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"Do you want to?"

Win shook her head "Although… I wouldn’t e before I went to get you"

She ran a flirtatious fingertip around the rim of his ear "What an efficient villain you are May we stay all day, then?"

"Yes"

Win wriggled with delight "Will anyone come for us?"

"I doubt it" Kev drew the bed linens lower and nuzzled into the lush valley between her breasts "And I would kill the first person who approached the threshold"

A quiet laugh caught in her throat

"What is it?" he asked withoutof all the years I spent trying to get out of bed, to be with you And when I caet back into bed With you"

For breakfast they had strong tea and rarebit, cheese melted on thick slices of buttered toasted bread Wrapped in Merripen’s shirt, Win perched on a low stool in the kitchen She took pleasure in watching the play ofwater into a portable hip bath S, she popped the lastabducted and ravished," she coives one an appetite"

"The ravisher as well"

There seeical aura about this ordinary place, this sht in so, that she would wake alone in her chaste bed But Merripen’s presence was too vital and real for it to be a dreaes in her body offered further proof that she had been taken Possessed

"They all know by now," Win said absently, thinking of everyone at Ramsay House "Poor Julian He must be furious"

"What about heartbroken?" Merripen set the water can aside and cahtfully "He’ll be disappointed, I think And I believe he cares for ainst Merripen as he stroked her hair, and her cheek brushed the taut smoothness of his stomach "He never wanted me the way you do"

"Any man who didn’t would have to be a eunuch" There was a hitch in his breath as Win kissed the rim of his navel "Did you tell hih to bear children?"

Win nodded

"What did Harrow say?"

"Julian told et any nu opinions to support the conclusion I wanted But in Julian’s view, I should re position and looked down at her, his expression unfathomable "I don’t want to put you at risk But neither do I trust Harrow, or his opinions"

"Because you think of him as a rival?"

"That’s part of it," he ad… lacking in hi false"

"Perhaps it’s because he’s a doctor," Win suggested, shivering as Merripen drew his shirt away from her "Men of his profession often seem aloof Superior, even But that’s necessary, because-"

"It’s not that" Merripen guided her to the hip bath and helped to lower her in Win gasped not only fro naed in front of hied one to straddle the tub and relax into the water with the legs held apart, which onderfully co with someone else present Her modesty was further violated as Merripen knelt beside the tub and washed her But his , and she couldn’t help but relax under thehands

"You still suspect Julian of having harmed his first wife, I know," Win said while Merripen bathed her "But he is a healer He would never hurt anyone, least of all his oife" She paused as she read Merripen’s expression "You don’t believe me You’re determined to think the worst of him"

"I think he feels entitled to play with life and death Like the gods of those y stories you and your sisters are so fond of"

"You don’t know Julian as I do"

Merripen didn’t reply, only continued to wash her

She watched his dark face through the veil of stea of a Babylonian warrior "I shouldn’t even bother to defend him," she said ruefully "You’ll never be disposed to think well of him, will you?"

"No," he admitted

"And if you believed Julian was the better man?" she asked "Would you have allowed him to marry me?"

She saw the muscles in his throat tense before he answered, "No" There was a touch of self-hatred in his response "I’m too selfish for that I could never have let it happen If it ca day"

Win wanted to tell him that she had no desire for him to be noble She was happy-thrilled-to be loved in just this ith a passion that left no roo else But before she could say a word, Merripen had taken up lided over the soreness between her thighs

He touched her with love And ownership Her eyes half-closed His finger eased inside her, and his free arm slid behind her back, and she leaned weakly into the cradle of his hard chest and shoulder Even this small invasion hurt Her flesh was still too newly broached, unused to being entered But the hot water soothed her, and Merripen was so gentle that her thighs relaxed, supported in the buoyant war air, luminous with steam, scented of soap and wood and hot copper And the intoxicating fragrance of her lover She brushed her lips against his shoulder, savoring the rich taste of skin salt

His warainst her like the idle sway of river reeds… cunning fingertips that quickly discovered where sheher, slowly investigating the cambered softness and the sensitive places within Blindly she reached down to grip his strong wrist, feeling the intricate ers inside her, his thu over her sex in tender circles

The water sloshed in the tub as she began to push up rhyther worked inside, and she tightened and gasped out a protest-it was too much, she couldn’t-but he whispered that she could, she roans into his , opening to the sensuality of the fingers reaching inside her She felt greedy and wild, undulating to capturepleasure She actually clawed hiainst his hard, bare skin, and he growled as if it pleased him An abbreviated cry left her lips at the first shock of release She tried to stifle it, but another was torn from her, and another, and the bathwater rippled as she shuddered, the clax lengthened by the delicately e that continued until she was lih-backed tub, Merripen left her for a fewwater, too replete to ask or notice where he’d gone He returned with a length of toweling and lifted her fro hiainst him, she saw that she had scored little red marks on his skin, not deep ones, but etic, horrified, but all she wanted was to do it again To feast on him It was so unlike her that she withdrew into herself to ponder it

Merripen carried her back into the bedroom and tucked her into a freshly made bed She slid deep beneath the quilts and waited for hi, while he went to wash hi she hadn’t experienced in years… the kind of incandescent joy she had felt as a child waking on Christ the knowledge of all the good things that would soon happen, her heart alight with anticipation

Win’s eyes half-opened as she felt hiht depressed the ainst Win’s coolness Snuggling into the crook of his arhed deeply His hand made a slow, lovely pattern over her back