Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Instead, she moved her gaze over him with the unhurried gravity of someone reading scripture. Starting at his throat, descending across his collarbones, lingering at the burns on his shoulders. Her eyes traced the lash marks across his ribs, followed the jagged seam of an old surgical scar beneath his left pectoral, and arrived at the brand on his hip where his briefs rode low.
Not once did she look away.
Not once did he see disgust.
What he saw was closer to recognition. As if his body were a language she’d been longing to study, and now, finally, given the unabridged text and the permission to read.
He slid the briefs down and stood naked before her.
Her chest lifted, then she exhaled, slow and trembling, but her eyes remained on his. Not dropping. Not straying. Just holding him with a steadiness that felt more intimate than any touch.
“Still…okay?”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate.
He helped her down from the vanity, her bare feet meeting the heated stone floor, as their fingers laced. She didn’t press against him, didn’t reach for his body. She simply stood close and waited, following his lead.
He led her into the shower, testing the temperature before guiding them both under the spray. The water against his scars drew a sharp breath from his lungs.
She tipped her face upward, eyes closing, letting the cascade flatten her hair against her skull and run in rivulets down her breasts, her stomach, the soft thatch of curls between her thighs.
He reached for the soap, working a lather between his palms, and stepped behind her. The scent of minerals in the water disappeared as gentle herbs filled the air. Jack massaged her shoulders, gently kneading the tension from the muscles there.
When his thumbs traced the delicate wing of her collarbones, she leaned into his touch, and the trust of it nearly buckled his knees. He moved lower, cupping each breast with reverence, his thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked beneath his palms, and a quiet moan slipped from her parted lips.
He washed her the way priests anoint. With intention. With trembling hands that understood the reverence required when touching something sacred.
His touch moved slowly, thoroughly cleaning every inch of her. Down her ribs, over the gentle swell of her hips, the flat plane of her stomach where the muscles quivered under his fingertips.
Turning her to face him, he knelt before her, lathering each leg from thigh to ankle. He washed away the remnants of what they’d done together, his release and hers, the dried evidence of their shared undoing. His hands moved between her thighs with clinical gentleness, but his breath came ragged, and his cock stirred against his will.
“Jack…”
With a soft kiss to her lower belly, he moved on. Not because he wanted to, but because time demanded it.
He washed her feet one at a time, his thumb pressing into her arch until she gasped and steadied herself with a hand on the wall.
“Your feet look a little better. Do they still hurt?”
“Not as much.” She moaned as he rubbed between her toes.
When he stood, the water sluiced the soap from both of them. Steam cocooned the shower in translucent white, softening the stone, blurring the glass, reducing the world to only him and her.
She reached for the soap and looked up at him, her eyes cautious more than expectant. Jack swallowed tightly as she lathered her hands.
She waited for him to decide.
Water streamed down her body. Her hair was slicked back from her face, darkened to the color of wet sand, and without it framing her features, her eyes looked enormous. Green as glass. Green as the sea when light passes through a wave.
Slowly, he pulled her hand closer and pressed it flat to his chest. For a moment, he forgot how to breathe. Then she moved, keeping her touch featherlight, almost hesitant, as she traced the planes of his chest, the ridges of his abdomen, and the hollow divots of imperfect skin.
She didn’t linger on the scars or avoid them. She treated them as what they were. Part of him.
Slowly, he remembered how to breathe, hard and deep, but breath wouldn’t reach the base of his lungs.
“Now, your back?” she asked tentatively.
He silently turned.
A quick inhale, held too long, released too carefully. He knew what she was seeing.
The chancellor’s canvas—his twisted, gnarled masterpiece.
When her delicate, soapy hands pressed flat between his shoulder blades, Jack flinched. Every muscle locked as his palms slammed against the wet stone wall.
She stilled, attuned to his every response. “I can stop—”
“No.” He gritted his teeth. “I can handle it.”
Daisy slowly moved her hand between his shoulder blades, and his breath punched out in a staccato burst that ricocheted off the wall.
She didn’t retreat. Didn’t apologize. She simply waited, holding her hands still until the tremor subsided and his breathing steadied. Then she continued.