T he woman gasped in surprise, dropping her cloth, the cloth that had started on his body clinically and purposefully, as he'd awakened, but had soon skimmed over him in sinuous movements.

Her heels clicked on the polished wooden floor when she retreated. Court watched as she smoothed her already crisp dress, then the perfect knot of hair at her nape, then the choker at her throat with slender hands. At each of these tasks, her chin rose higher.

"I-I was merely caring for you," she answered in accented English.

Instead of coming to in a haze of pain, he'd woken to her breasts glancing over the hair on his chest as she reached across him, and to one of her soft, pale hands gripping his hip while the other rubbed over his skin. As he'd felt fat drops of water hitting the sheet, he'd caught the scent of her hair, making even his beaten body stir. "Then consider me still in need of your care."

Her cheeks turned pink.

He tried to sit higher in the bed, then grimaced in pain. As if in answer, all his other wounds finally sounded the call. He glanced down at his wrist to find a cast. "Who are you?" he ground out. "And where am I?"

"My name is Annalía Elisabet Catherina Tristán. I am mistress of Casa del Llac, where you abide now, and daughter of the family Llorente." Her accent told him English wasn't her first language, though she spoke it perfectly and without hesitation, the words rolling from her tongue in a manner that was pleasing to the ear. She'd said the name Llorente proudly, as though he'd recognize it. He did feel as if he'd heard it before but couldn't place it.