With This Ring by Celeste Bradley

understand?Swear to me that you’ll not pursue charges against him, or—or I won’t finish untying you until you do!”
    Since Aaron had no intention of ever telling a single soul that he’d been assaulted, kidnapped, and held at pistol point by a girl—even if she’d been assisted by a madman!—well, it wasn’t a problem for him to keep quiet about it.He would take this mortifying incident to his grave, although it would probably take him the rest of his life to forget the humiliation.However, something she’d said distracted his attention for the moment.He tilted his head as he watched her.“What ’bout you, then?”
    “What about me?”
    “Don’t ye mean to make me promise not to call the magistrate on ye?”
    “I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you did,” she said absently.“But I’d really rather you didn’t.My family needs me far more than I need punishment.After all, I’m hardly likely to repeat this particular offense.”She sighed.“I do believe I am an utter failure as a kidnapper.”
    She’d begun cleaning the graze on his forehead, leaning close to see better in the dimness.He could feel the heat from her skin on his face and neck, but it was the sweet, wild scent of oil of jasmine, grown in the tropics, shipped across the seas, and warmed by living girl that made his throat close tight.She must have stroked it over her wrists and behind her ears after her last bath.
    He closed his eyes and pictured the moment, allowing himself to imagine the damp, steamy chamber and hear the slosh of soapy water as she stepped out of the copper tub, her perfect ivory skin gone pink and glowing from the heat of it.The candlelight would shimmer over the swell of her wet hips, highlighting the roundness of her dripping breasts, catching the glint of water droplets as they hung, quivering, from her pink, erect n—
    “Ow!”

 
    Chapter Five
    Aaron flinched from her ministrations.“What’re you cleanin’ that with, sand?”He scowled, but he was grateful for the twinge. Concentrate on the pain. Focus on the fury. Remember what she has done, not what she smells like!
    “Goodness!Men are such babies!”
    Aaron felt his annoyance rise higher at her exasperation.Good.“If ye don’t mind, miss, I’d like to get me legs back under me as well.”Hastings had a way of depicting haughty disdain for the gentry that came in handy indeed.“Since ye don’t want me takin’ your brother before the magistrate?”
    She bit her lip again.“Yes.Of course.It’s just a simple matter of…”
    There was nothing simple about it.In her efforts to conserve rope, she had wound and knotted, wound and knotted, until he was trussed like a pig on a spit.
    For the next quarter of an hour, Aaron had nothing better to do than to watch a beautiful girl bend, stretch, tug and wiggle, all while kneeling at his feet.God, she was a beauty.Mad, possibly.Evil, definitely.Yet all the resentment in the world did nothing to deny the fact that she was absolutely delicious.
    Ordinarily, he would have been ashamed at his own prurience, but he’d been waylaid, knocked out, and tied up for hours.Any scrap of gentlemanly decency he had left was more than this insane creature deserved.
    He particularly enjoyed the bit where she had to lie down with her head beneath his chair and stretch her arms to reach the knots.Her beleaguered shirt-and-weskit combination almost failed to restrain the creamy swell of her breasts as they bounced about in response to her frustrated tugging.Aaron thought he might spy a bit of nipple at any given moment.He never did, more’s the pity, but he did greatly enjoy the anticipation.
    All in all, it was a very tolerable way to pass the time.
    It was when she knelt at his feet and bent over his lap, trying to get at the knots behind his knees, that he had to stop her.Seeing her tousled blond head bent over his groin, bobbing there as she tugged at the ropes, was making him think thoughts a good man shouldn’t