She heard the breath enter his lungs, felt his heart beating slow and steady against her palm. Saw his lips part as the air escaped through them.
Even when she was certain he was breathing easy, she could not push away. Her hands simply would not let go of him.
It was wrong to be this close to him, to sit on the edge of his small cot, to be leaning over him as she watched him sleep. He was clean now, yet still she bathed him, refusing to take her hands off his body.
He stirred against her, the bandages hiding his brow and facial expressions. Every once in a while, he would tremble, and his mouth would move as if he was trying to speak. His head would then begin thrashing, his body tensing despite the deep sleep produced by the ether.
What demon gripped him? She knew it was something evil that held him now. He should be peaceful from the ether, not grimacing and tensing, as if he was trying to fight.
Perhaps he was dreaming of his attack.
He cried out, his head arching back as his torso and buttocks lifted from the cot. The white sheet slid down, exposing the line of fine black hair that continually captured her attention.
“Shh,” she soothed, pushing him gently back with her hands on his shoulders. “You’re safe here.”
He settled easily, falling back into the slow, even breathing of before. His body was still. His muscles quiet.
As Jane sat back and watched him, she allowed herself to take her fill of his naked chest. She had never seen a man like this before. One who was so large and muscled. One whose shaving soap and cologne still clung to his skin.
His chest was smooth and hairless, all except for the line of onyx down that swirled around his navel and worked its way lower. Without thinking, Jane ran her forefinger along the pathway of hair, marveling at the softness and the steely muscles beneath his skin. It was a contradiction, how something could feel so soft and innocent, yet just beneath so hard and unyielding.
She was utterly captivated by him, by the secrecy of his identity, not to mention the mysteries to be found on his body. Like a child with a new doll, she could not stop looking at him, or prevent herself from running her hand along his chest.
What would it feel like to have his length atop her? To be encased by his strong arms? To lay her head on his chest and listen to the steady cadence of his heart beating as she traced the outline of his tattoo?
What would it be like, she wondered, to have a man this handsome and virile buried deep within her?
As if he could discern her wayward thoughts, the sheet moved as his penis began to swell, the outline of which was pressed urgently against the thin, graying cotton.
Jane was not an innocent. She did not smother a cry of horror and launch herself from the bed. Instead, she allowed herself to pull the sheet down, slowly exposing the man to her curious eyes.
He was as large and beautiful there as he was everywhere else.
His erection continued to fill, and Jane watched, mesmerized as the pink rod filled with blood. He was long and thick. The foreskin pulling back, revealing a heavily veined staff and engorged head.
She was consumed by the thought of feeling him, touching the hardness that still grew. The devil whispered in her ear, and she obeyed, reaching out to skim her fingertip along the veined shaft.
He moaned, and hastily Jane pulled the sheet up, ashamed by her actions. She had no idea what had gotten into her. She had seen many male patients naked before, and never once had she been tempted to touch them, to learn whether or not the skin was as smooth and velvety as it looked.
Perhaps she had her mother’s harlot blood after all, for that could be the only reason for these new thoughts that suddenly began to cloud her thinking and judgment.
“Are ye done yet?” Givens, the night man asked as he entered the room. “We’ve brought a bed and we’ll get him onto it for you.”
“Yes,” Jane said in a voice that belied her thoughts. “I’m finished. But do be careful, he took a nasty blow to his head. I’m afraid I’m going to have to check on him frequently tonight to ensure he wakes up.”
She had seen many patients die in their sleep from blows less severe. Tonight she would have to return to him hourly and wake him, ensuring that he did not slip into unconsciousness and ultimately death.
One of the men reached for his ankles, and the other, his wrists. The third shoved the bed closer so that the mattress of one was pressed against the wooden operating table. Beneath his weight, they grunted as they lifted him, affording Jane a glimpse of how tall he was. Well over six feet and solid as marble.
“Ye better take good care of ’im, miss,” the one grunted with exertion. “’E’s part of the fancy and there’s no tellin’ what will ’appen if ’e cocks up ’is toes here.”
“I am aware of that.”
Jane watched as they plopped him down onto the small bed. The mattress was thin, but it was clean. So, too, was his pillow. It was the best of what London College Hospital had to offer, yet Jane knew it was not even close to what the man was used to.
“Will there be anythin’ else?”
“No, thank you. I’ll call if I need help.”
Jane pulled the screen around his bed, trying to afford the man some privacy. News traveled fast throughout the wards, and there was no doubt that the news of an aristocrat having arrived after being beaten unconscious would be fodder for those well enough to spread the word. Many of the patients, Jane knew, would risk their own health to leave their beds, if for nothing more than a glimpse of the man. Jane was determined to keep him safe and quiet, and not a spectacle on display for the others’ amusement.
“Who are you?” she asked as she drew up a blanket, covering him to his shoulders. “And where do you belong?”
“Who are you?”
The words burned his brain, which throbbed in an unrelenting tattoo against his skull. He swallowed, tasting bile, and knew with sickening certainty the voice would come again, no matter how hard he tried to shove it aside and suffocate it until he could hear it no more.
“Who are you?”
“Your slave.” The words erupted in his mind. Words said in his voice. Words that opened the floodgates of revulsion. Fear and panic swelled as he felt hands sweep over his chest.
He lay still and quiet, hoping that the words and memories would fade, along with the touch, but they rushed back, smothering him.
His heart was racing, his skin sweating, yet he felt chilled as the hated memories came back.
“You know, this is all you’re good for—fucking.”
No. He tried to say it, to scream it in his mind, but no sound emitted from his lips.
“You like this. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be hard. Wouldn’t be leaking your seed, anticipating what we’re going to do to one another.”
He shook
