And her heart wasn’t the only aching, empty place. Between her legs, she was both. As they kissed, he slid his hands to her backside and lifted her, bringing her pelvis flush against his. The prominent, hot ridge of his arousal rubbed against her sex. She moaned into his kiss, a wordless plea for something more. Surely he would know how to answer.
And answer he did.
He bit down on her lip. Hard.
“Ah!” He winced away from her, completely breaking their embrace.
Susanna opened her eyes to see him clutching his head and grimacing with pain.
“What the devil . . . ?” he said.
“Take that, you brute.” Minerva Highwood moved between them, soaked to the skin and clutching a weighted pouch in her hand.
“Minerva?” Reeling from the abrupt interruption, Susanna touched a finger to her lip, testing for blood.
“Don’t worry, Miss Finch. I’m here now.”
She must have swum out from the cave and . . . and seen them. Oh God.
“I’m fine, truly.” Susanna’s gaze snapped to the pouch dangling from Minerva’s wrist. It looked like a reticule, fashioned from oilcloth. “What’s in that?”
“Rocks. What else?”
Rocks. Good Lord. Susanna looked to Bram with fresh concern. The man had just taken a cudgel to the head. It was a wonder he hadn’t fallen unconscious. She started toward him, but Minerva gave a little shriek and backed up, throwing her body in front of Susanna’s.
“Brace yourself. Here he comes again, the . . . the rutting Zeus.”
Bram was clearly still dazed, rubbing his head with one hand. With a growl of pain and a sudden, lurching motion, he stood tall—rising head, shoulders, and exquisitely chiseled torso out of the water. Water droplets sprayed everywhere, catching the sunlight and flashing like tiny sparks.
Rutting Zeus, indeed. He did rather look like a linen-draped Greek god, dripping with potency and a divine air of possession. The sight took Susanna’s breath away. She briefly wondered if she’d been hit over the head with a sackful of rocks. He was beautiful. Dazzling in his masculine perfection.
“Don’t worry.” Minerva scrambled onto a nearby boulder, readying her stone-packed reticule. “I’ll save you, Miss Finch.”
Susanna reached for her. “Minerva, no! There’s no need. He wasn’t—”
Splash.
Thirteen
Bram came to consciousness slowly, floating into awareness on a gentle, soothing wave. The world was dark, but he was warm all over. Delicious sensation lapped at his wounded leg, stroking away all the pain and soreness with a light, rhythmic touch.
As his eyes fluttered open, questions teased at the frayed edge of his mind. Where was he? Just who was touching him? And how did he make sure it never, ever stopped?
“Oh, Bram.” Susanna’s voice. “My goodness. Just look at this.”
He struggled up on one elbow, wincing at the sudden lash of pain. He saw a tangle of white sheets. He saw his own dark, hairy legs. He saw her hands on his skin.
Her bare, ungloved hands.
He fell back against the mattress, seeking sleep again. Obviously, he was hallucinating. Or dead. Her touch felt like heaven.
“This explains so much,” she said, clucking her tongue in mother-hen fashion. “You’re compensating for this withered appendage.”
Withered appendage? What the devil was she talking about? He shook his head, trying to clear it. Colin’s dire predictions of shriveled twigs and dried currants rattled in his skull.
Wide awake now, he fought to sit up, wrestling the sheets. “Listen, you. I don’t know what sort of liberties you’ve taken while I was insensible, or just what your spinster imagination prepared you to see. But I’ll have you know, that water was damned cold.”
She blinked at him. “I’m referring to your leg.”
“Oh.” His leg. That withered appendage.
How long had he been unconscious? An hour? More? She’d changed into a frock of striped muslin, but her hair was still wet, combed back from her face in dark amber furrows.
Her hands kept stroking. He saw that her fingers were glistening, coated with some sort of liniment. The herbal scent of it filled his head. Lust sent his blood rushing everywhere else. It had to be a sign of his prolonged celibacy that viewing her ungloved hands aroused him more than a woman’s full nakedness had in the past.
Or maybe it was a sign that he wanted this woman more fiercely than he’d ever wanted another.
“Where are we?” he asked, looking about the room. A light, airy bedchamber, done up in chintz and hardwood. The mattress beneath him felt bowed like a hammock, strained and tested by his weight.
“Summerfield.”
“How did we get here?”
“With great difficulty. You weigh as much as an ox. But you’ll be glad to hear your men rallied to the challenge.”
Deuce it. Damn it. Devil take it and fling it off a cliff. His second full day in command of new recruits, and he’d capped it by dropping unconscious, felled by a squinty bluestocking and her reticule. They’d carried his dead weight all the way here, likely passing through the village on the way and attracting a crowd of onlookers. Even the sheep had probably watched the processional, bleating with smug satisfaction. He was their lord and commander, and now they’d all seen him at his most feeble.
“Must have amused you, seeing me bludgeoned so soundly by a girl.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I was terrified.”
She wasn’t terrified at the moment. Just look at her leaning over him, giving him bold flashes of her pale, freckled bosom. Stroking his bared leg with talented, fearless fingers. Earlier, she’d called him a beast. Now she was treating him like a broken-winged bird.
He snarled down at his wounded leg. Withered appendage, indeed.
“Here.” She pressed a cup into his hand. “Drink this.”
He eyed it skeptically. “What is it?”
“Relief from pain, in liquid form. My own special preparation.”
“You’re a healer?” He frowned, and it hurt. “Should have figured you for one of those females with her little basket of herbs and sunshine.”
“Herbs are good. They have their uses. For a wound like this, you need drugs.”
He sipped. “Ugh. That is vile.”
“Too much for you? If you like, I can add some honey. That’s what I do for the village children.”
He tossed back the rest of her potion without comment. He truly couldn’t comment, what with the bitter taste scorching his throat.