With This Kiss

midshipman.”
    The spark in his eyes was positively wicked. “What if I promised that I wouldn’t order you about… most of the time?”
    “Never,” she said firmly. She’d had years to examine the relationships of men and women from the edge of the ballroom and the quiet side of a dinner table. Some men felt free to command their wives to do as they wished. She’d even seen one particularly horrid fellow order his wife not to eat another sweet, because he didn’t care for her hips.
    A man would never behave like that to her.
    Colin nodded. “May I order you to leave a house in case of fire?”
    “Yes.”
    “And will you do the same for me?”
    “Of course.”
    He grinned. “I am looking forward to being saved by you.”
    She smiled back, rather uncertainly.
    Then, with no warning, Colin scooped her up into his arms. Grace blinked and wound her arms around his neck. He smelled so good, with just a hint of the sea still hanging about him. “I only want to order you about in the bedchamber,” he said, growling it.
    “Oh,” she breathed, her whole body jolting into sensual awareness.
    He bent his head and nipped her lip. “I don’t need to be the captain on land, Grace. I don’t even want to be.”
    He smelled so good. One whiff of potent, sweaty man, and her legs turned liquid. “I suppose I could allow it sometimes,” she said, her voice coming out a throaty moan. “If you want it that much.”
    “I do want it, Grace,” he stated. His eyes burned into hers. The question wasn’t even a question; one look from him like that, the look that told her that he found her more desirable than anyone in the world, that he loved her so deeply, that he wanted to…
    “All right,” she whispered giving in.
    He carried her over to the bed, and then put her on her feet. “But first, was there something you wanted, Grace?”
    Morning light was pouring in the window now, emphasizing that broad chest. His sheet had fallen, and he was so masculine, so perfect . No wonder she had never managed to paint him. The thought made her feel painfully shy.
    “I’d like to paint you,” she said, offering it up because she couldn’t shape those other words he wanted.
    He grinned at her and threw himself on the bed. As she watched, he rolled on his back, just as he had the last night, and spread his arms wide. “I’m on the bed, Grace. As you ordered.”
    It sent a bolt of pleasure through Grace just to see him there, his eyes glinting. He would do whatever she wanted; she knew it instinctively.
    But at the same time, just as clearly, she could see that the position didn’t come naturally to him. Maybe it would years from now. Just at the moment his muscles were rigid, for all he was smiling. He needed to be in control. There had been too many rivers of blood over his boots, too much danger coming from all directions.
    “Just a moment,” she said, running back into the bathing chamber and returning with a basin full of fresh water, and a clean cloth. Then she climbed onto the bed and knelt beside him.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Caring for you,” she said. She wrung out the cloth and began washing his shoulders. She drew the cloth over the wide shape of his chest, stroking him softly down the rippled muscles of his stomach.
    He didn’t make a sound and neither did she, even when she reached his groin and his body involuntarily shook and arched into her hands. She kept going, washing every inch of him, loving him as she did it.
    When she reached his legs, she washed his thighs, learning the shape of a man’s leg… so different from the slender shape of her own. His hair was rough under her fingertips, the contained power in his thighs unbearably erotic. She kept going, letting her hair fall over her face so that she didn’t embarrass herself.
    But without a word he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. She knew that he could see raw lust on her face, even as she washed his feet.
    When she finished, she dried him off with a soft towel, touching every part again with a softer stroke, a sweeter kind of torture. Her breath came fast by the time she reached his shoulders.
    Neither of them had said one word. She hadn’t met his eyes. She had no idea whether he remembered asking her to wash off the blood.
    By the time she had finished drying the strong column of his neck, Grace didn’t know what to do next. Her body felt wrung with desire. Every time she touched him she felt a stab of heat