She approached the screen, where a line of copper jugs stood waiting to replenish the bath. Did she dare? It was about as outrageous as anything ever could be.
"Samuel?" Hugo's voice was slightly impatient as he repeated his request. "Pass me another jug of hot water, please."
Chloe hefted the nearest jug, marshaled every last fiber of courage, and rounded the screen. "Good morning, Hugo."
"What the…?" He stared in momentary disbelief and then realized she was gazing with unabashed curiosity at his lower body, only partly submerged in the water. He opened his mouth to say something… anything… when she emptied the contents of the jug she was carrying over his chest.
Chloe had been so intent on her plan, so blinded with excitement, she'd grabbed the first jug to hand. It was the one that contained ice cold water from the pump.
Hugo bellowed like a wounded ox and leapt to his feet, frantically shaking water off his body. "You… you brut!" he roared. He sprang out of the tub, grabbing a towel hanging over the screen.
Chloe shrieked in mingled fear and excitement and fled. Hugo came after her, knocking over the screen, wrapping the towel around his waist. "Come here, you obnoxious brat," he yelled, beside himself with rage. "Just wait till I get my hands on you."
"You'll have to catch me first." Chloe dodged behind the kitchen table, her eyes shining as she delivered her challenge.
Flinging a chair aside, Hugo dived around the table. Dante, who for some reason seemed to sense nothing threatening to his beloved mistress in this wild scene, barked excitedly. Neither pursuer nor quarry paid him any attention.
Chloe escaped Hugo's grasping hands by a hair and bounded for the door. She raced headlong across the hall and paused for a split second. If she ran into the courtyard, Hugo wouldn't be able to follow her, not in that skimpy towel loincloth. And if he didn't follow her, he wouldn't catch her.
She veered toward the stairs, taking a flying jump at the first two. Hugo threw himself forward, and for a heart-stopping second his fingers circled her ankle, but she was moving too quickly for him to grasp her properly and his hold slipped away. She leapt upward, her heart juddering with a fearful hectic turbulence, her blood swirling hotly in her veins. She was lost in a world of purely visceral responses, her mind no longer controlling her body's decisions. At the head of the stairs she hurtled down the corridor leading to Hugo's apartments.
Hugo was on her heels as she flung open the door and sprang inside. He slammed the door shut as he hurled himself after her. Dante jumped back with a startled yelp as the door banged in his nose.
The wild chase had fanned the flames of Hugo's shocked fury. His breath came swift and ragged and the water was cold on his skin. "By God, you stand in sore need of a sharp lesson, miss," he declared. "Come here!"
"Catch me!" She laughed at him, bright-eyed, and
jumped backward onto the bed. His anger excited her, though she had no idea why it should.
Hugo lunged for her as she danced across the bed, and this time he caught her ankle and hung on. He jerked hard. Chloe shrieked as she tumbled facedown on the bed, her free foot waving wildly in the air.
He seized the other ankle, his fingers gripping as tightly as any fetter. He hauled her toward him across the wide expanse of coverlet, her skirt rucking up as he dragged her. Distantly he noticed that the soles of her bare feet were grass-stained, that her smooth calves were stockingless, that the hollow behind her knees was deep and satiny, that her small round bottom was clad in serviceable linen drawers, unadorned with frills or lace.
Even as he struggled with his suddenly reeling senses that had driven all clarity of purpose from his mind, Chloe twisted onto her back, so he now held her by crossed ankles. Her eyes were dark liquid pools of sensuality, her lips were slightly parted, her cheeks flushed, golden wisps of hair escaping from her braids in a lustrous mist around her exquisite countenance. The sweet swell of her bosom rose and fell with her swift breath. Her skirt was hiked to her waist, and the legs of her drawers were pushed up on her thighs. His eye ran over the flat stomach, the sharp points of her hipbones pressing against the linen undergarment, the long, creamy length of exposed thigh.
"Sweet heaven," he whispered in the despairing recognition of imminent surrender. He opened his hands.
Chloe sat up in a deceptively lethargic movement, her eyes never leaving his face, triumphant certainty lurking in the cornflower depths as she sensed his capitulation. Leaning forward, her eyes narrowing with deliberation, she plucked the towel from his loins. His body sprang free in hard readiness, and with the same deliberation
she touched him, kneeling up on the bed, holding him with one hand, her fingers exploring in the wiry tangle of hair as she learned the feel of him while her other hand moved upward over his chest, brushing his nipples. Her head was bent, watching the effect of her hands' intimacies, her eyes intent on his body as if seeing it for the first time. And indeed, that night in the library, she had seen little of him, had been too lost in her own sensations to be aware of much outside herself.
Hugo threw back his head with a soft, almost helpless groan of pleasure. His hands caressed her bent head, palming the delicate shape of her skull beneath the untidily braided hair. She slipped her hands around his hips, her fingers digging into the firm muscles of his buttocks, increasing the scope of her voluptuous exploration.
He turned her face up and bent his head to kiss her mouth. Her lips parted eagerly and her tongue joined with his in a mischievous dance before his hands gripped her face more firmly and he drove deep into her mouth, possessing its sweetness in rough and delightful plunder, and Chloe finally yielded the initiative. Her hands fell from his body, and she arched backward on her knees, her thighs opening in involuntary response, her body's cleft moistening and throbbing as he ravaged the softness of her mouth.
Hugo drew back and looked at her face, one finger delicately tracing the line of her jaw, her reddened lips, the small, tip-tilted nose. His gaze held no humor, but a hunger and single-minded determination that sent answering thrills of anticipation over her skin, lifting her scalp, rippling in her belly.
Bending over her as she still knelt on the bed, he laid his flat palms on the insides of her opened thighs and exerted firm pressure, pushing them wider. She let her palms rest on the bed beside her knees as her body was slowly, inexorably opened and she could feel the ach-
ing vulnerability of her core begging for his touch. With the same slow deliberation he laid his hand over the throbbing furrow and she jumped as if touched with a burning brand.
"Be still," he said quietly. "Be still and let your body speak." His fingers worked through the dampening linen of her drawers until she moaned, biting her lip as the pleasure built in a tight spiral in the pit of her stomach. She felt she was being split asunder, leaning backward on her hands, her body pressing urgently against the magic of his fingers. And then the coil burst and she was flooded with a sensation that rocked her entire body, that curled her toes and brought tears of startled joy to her eyes.
He took her face again and kissed her with the hard, possessive demand of before. She clutched at him, her arms circling him, her hands stroking his back, feeling the turgid shaft of his flesh pressing against her stomach as she reached against him.
He released her mouth and took a step away from her. "Take your clothes off… all of them… quickly." The green eyes were narrow slits of passion as his voice rasped the command.
With fumbling fingers she pulled loose the sash at her waist and tore at the hooks at the back of her gown. She dragged it over her head while she still knelt on the bed, transfixed by the green-eyed gaze, afraid she wasn't being fast enough to please him, wanting only to pleasure him as he had pleasured her. The tiny buttons of her sleeveless chemise were resistant, and one broke off as she struggled with it, but finally she pulled the garment over her head and tossed it to the floor. Kneeling upright, she unfastened the tie of her drawers and pushed them off her hips, sitting down hastily to kick them free of her feet.