Theo had to swallow hard, because this wouldn’t have been so silly years ago.
“It’s hot in here,” James said. He wiped his face with his forearm. He did look rather red.
“I can do the rest,” Theo said, pulling her foot from his hand. “You’ve proved your point, James. I can see it.”
“See what?”
“That you’re not attracted to me. So just give me the soap.”
She reached out for it, but he held it away from her. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“I most certainly am,” she snapped. She’d taken it about as seriously as she could without bursting into a howl of aggrieved femininity.
James rolled his eyes. “If I don’t wash all of you, Theo, you will always have questions in your mind. I want us to remain married.” He reached out with a soapy hand and caught her chin. “Our children will probably be informed precisely the time at which they are allowed to wet their diapers, but I still want you to be their mother.”
She could feel a crooked smile on her mouth. “Oh. Thank you.” He had used twice as much soap as Amélie, and bubbles slid down her chest as she bent toward him.
They both looked down at the same moment. Bubbles were flowing down the slope of Theo’s breasts.
“Yes, well,” James said, and then he moved around behind her and she heard a stifled noise, almost a groan.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not used to kneeling on a tiled floor,” he confessed, and she heard a thread of amusement in his voice again. “I would be a terrible grumbler if I were a lady’s maid.”
“Amélie doesn’t clamber around my tub on her knees,” Theo said. “So what—” She broke off. James’s hands made a slow slide over her shoulders and down her front. His touch lit a fire in her stomach, even before he touched her breasts.
“I don’t think that is necessary,” she said, catching her breath on a gasp. He had a breast in each hand now.
“Breasts are just breasts,” he said. “Of course, your breasts . . .” His voice trailed off.
Her nipples looked like pale rosebuds peeking through his brown fingers. She thought they looked quite nice. Then he slowly rubbed a thumb across each one, and it felt so amazing that she sucked in her breath and forgot to wonder about whether or not James was aroused, because she was. In fact, her head fell back against his arm, eyes closed, because he was doing something with his thumbs that had nothing to do with cleanliness.
It was as if lightning jolted through her, electrifying parts that hadn’t been touched for seven years. Even the private place between her legs suddenly tingled, as if to tell her that it was still there.
The moment she realized that, her hands clapped over his. “What are you doing?”
“You said I’m not attracted to you, Daisy.” His lips brushed her ear. “You’re wrong. I’ve always been driven mad by your breasts, and you know it.” At the moment she could only think about what a simple touch of his lips had done to her. “Don’t you remember?” he murmured, kissing her ear again.
“Yes,” she said weakly. “At the dining room table.”
“I used to sit there and dream about touching you like this,” he said, his voice like a caress. “I would watch you talking and think about how beautiful and intelligent you were, but to be honest, my eyes just kept going back to your breasts. There were times when I thought I might lose control, right there in the dining room.”
Theo kept her hands over his, but she did lean back against him again. “Surely not.”
His laugh was ragged, but somehow just as sensual as it had been. Perhaps even more so. “I promise you that was the case. I was capable of fantasizing about you through four courses. After the dessert, I would hobble from the room.” Under her hands, his thumbs moved gently across her nipples again.
Her toes were curling, and she was having trouble remembering her name, let alone what James looked like as a hungry youngster on the other side of the table from her.
“Are you saying that you might have trouble straightening up?” she said, finally managing to come up with some sort of sentence. She seemed to be losing strength in her limbs, which would explain why her hands fell away from his, letting him play with her breasts all he wanted.
There was a moment of silence, and then he said, “I told you I’m in control these days, Daisy. But you have to let me prove it to you.”
She was starting to feel feverish, and even though she knew it was muddled thinking, she let herself pretend that what he was saying made sense. “Prove it how?” she whispered.
One of James’s hands skated across her stomach on a film of soap, slipped under the water, drifted between her legs, the place where she felt open and vulnerable and soft. “Like this.” His voice had slipped from ragged to guttural. The very sound of it made her feel like a smoldering log, about to burst into flame.
“May I touch you?” James asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, but did something intimate with his fingers. Her answer was lost in a gasp.
“Just so I can prove my self-control,” he added.
She could have pointed out that she wasn’t demented. That she knew an excuse when she heard it. But her mind had turned black and ravenous, and the groan in her chest turned to a little sob. She pushed against his fingers, thinking, Harder, there, please, there! And as if he could hear her, one broad finger pressed down sharply, and another did something else, invaded her in just the right way.
Just like that, Theo broke, with a little shriek and a shock to her body that made her arch up and half out of the water. She only dimly heard soapy water splashing onto the floor, because everything in her was focused on the hot ripples spreading through her body.
Then James’s fingers slipped away and he pulled her a bit more firmly back against his arm. While she was still reeling, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “If Amélie performs that service for you, I’m dismissing her tomorrow.”
A giggle broke from Theo’s lips. “Don’t be absurd.” Her body was limp, and she felt swollen and hot between her legs.
“In fact, no one can touch you like that but me,” he added, and now his voice sounded not casual, but hotly possessive. Before she could answer, he rose to his feet, bent over, and scooped her into his arms.
It felt different now that they were both naked. His skin burned against hers.
“I must be heavy,” she murmured, stealing a glance up at his face. Against all common sense, she wanted to see arousal there.
She saw none.
Rather than answer, he set her on her feet and rubbed her briskly with a towel. Even the touch of the rough fabric gave her a wanton pulse of pleasure.
James’s jaw seemed taut, but then he looked at her and smiled. She reached out and took her wrapper off the hook, pulling it around herself and knotting it tightly.
Tossing the towel aside, James picked her up again, as if she couldn’t walk to her own bed.
“Don’t smile at me anymore,” she said tiredly, turning her face to his chest and closing her eyes. “I learned my lesson.”
“Lesson?” He sounded puzzled.
“You’re in no danger to succumbing to lust. I understand.” It wasn’t overly painful to acknowledge it aloud.