“If it’s privacy you seek, someone should keep a lookout.”
She rapidly scolded her features into aloofness, trying to match his composure.
This was their normal here, bathing in the open. She had to accommodate. He was moving to the falling water at the other side of the cavern.
Good.He was keeping a distance.
Besides, the thought of Orm sneaking in here while she was alone made her stomach sour, and she was suddenly grateful.
She sank her hair into the welcoming warmth, trying to distract herself. She kept her hands busy lathering suds in her hair. Anything to take attention away from the first fully nude body she had ever seen besides her own.
And what an impressive body it was.
Intrusive thoughts kept manifesting. Thoughts of lowering her hands below the pool, perhaps between her thighs.
Helaina was beyond inexperienced. She had used books to fill in the gaps of her sexual knowledge. She had even experimented with her own touch a time or two, although she wasn’t certain she was doing it correctly.
His muscular body made her feel desperate, feverish even. She needed a distraction. Conversation could help.
“You said you were here in the beginning... Did the gods build this place?”
Theodon didn’t look back. He kept one arm braced on the wall as the other smoothed water from the overhead falls all over his chest.
“No, I built Elkron.”
Her eyes widened. “Youbuilt all of this?”
“Every single catacomb, every staircase.” The falling icy water was steaming off his shoulders.
“You and who else?”
“There was no one else in the beginning, just me.”
“It must have taken decades.”
“Eighty-five years and fifty-six days.” He rattled off the numbers like they were ingrained in his memory. Like that amount of time alone had burned into him so ferociously that he couldn’t possibly forget it.
“You were alone all that time?”
He gave a slight nod. “For those years, yes. The bone dagger had already been gifted to me. I knew eventually I would need to find others. I just needed some time.”
Her heart sank to her gut. She had whined about the solitude and seclusion she had endured in the castle, but she had family. She had... others. She would go mad being in a space like this without a single soul.
“Time for what?”
He inhaled deeply, expanding the broadness in his back. His crimson tattoo lining the grooves of his sculpted muscles was more vibrant now that his skin was damp. She let her eyes drift downward... and down some more. His backside was so pleasant to look at. She wondered what his bare front looked like.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
“You aska lotof questions.”
“I’m sorry?” She wasn’t apologizing, she was so damned distracted she had genuinely forgotten what she had asked in the first place.
He turned around, revealing his front. It did not disappoint.
He leaned his head back, dousing his long hair in the falls, his abdomen flexing as he stretched. She had to fight her curiosity to keep her gaze above his hips.
“At least you know how to apologize. You clearly don’t know how to say thank you when someone does you a kindness. For growing up in a castle, your manners are questionable.”
