Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
His hands returned to my torso. Quick caresses of his fingers here and there straightened Priest’s shirt beneath the stays and down my legs. Once he confirmed the undergarments were dry and in order, he positioned me to lie face-up.
His wet frock, waistcoat, and cravat came off next. Everything went on hooks to dry. Then he strode toward the windows to shut out the rain.
“Have you imagined my lips wrapped around your cock?” I asked softly.
The glass rattled beneath his hand, slamming harder than necessary. He disappeared through the day cabin. The balcony door closed with a whoosh, followed by the sound of his returning footfalls. He didn’t show it in his features, but his steps landed harder, more agitated than usual.
I stifled a smile. “I’m crawling underneath that steel mask of yours and—”
“Stow it, Bennett.”
“I scare you.”
“You pester me.” His stern, sculpted face appeared upside down above mine, his hands braced on either side of my head. “Always talking and making trouble and…” His gaze slid down my body. “Bleeding all over my table. Where the devil is that surgeon?”
“Here, my lord.” Lieutenant Flemming swept in, adjusting his cravat as if it had been haphazardly thrown on.
“She stepped on a spike.” Ashley shifted to stand beside me, resting a proprietary hand on my knee.
Flemming sank into a chair near my feet and opened his medicine chest. As he went to work on my wound, Ashley kept the linen shirt tucked around my legs, protecting my modesty as if I possessed such a quality.
“How’s the pain?” He focused on the doctor wearing a strange expression. Like he was troubled by my injury.
“I’m not going to bleed to death, my lord.”
He didn’t glance at me.
“I don’t understand.” I folded my hands on my midsection, watching him watch Flemming. “You punched my face, tossed me off your balcony, shredded my wrists, bruised my arse and other unmentionables. Yet you’re concerned about a gash on my foot?”
That brought his gaze to mine.
“I control the pain I inflict. I know where and how hard to strike to avoid permanent damage. But this…” He motioned toward my feet. “I can’t control infection should it decide to attack and contaminate your body.”
Flemming kept his gaze on his work, pretending to ignore us.
“I should have located boots for you.” Ashley ran a hand through his wet hair. “I should have ensured the deck was safe.”
“I don’t see how any of that matters,” I muttered. “You intend to see me hang.”
“I intend to see you stand trial.”
Same thing. But arguing the particulars wouldn’t change the outcome.
“The wound is clean, my lord.” Flemming shifted. “But it requires stitches.”
“Do what is needed, Lieutenant.”
With a needle and thread, the doctor began the painful task of closing up the bottom of my foot. The skin was so tender along the arch that every stab made my teeth clamp together. Muscles contracted without my permission, and I couldn’t stop my body from jerking and bowing off the table.
Ashley bent over me, blocking my view of the attacking needle. Blue eyes pinned mine, and his hand sank into my hair, smoothing out the damp coils.
“Lieutenant Flemming revived you the day we pulled you from the sea.” He ran a finger along my temple and down my cheek. “You weren’t breathing.”
I was barely breathing now with his insufferably gorgeous face so close to mine.
“We debated the method of resuscitation.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I decided the best way to stimulate you was by inserting a pair of bellows into your rectum and thereby fumigating your insides with tobacco smoke.”
“Oh, for the love of God.” My entire body cringed.
Blowing smoke up the arse of the suddenly apparently dead was a treatment I’d seen too many times. It never worked as far as I could tell. So how was I alive?
Ashley drew his bottom lip between his teeth, and that unholy gesture made my stomach dip. Did my eyes deceive me, or was he fighting a smile?
A muffled chuckle drifted from Flemming.
I craned my neck and glimpsed the doctor barely containing his grin.
“You’re jesting?” My mouth dropped open as I looked back at Ashley. “You made an actual joke? To excite laughter?”
“You’re not laughing.”
“I’m too shocked to do anything at the moment.”
“That’s good.”
“Why?”
“All done, my lord.” Flemming stood and gathered his tools. “Keep the foot elevated for a time.”
He finished? I couldn’t believe it. Ashley had deliberately distracted me from the stabbing needle. Why would he do that for someone he was condemning to the gallows? Why engage with me at all?
There was so much more to this man than he allowed to be known.
As Flemming stepped out, Sergeant Smithley set a pair of black boots inside the cabin. They looked small. Perhaps small enough.
The door shut, and it was just Ashley and me, staring at each other.