Wild Wind by Patricia Ryan

Author:Patricia Ryan [Ryan, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780451408266
Publisher: Topaz
Published: 1997-12-02T08:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 13

Nicki watched in shock as Alex turned toward her, his eyes closed, his head tilted back into the water that crashed behind him, scrubbing at his face. The stream came up only to his calves, so she could see nearly all of him, and, God help her, she couldn't wrest her gaze from the sight.

She'd never seen a man entirely naked before, even in bed. Milo had always blown the candle out and kept his nightshirt on. And thinking back before that, to Phillipe—well, their joinings had been clandestine and frantic. He'd untie his chausses and throw her skirts up, and it would be over within moments.

Water coursed over Alex's broad shoulders and chest, meandered in rivulets over the densely packed muscles of his stomach. He stood with his weight on his good hip, the damage to his injured one all the more striking for his nudity. It was as if God, having judged him too perfect, had ripped a piece from him to make him as flawed as the rest of mankind.

Watching him like this recalled all the times she's stolen into Uncle Henri's chamber to dig the Roman statue out of his chest of valuables, which she'd learned to unlock with her eating knife. She'd sit cross-legged in the rushes and turn the little marble soldier over and over in her hands, marveling at its masculine proportions, its air of virility...and wondering what the devil was hidden underneath that tiny leaf.

Alex's vital part could never fit under a leaf of any kind—and it was at rest. Nicki shuddered with a certain nervous fascination, imagining what it must be like to lie with such a man. She'd almost found out nine years ago. Would it have been a union of pain or pleasure? Pain most likely, despite her lack of a maidenhead; he'd been young and inexperienced.

Not so anymore.

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

She wheeled around and stumbled over her saddlebags.

"Nicki!"

Gaining her feet, she seized the saddlebags with one hand and her skirts with the other and fled toward her horse. She passed a boulder she hadn't noticed before, on which his clothes were carelessly tossed.

"Wait!"

She heard the ripple of water as he waded out of the stream, and quickened her pace.

"Nicki, don't go." He was closer.

She threw the saddlebags over Marjolaina's back and stepped into the stirrup.

He gripped her shoulders from behind. "Please, Nicki, don't go." His breathing was harsh in her ears.

She felt the heat of him at her back, the dampness of his hands through the thin wool of her tunic.

"I'd decided you weren't coming," he said breathlessly, without unhanding her. "I was just trying to wash off the sweat from my ride." He kneaded her shoulders, moved infinitesimally closer. "I was so glad to see you. Please stay."

He was holding onto her, totally and completely naked, begging her to not to go. Nicki's heart pounded wildly when he reached around her to gently grip her foot, guiding it out of the stirrup and onto the ground.

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