Wicked Whispers by Tina Donahue

uncleanliness might be the cause.”
    Her comment sparked a memory in him. “You washed your hands before tending to Maria. You burned the blade and needle prior to using them.”
    She nodded. “The men who wrote the books stressed how a physician should have clean hands and implements. Although I searched the text for some means to fight Holy Fire, there was none. At one point, I did think the answer could be in tainted water.” She made a face. “No matter how I spoiled what the mice drank, they never developed the same symptoms in my volumes. They simply stopped breathing and died.”
    Enrique warned himself not to smile or laugh at how casually she discussed these matters. He tried to imagine Luscinda talking about blackened limbs, how she dirtied water, and watched vermin die to discover the cause. “Weariness could be keeping you from an answer. You work too hard.”
    “I have no choice. What if the illness returns to Spain?”
    “I will do everything in my power to protect you, our families, and those in the villages to spare you from having to tend the lot of us. I know you would try.”
    She laughed softly. “I can barely recall a time when I thought of naught but rest.”
    “Take this moment to do so.”
    He offered her the bota. After she took a long drink of wine, he fed her olives, a generous portion of cheese and bread, then more meat, running his finger over her bottom lip, brushing away crumbs.
    At last, she caught his wrist and licked his forefinger.
    Her damp heat registered in his belly, groin, and shaft, his sex painful with impossible need.
    He eased his free hand into her silken hair and lowered her to the blanket, wanting to take her in every way, fill her with his child. Which would bind her to him forever, forcing her into a marriage she would find confining, killing the joy he’d seen in her today. Her willingness to share her thoughts, dreams, and concerns.
    He wanted Sancha more than life itself, though not in such a way.
    Although he reined in his feelings, he couldn’t stop all his desire. “Allow me to pleasure you without compromising your virginity. No one is near, nor will they be.”
    Alarm didn’t cross her features. She drank him in as he did with her. “What of you?” She touched his cheek, running her fingers to his jawline.
    Stunning warmth and need coursed through him at her gentle touch. A wanton one would surely undo him. “Pleasing you is all I want.”
    “You deserve more. Allow me to pleasure you in the same manner.”
    He stared, not certain he’d heard her correctly. However, he must have. Her eyes were bright with passion, features softened with surrender. Perhaps she hadn’t considered her words. “Have you any idea what you said?”
    She nodded.
    Far too casually for his taste, though her hand gliding down his throat to his chest was a touch straight from heaven. Even so, he needed to ask her what any man would. “How could you possibly know such things?”
    “Isabella.”
    Of course. His brother was an incredibly lucky man to have met such a woman, though not as blessed as he was with Sancha beneath him.
    With his weight and strength imprisoning her, he kissed her deeply, demanding she mold her mouth to his.
    She did better than he’d hoped. Their tongues danced. She slid her hands up his chest and past his shoulders to his back, clinging to him as he did her as though some horrible tragedy would separate them in a moment and they had no time to lose. Noises poured from them, the kind only lovers make. A wanton moan, a lewd groan, growls and sighs. Music for the soul, sounds a man could build a future on.
    He cradled her breast, frustrated by her clothing, layer upon layer keeping him from her heated flesh. He pulled his mouth free and pressed his face to her neck, his breath skimming her skin. “I want you naked.”
    With her hands cupping his head, she forced him to ease away and look at her. He dreaded doing so, not wanting to hear that she’d