It was a mistake. With her eyes closed, her hands seemed doubly sensitive. The sleek, hot power of his body beneath her hands made her tremble. The different textures of Wolfe was a new, pleasurable shock each time her hands moved across his chest. Heat burned softly through the pit of her stomach, making her shiver. She moved her hands across Wolfe’s chest once more, telling herself that she was rinsing him and knowing that she was lying to herself. She wanted to knead his flesh like a cat, and, like a cat, she knew she would purr all the while.

Desperately, Jessica opened her eyes just in time to see one of Wolfe’s long, powerful legs emerge from the water. Dark patterns of water-slicked hair began above the ankle and progressed farther up his muscular thigh than she was prepared to acknowledge.

Wolfe saw the direction of Jessica’s glance and knew that the water wasn’t hiding as much of him as it had before. He waited for a long, tense moment, measuring the combination of fear and desire in her. Knowing that he intrigued her as a man was violently exciting to him.

And it showed.

«W-Wolfe?»

«Surely I’m no more difficult to scrub than bricks,» he said casually. «Wash me, wife.»

Carefully looking no farther than Wolfe’s thigh, Jessica ran the soapy sponge over his leg in a single, breathless rush.

«Rinse,» she said.

The huskiness of her voice was another kind of caress on Wolfe’s responsive flesh. His right leg disappeared, only to be replaced by his left. She rubbed the sponge up the flexed muscles of his calf to his knee, only to fumble and lose the sponge. Instantly it sank beneath the surface of the water between his legs.

Jessica waited for Wolfe to retrieve the sponge for her. When he made no move, she looked up. She thought she saw the gleam of his eyes beneath his black lashes, but decided she was wrong. Carefully she fished beneath the water. Her fingers met hard, smooth flesh rather than sponge. Breath hissed between Wolfe’s clenched teeth.

«I’m s-sorry,» she said breathlessly, snatching back her hand. «I didn’t mean to…»

«Touch me?» Wolfe smiled without opening his eyes. «I forgive you, sweet nun.»

«The sponge,» she began.

«Hammer the sponge. Your fingers feel much better.»

Jessica was too rattled to argue. She grabbed more of the soft soap and rubbed it into the powerful muscles of Wolfe’s thigh, skimming over him in the space of seconds. Then, against her will, her own hands betrayed her and returned to enjoy the feel of his skin beneath her palms.

«Rinse,» she said in a low, choked voice.

The leg vanished back into the water. Lather swirled and floated away. Before Wolfe could make any more demands in regard to being washed, Jessica surged to her feet and hurried from the room, mumbling something about checking the heat of her own bath water on the stove.

Wolfe’s shuttered, hungry glance followed Jessica until she was out of sight. Reluctantly, he fished out the sponge and finished the bath, knowing he had teased her as much as he dared…at the moment.

By the time Jessica’s bath water was heated and she returned cautiously to the bedroom, her heart was beating at a less frantic pace and her stomach no longer did odd little flips at every other breath. She watched from beneath lowered eyelashes as Wolfe tamped the wooden plug back in place, closing up the hole that drained the bathtub through an opening in the bricks and onto the ground below.

Jessica admired the flex and play of Wolfe’s body while he emptied bucket after bucket of scalding water into the tub, then drew more water from the pump to cool the bath. It was quite easy for her to admire Wolfe’s supple power, for he wore nothing but his linen towel wrapped as a loin cloth. The pale luster of the cloth against his copper-brushed skin fascinated her.

Rather quickly she began to feel the increasingly familiar sensation of having swallowed golden butterflies. As a result, her fingers were clumsy when she went to work on the buttons up the back of her dress. Even worse, her arms simply refused to flex more than a few inches. Her muscles were too tight after hours of scrubbing to have any flexibility left.

With a stifled, frustrated sound, she hooked her fingers in either side of the opening at the back of her neck and yanked. Buttons tore free and fell soundlessly onto the thick wool throw rug by the bed.

Warm, hard fingers brushed Jessica’s hands aside. Wolfe began unbuttoning the dress in a silence that thickened with each jet button sliding free of its tiny hole. Finally, nothing but the long sleeves were holding the dress in place. The exquisite lace of Jessica’s silk camisole revealed more than it concealed of the skin beneath.

«Thank you,» Jessica said breathlessly. «I can manage now.»

«Don’t you want me to bathe you?»

«No, that won’t be necessary thank you,» she said, running the words together in her rush to have them spoken.

Wolfe’s long finger traced the length of Jessica’s spine. «Are you certain?»

She shivered as an odd tingling rippled through her at his touch. «Yes.»

Wolfe’s finger paused before retracing every bit of its journey as he asked, «Yes, you’re certain you want to be bathed?»

Jessica made a small sound as curious sensations flared unnervingly in the pit of her stomach. «No, I can bathe myself.»

«If you change your mind, call me.»

As soon as the door closed behind Wolfe, she let out a long breath she hadn’t been aware of holding and began stripping off her clothes with more haste than care. With the pot of soft, rose-scented soap in one hand and the sponge in the other, she stepped into the tub.

A delicious shivering went over her as she lowered herself into the water’s hot embrace. The tremor of sheer pleasure was very much what she had felt at the long, slow stroking of Wolfe’s fingertip down her spine. The realization was almost as unnerving as his touch had been. Quickly, she ducked beneath the water to wet her hair before she began rubbing soap into it.

By the time Jessica had rinsed and begun to work a second round of soap into her hair, the quivering reluctance of her arm muscles abruptly changed into something more alarming. Her arms locked in a half-raised position. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t raise them any farther. In fact, she couldn’t even hold them upright.

Soap began trickling down her face and into her eyes as her arms fell uselessly to her sides.

«Wolfe,» Jessica cried out. «Something is wrong with my arms!»

Afraid to open her eyes because of the soap, Jessica didn’t know Wolfe had come into the room until she felt a warm cloth moving over her face. She flinched in surprise.

«Be still, Jessi,» Wolfe said. «I won’t hurt you.»

«I know. You just startled me. My arms, Wolfe. I can’t —»

«Yes, I can see,» he interrupted.

He ran his hands gently over her arms. The slender muscles were knotted and hard beneath her smooth skin.

«Do you hurt?» he asked.

Jessica shook her head. «Not really. I think the muscles have just declared a holiday. The same thing happened to my legs that day I tried to jump the creek the way you had. Remember?»

Wolfe smiled slightly. «How many times did you try?»

«I don’t know. I spent most of the morning running and jumping.»

«And landing in the water.»

«And landing in the water,» she agreed, sighing. «It made me angry that you could fly so easily over the creek time and again and I couldn’t do it even once. That night I couldn’t walk.»

«You never told me.»

«I was too proud.»

«Just as you were too proud to tell me today that you couldn’t work any more.»

Jessica said nothing.

«I’ll take care of the soap on your face, first,» Wolfe said. «Your arms can wait. Tilt your head back and keep your eyes closed.»

The gentleness of Wolfe’s voice was matched by his fingers sliding into Jessica’s soapy hair and easing her head back while he blotted up the last of the lather.

«No, don’t open your eyes yet. I haven’t gotten all the soap out.»

Jessica heard the sound of cloth being rinsed, felt the swirling of water over her breasts, and blushed at the reminder of her own nakedness. Water ran warmly over her closed eyes, down her cheeks, down her neck.

Wolfe watched each golden trail of moisture with something approaching envy. He wanted to be that close to her, that warm on her skin, licking over her without hindrance.

And he was a fool to want any part of her at all.

«Do your eyes sting?»

«No,» Jessica said hesitantly, wondering at the leashed anger in Wolfe’s voice.

«Keep them dosed until I rinse your hair.»

«You don’t have to. I can —»

«You can’t do a bloody thing,» he interrupted impatiently. «The muscles in your arms have cramped. Take a breath.»

Jessica barely had drawn a breath before her body was shifted and her head was pushed under the warm water. Unlike Wolfe, she was almost able to stretch out in the narrow tub.

Working quickly, Wolfe stripped out lather and swirled clean water through the long mahogany strands until all the soap was gone. Only then did he prop her head above the water against the tub.

«That should do it.»

Jessica tried to push a stray lock of hair from her eyes, but her arms still wouldn’t cooperate. When she tried again, the struggle brought the pink tips of her breasts above the level of the water. Immediately, her nipples tightened against the cool air of the room.

When Wolfe looked down, he wished he hadn’t. His body hardened in a rush that would have brought him to his knees if he had been standing. But he wasn’t. He was kneeling next to an aristocratic little nun who had worked so hard at unaccustomed tasks that her arms had given out. He would have felt worse about being such a savage taskmaster, except that Jessica’s revenge, while unintentional, was complete. The memory of her breasts tipped by tight coral crowns would haunt him without mercy.

«Useless blue-blooded nun,» Wolfe said through gritted teeth. «Take another breath.»

«I didn’t mean to do this,» Jessica said, stung by the tone of Wolfe’s voice. «Between the clothes and the kitchen floor, I —»

The words ended in sputtering sounds as Wolfe lowered Jessica’s head into the water. Moments later, he hauled her into an upright position once more. With swift, efficient movements, he lifted her long hair and squeezed water from it.

«Where is your towel?» he asked.

There was silence followed by a sigh as she admitted, «I was so eager to get into the water I forgot about getting out again.»

«Hold your hair out of the water while I get — damn, you can’t lift your arms.»

Wolfe draped Jessica’s hair over the edge of the tub and down onto the bricks.

«Don’t move. If you slipped under the water, you’d probably drown. I’ll be right back.»

Moments later, Wolfe came back into the room carrying linen towels and a soft cotton flannel blanket. He dried Jessica’s hair as best he could, wrapped it in the length of linen, and tucked everything on top of her head in a neat turban.

«How are your arms doing?»

«Fine, as long as I don’t try to move them.»

Wolfe turned aside, picked up the sponge, and began soaping it. He washed her back, shoulders, and arms, rinsed her, and began soaping the sponge once more.

«Don’t panic, little nun.»

«What?»

The breath stopped in Jessica’s throat as she felt the sponge gliding over her collar bones, her breasts, her ribs, her belly.

«Lift one leg,» he said as he soaped the sponge once more.

«Wolfe,» she said faintly.

«Just brace your foot against the lip of the tub the way I did. Don’t worry. I won’t let you drown.»

Slowly, Jessica lifted her right leg. As though it was something he did every day, Wolfe washed the delicate, high-arched foot, slender ankle, and calf. She watched him with a sense of stunned disbelief as the sponge slid beneath the water and on up the length of her leg.

«Now the other.»

Dazed, Jessica obeyed, lowering one leg and raising the other. The sponge began moving over her once more. When it went from foot to calf to thigh, she shivered. But the sponge didn’t stop there. It swept over the triangle of hair and then down to the soft flesh below. An odd sound squeezed from Jessica’s throat. Instantly, the sponge stopped moving, remaining tucked between her thighs.