The mellow glow of lamplight caressed Talent’s smooth skin, highlighting the clean symmetry of his broad, straight shoulders and the tight slabs of muscled flesh that flanked the valley of his spine. Pale linen drawers hung loosely on his narrow hips, low enough to expose where his spine met the indented globes of his arse. Happy Christmas, indeed.
Talent ought to look vulnerable, undressed as he was. In all their years of acquaintance, she’d never seen him in anything less than full and proper attire. She did not count the dark day when she’d found him hanging nude and bloodied in that torture chamber. Honor demanded that she keep that image separate from the man she knew as Jack Talent. It had been merely a tormented body, not him, not his soul. Now the impact of seeing him struck her like a fist. The corded strength of his neck and the tight swells of his shoulders alone could hold her in thrall.
His reflection in the tall vanity mirror was clear, and the front of him was as glorious as the back. His naked chest was brutish in its musculature. Flat, wide pectorals, small brown nipples, abdominals like tightly packed cobbles, and smooth, taut skin. The image of it all burned into her memory with just one glance. Dear God. It should not affect her so, his animalistic strength. She’d never favored such physiques, and yet her attention was riveted.
She ought to go. Talent was merely undressing. Nothing untoward. Unless she counted her own actions. Guilt swamped her. This was unconscionable. She really ought to…
He dipped a hand into the basin, swirling the water with his fingers, and the network of muscles along his torso rippled, a breathtaking display of power in motion.
She found herself sinking down, her spirit reforming into the shape of her physical body as her defenses weakened. She wasn’t flesh, she ought not feel a thing, yet unbearable heat flooded her being.
His fingers swayed back and forth, a meditative movement, as he stared at the water, his expression somber and his big, strong body stooped forward. Atlas holding up the world.
It hurt to witness. More so when he stopped and looked at himself in the mirror. And kept looking, as if he couldn’t quite recognize his reflection. Or perhaps he didn’t like what he saw.
It was that lost, almost hopeless darkness in his eyes that made her want to go to him, despite the numerous rejections he’d volleyed her way over the years, and despite the very real possibility that, if she did, he’d be furious. But he wouldn’t see her at any rate. She was invisible to him. Sorrow held her there, heavy and painful. She ought to go. She couldn’t leave.
The pure, tinkling notes of dripping water broke the silence as he lifted a rag to his chest and began to wipe it. The movements were perfunctory, a swipe up his neck and down the other side, the hard scrub under his arms, then over his chest and stomach.
The heat surrounding her became a pulsing thing. It was as if she were the one holding the rag, drawing it along that dense flesh, feeling his warmth, wiping him clean.
Crystalline beads of water trickled over his skin, found the valleys between his muscles, coalescing and traveling down to the dark thatch of hair just peeking out above the line of his drawers. Linen drawers that were growing wet from his bath, growing transparent against his long, large…
Talent stopped, the rag in his hand spilling water in a steady drip, drip, drip. Fear tingled through her. Had he sensed something amiss? But he did not look up. The wide column of his neck shone wet as he kept his head bent. And though the fan of his lashes hid his eyes, the direction of his gaze was unmistakable. As was the growing bulge beneath his drawers. The shaft thickened and rose, curving in a painful looking bend as it met with the resistance of the fabric. Idly, he scratched the skin of his taut belly, his fingers drifting nearer to his burgeoning cock.
Mary’s being went utterly still. Surely not. Surely he wouldn’t.…
But he did. The rag fell back into the basin with a loud plop as his hand went to the ties of his drawers. The linen snagged on his cock before he eased the fabric away. And then, good God, but his member rose up, proud, ruddy, and straight, so lovingly displayed between a dark nest of hair and his heavy cods.
She almost fled, dissipated right then and there, save she could not look away. Not from that glorious, rude cock, nor his firm arse and powerful thighs. He was extraordinary.
Ignorant of being watched, Talent gave himself a slow stroke, skimming it really, as if contemplating further intimacies. He caressed it again, up and down, clutching the wide shaft in the circle of his fingers with absolute authority, going slowly as if letting his pleasure build. Up. Down. A chuff of breath left his parted lips, and his eyes fluttered closed, his thick brows furrowing. His speed increased, the tendons on his forearms shifting and straining as he moved.