Sutton's Spinster (The Sinful Suttons 1)

Everything except legitimacy and rank. Money could buy one almost everything. But entrée into polite society’s upper echelons was priceless. For the first time, he wondered what it had cost Octavia to become his wife. Was she sad to have left her careful world of titles and drawing rooms behind?

He did not like the thought.

Irritated and overcome with desire, he sank lower in the tub, shifting his body and holding his breath as he submerged his head. That ought to cool him off. The water was the temperature of the room by now. Perhaps this moment of calm would restore some of his rational thinking.

If he were capable of it where she was concerned.

When he reemerged, he pushed the wet hair from his eyes and found her there, wild-eyed, concern etched into her delicate features.

“What in heaven’s name are you doing?” she asked.

“Washing the smoke and soot and Christ knows what else from my hair,” he answered.

He was not going to bed stinking of what had transpired earlier in the day.

“Let me see.” Frowning, she moved behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders and urging him toward the lip of the tub once more.

He went as she asked, and for a moment, her touch lingered on him, kneading and caressing his muscles. A groan tore from him, making her pause.

“Did you injure your shoulders as well?”

“No, minx.” He bit back his grin. “I like the way you feel. That’s all.”

“Oh,” she said.

But despite his cravings, she did not continue massaging his shoulders. Instead, she lathered his hair, fingertips working his scalp in a way that made him forget all about his aching muscles. Satan’s teeth, this was heaven. She was heaven. His one bit of paradise in an otherwise cesspool of enemies, danger, work, and filth.

If he had known how damned wonderful it was to have Octavia as his wife, in his bed, at his side, he would have thrown her over his shoulder the moment she had first wandered into his hell with her pudding-headed notion of using The Sinner’s Palace as a mine for her gossip journal.

Far sooner than he would have wished, she had washed his hair to her content. Her fingers fled.

“You may rinse.”

Instead of dipping his head below the water this time, he arched back. The motion pulled at his bruised ribs, and this time, his groan was for another reason entirely. Pain. He had sustained many wounds in his days, but this one…as the gin wore off, he found it increasingly difficult to ignore.

“Your ribs?” Octavia guessed, her voice grim.

“Yes,” he admitted, and he did not know why.

Jasper Sutton never showed his weaknesses to anyone. Yet, everything with her seemed different. There was a comfort with her, an intimacy that was not a product of her being his wife or sharing his bed. It was something far more, far deeper.

“Let me,” she said.

And he did. The fearless, fearsome Jasper Sutton allowed his woman to rinse his hair, admitting without words that he needed her help. That he was reliant upon her. She said not a word. A lesser woman would have crowed over her victory. Not Octavia. She merely rinsed the lingering soap from his hair as if it were the most natural action. Indeed, as if it were the only action.

Water dripped into his ear, and if there was one thing he detested, it was water in his damned ears. But it was a testament to the way this woman made him feel that he neither complained nor flinched. The water would work its way out as he slept. How could he glower and growl at her when she had been nothing but perfection from the moment he had returned, likely reeking of smoke and blue ruin and only the devil knew what else?

He could not.

And so he remained still and willing as she finished the ablutions then bade him to rise from the tub. Even as he tried to be on his most gentlemanly behavior—a most taxing endeavor for Jasper, to be sure—there was no hiding the effect she had on him. His cock protruded, proud and long and eager for her.

Octavia swallowed before turning away. She fetched a towel and held it for him as he stepped from the bath. He took it, covering his naked body and drying himself off. But now that he was clean, he had another problem.

His bed was on the opposite end of the chamber, and Octavia was not in it.

“Stay with me,” he said.

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