Page 35 of A Dance with the Wayward Duke
He bent closer. “Had I included everything my fingers are good for, Marguerite, you would never have signed.”
Color bloomed on her throat, cheeks, and the tips of her ears.
His thumb stilled against the wet strands. “Relax, Marguerite. I am only washing your hair.”
She looked back over her shoulder, just enough for him to see the uncertainty in her eyes. “Only?”
“Only.” His voice roughened. “No clause. No payment. No hidden article.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. He turned her forward again and worked the warm water through her hair.
Her hair was indefensible. Too long. Too fine. A danger near flame, and in a gale, it might snag in a cable. Tristan sifted his fingers over the strands, and he could not resist winding them around his wrist. How would it feel, coiled around him while he loved her? Her head tipped back beneath him, her mouth parted around his name? Heat moved through him, and he cursed under his breath.
Concentrate, damn you. Girding himself, he rubbed soap between his palms and worked it gently into the roots. She sighed, and her head tipped back another inch until her weight rested against his thigh.
His throat tightened.
He rinsed her hair, then took a towel and began drying it, squeezing it along its length.
She had gone quiet.
“Marguerite?”
No answer. He looked down.
Her lashes lay against her cheeks. Her mouth had softened. He sat back on his heels and looked at her. This, then, was his mistress. Asleep in a damp robe, with wet hair spilling over his towel. Not a moon goddess now, but a damp kitten. Still, the most tempting prize he had ever caught.
Exhaling, he slid one arm beneath her shoulders and the other under her knees, careful not to jostle her, and carried her to the bed. Tristan hoped the three blankets would be enough to keep her warm and tucked them close around her shoulders.
Her eyes opened to a narrow gleam, and she caught the edge of his shirt. “Do you not want to begin the joint operations?”
He stood over her, hands braced on the edge of the mattress, and forced himself not to climb in beside her.
“Go to sleep.”
“But the agreement—”
“I will not operate on you while you are more dead than alive.”
He had come to this cabin to collect on the bargain. He had stood outside that door with his blood hot, his patience ruined, and every intention of taking the moon goddess who had not locked him out. Now she lay before him half-asleep, damp-haired, exhausted, and the taking had become impossible.
She smiled sleepily. “That is not very piratical of you.”
Indeed not. What a farce of a pirate he was turning out to be. “Then close your eyes before I change my mind.”
She caressed the cloth of his shirt and then released it. “Good night, Tristan.”
Good night indeed. His plans had changed from wrapping himself in moonlight and hearing a goddess moan to plunging into the ocean and hearing Lorenzo snoring.
He turned to leave.
The lamp cast a soft golden wash over the cabin, catching on the little arsenal of feminine objects she had smuggled into his command. Baubles, all of them. Useless weight. In a storm, he could strip the room bare in moments and save the ship.
His gaze returned to the bed.
The little moon slept soundly beneath his blankets, damp hair spread over his pillow, one cheek turned into the linen as if she had always belonged there. Not one hour before, he had stoodoutside this cabin and told himself he would enter, consummate the bargain, and leave. Simple.
And yet, nothing in his life had ever looked less simple than Marguerite d’Ailes asleep in his bed.
