covers.

“Pen, a wash will help.” He paused, and she knew he hated having to reiterate his good intentions. “I promise, only a wash.”

The urge to curl into herself and hide from those probing eyes was strong, but something in his face told her that if she did, she’d hurt him, as she’d hurt him when she’d claimed that she no longer felt safe. Yet again she derided her soft heart.

“Very well,” she said reluctantly, stretching out.

She watched him wring out the cloth and lift it over her stomach. Before he touched her, she grabbed his hand. “This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”

His gaze darted up to meet hers and she read his profound remorse. Unfortunately, remorse didn’t strike her as a particularly strong foundation for marriage.

“Pen, let me do this.” He made no attempt to break away. “Please.”

Pen wasn’t proof against Cam’s uncharacteristic humility. Reluctantly she released him. He took the gesture as permission to continue. Very carefully, he began to wash her. Starting with what should have been unexceptional places like arms and neck. He winced every time he touched one of the yellowing bruises from her ordeal after the Windhover went down.

She should be immune to Cam’s touch, but her skin tingled as the warm, damp flannel wiped away the night’s sweat and, she had to confess, much of the bitterness.

When he trailed the cloth over her midriff, every muscle clenched. By the time he reached her breasts, she breathed unsteadily. He didn’t linger, but the soft friction had her nipples hardening as if he kissed them. She mistrusted the wayward responses that left her lightheaded as though she’d had too much claret.

Methodically, he moved to her legs, washing thighs and knees and shins and feet. This felt like slow seduction, although she caught his flinch when he saw the blood on her thighs.

He dipped the cloth in the water and gently parted her legs. She made a soft sound of distress.

Slowly he raised his head as if emerging from a daze. He’d concentrated so hard on what he did, he’d barely looked beyond the area of skin he washed. His eyes were as lifeless as malachite in his dark, intense face. “Trust me, Pen.”

She bit her lip. She’d trusted him earlier and had come to grief. But she couldn’t deny a lifetime of love. She let her legs fall open, although no man had seen the private hollows of her body. He thoroughly washed each fold and valley, soothing every sting. His gentleness squeezed her heart into a tiny ball.

She bit back another whimper, not this time of discomfort. Although this intimacy made her more embarrassed than she’d ever been in her life. How could her body respond like this? After years of imagining a man in her bed, of imagining this man in her bed, she knew now what happened. Pain. Shame. Regret. Powerlessness.

Yet with every stroke, he smoothed the disagreeable memories and replaced “

never again” with “perhaps.”

With trepidation, she watched him wring the cloth. She’d been afraid that his passion might have left her a bloody mess. She was reassured to see only a trace of pink in the water.

Finally the torture that had transformed into dangerous allure ended. He dropped the cloth into the now cool water, dried her one last time, and lifted his hands away.

The silence preyed on her nerves, but she couldn’t force words through a throat jammed with tears. Not from pain this time, but because whatever pain he caused her, she loved him. She’d always love him. His care only proved that never having him love her in return would eat at her until her dying day.

The slow washing, like a ritual, had calmed him. Just as it had calmed her. His jaw no longer looked chiseled from stone and the lines around his mouth and eyes had relaxed.

He bent toward her. She thought he bowed to say good night. The atmosphere between them had become strangely courtly.

But his head lowered and lowered.

Before she could think to move, he placed his lips on her pale stomach, just above the navel. She felt the warm, damp brush of his kiss. Her skin tightened, although the kiss felt more an act of homage than a sensual invitation.

Questions flooded to her lips but died unspoken when he lifted the bowl and turned toward the door. Pride and confusion kept her from asking him to stay. She felt piercingly alone watching Cam walk away. But not so alone that she was ready to endure his use of her body.

Cam went through the door, leaving it ajar. A gesture of reassurance, the way one left a candle burning for a child in the dark. He must guess that she found this cathedral of a bedroom intimidating.

Awkwardly, still sore despite Cam’s ministrations, she struggled to stand. She needed a nightdress.

When she emerged from the dressing room wearing another of the late duchess’s seductive peignoirs, Cam leaned against one of the carved oak posts at the base of the bed. He still wore his robe and his expression was calm.

Perhaps he came to say good night. Then she noticed the decanter of red wine on the dressing table near the empty glasses. Given how he’d arrived with brandy, the wine struck an ominous note.