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“What excellent timing, husband,” Kate said.
One step inside his own bedchamber, Anthony stopped abruptly. His beautiful wife was standing on the hearth beside a steaming copper bath, hair piled on top of her head, smiling at him like she knew something he did not. She met his eyes with her dark, unflinching gaze, and, as he watched, transfixed, pulled at the ribbon on her white cotton chemise until the tie loosened. The fabric slid down her body to pool at her feet, and she stood there thrillingly, gloriously naked in the candlelight.
Anthony was no fool. He immediately strode towards her, hands catching at her waist to draw her body against his, and bending his neck down to where her face was upturned for a kiss.
“Excellent timing indeed, viscountess," he murmured, and kissed her again, indulgently shameless and eager with his own wife.
“I knew you would agree,” Kate murmured back, her lips curling up into a wicked smirk. She gave a deep sigh. “All right, I concede, dear husband. You may wash my back.”
Anthony drew back, a smile on his own lips. “Oh, may I, indeed?”
“Yes, I will allow it,” Kate said airily, and twisted away from him, her long limbs stepping gracefully into the steaming copper bath and sinking down into the hot water.
If his wife’s bare form in the candlelight weren’t already enough to rouse Anthony’s ardour, her wet, naked skin glistening in the water was enough to undo a man. He groaned, and shed his coat, waistcoat, and cravat with a recklessness that would no doubt earn him a disapproving frown from his valet. He had to tear himself steps away from Kate in her bathing glory to sit down on a nearby chair in order to pull off his Hessians and, after that, his breeches.
Kate smiled beatifically at him from the bath, fingers trailing across her own skin like a sensual siren in the unplumbed depths of an ocean. As if she knew exactly what she was doing to him, and reveled in it.
Anthony swore viciously, and was at the side of the bath in an instant, bending down to slip one hand into Kate’s silky hair and pull her up into a deep, drugging kiss.
“You siren,” he muttered against her. “You’ll sing me to my doom.”
Her eyes glittered at him. “I simply requested assistance with my bath, my lord,” she said breathlessly. “No doom required.”
He begged to differ; he’d been doomed since the day they met. He thought of his doom with some fondness.
Without wasting more time, he hoisted one leg into the bath, using his body weight to nudge Kate forward far enough for him to slip in behind her, water splashing over the side of the copper tub.
“Anthony!” she said, high-pitched and strangled, her cheeks pleasingly flushed.
He was snugged up behind her now, with her nestled between his legs. He’d neglected to take off his shirt, which was now sticking to his skin. Thank God he’d already dispensed with his boots. It was tight for two adults in the confines of the bath, but Anthony wasn’t seeking spaciousness when it came to his wet, naked, willing wife.
She wriggled appealingly, and he wrapped an arm around her to press them together, dropping his head to press kisses against the long line of her neck.
“Is this what you call washing my back, my lord?” she demanded breathlessly.
He huffed against her throat, and, reluctantly, leaned back to give himself space to wash her back, as requested.
She sighed and shivered under his hands as he slowly poured the hot water over her shoulders, using a soft cloth to wipe gently over the wet skin. Across the delicate wings of her shoulders, the softly rounded curve of her upper arm, down the length of her spine, back up to the long, slender line of her neck, where wisps of damp, dark hair curled tenderly against her skin.
She was impossible to resist. He leaned forward to kiss her there, soft, wet kisses that made her sigh his name and tilt her head forward. Obligingly, he gave her more kisses, along her hairline, behind her ear, under the tender curve of her jaw, and he dropped the cloth into the water to free his fingers to travel the same pathways across her skin. He slid closer to her again, and allowed himself to curl around her body to cup one of her firm, perfect breasts, relishing the way he felt her sharp inhale as their wet bodies were pressed against one another.
“All right, I will allow it,” she announced breathlessly. “You may wash my breasts.”
Anthony laughed against her throat. She never failed to delight him. “You’re too generous, my lady,” he said, and latched his teeth to the lobe of her ear.
She squeaked, and wriggled against him in a gratifying way. He slid both his hands over her wet skin, squeezing the glorious handfuls of her breasts with both hands until she was moaning and arching against him, nipples tight and hard against the tips of fingers.
“Tell me,” Anthony whispered against her throat, scraping a thumbnail over one of her nipples and making her jerk in his arms. “Where else may I wash you, my lady wife?”
Kate let out a half-strangled laugh, and said, “Since you make so kind an offer, I will allow you between my thighs.”
He grinned. “How generous of you.”
He slid one hand up to her hair, gripping it so he could twist her head enough for him to catch her in a kiss, hot and wet and open-mouthed, and so eager it made his heavy cock twitch restlessly against her lower back. He drank down the gasp she made as his fingers slid under the water and nudged between her thighs. She leaned back against him, trying to spread her legs further.
She was slippery and eager between his legs, her wet skin glowing in the candlelight, dark hair curling in the steam, his wet, willing siren of a wife writhing in his arms. Her movements were graceful and instinctual, leaning back against him one moment, and arching up in the next, digging her nails into his wrist and urging his fingers deeper inside her.
He obliged her, wrapping one arm around her wet body to hold her against him in the water, and striving to meet her every desire with two fingers buried deep and his thumb flicking over the hard bud nestled just above her cunt.
When she reached her peak, crying out and gasping his name, she thrashed hard enough in his arms for the water to slosh heavily over the side of the bath.
“My god, you’re beautiful,” he said.
“Such sophisticated flattery, my lord,” Kate managed to retort, slumping against him. He looked down to admire her breasts rising and falling in the water with her laboured breathing, and his neglected cock twitched.
Soon, they could retire to their bed, and perhaps he could convince her to ride him while her skin was still slick and sweet-smelling from her bath.
“As I was saying,” Kate murmured, eyes closed, and a smug smile curving over her lips. “Excellent timing, my lord.”
Anthony gazed down at her. It was unfashionable to be so hopelessly in love with one’s own wife, and he didn’t care one jot.
“I could not have expressed it better myself,” he said, and buried his face in her soft, damp neck.