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I can feel his strong, warm skin beneath the wet fabric as I rub down his shoulder. Once, and then again.
I have to dip the cloth often. I like how the warm water feels on my hands. I like watching the soot get cleaned off and his blue skin reappear with every stroke of the fabric.
And I really, really like the feel of his muscled, hot body beneath my hands as I wash every inch of his back, caressing the dimple and sinew of each thick bicep, arm by arm, until I reach his forearms.
He removed the large cauldron from directly over the fire once it started getting too hot, so I wring the cloth out one last time.
I want to continue, but even I have to admit, there’s no more soot.
“I guess you can get your front half,” I say, feeling silly that I washed as much of his arms as I did when he could probably reach a lot of that himself.
So I’m surprised when he says, “If you wanted to continue, I. . . wouldn’t mind. That is to say. . . would you?”
I swallow hard and realize that maybe he’s been enjoying this as much as I have. I look as near to his eyes as I’ve ever dared, directly below them at his cheeks.
I feel my own cheeks flush hot and nod. “Yes, I’d like that.”
I avert my gaze to the ground as he shifts in front of me, turning to face me, still seated. It makes my belly flop to be so close to him without his shirt on. Which makes me blink in shock.
Because it’s not just my belly that’s. . . tingling.
I suck in a breath as I dip the fabric in the steaming pot and step between his legs to bring the cloth to the front of his shoulders and then drag it down his chest. . .
Chapter Seventeen
KHARON
I shouldn’t have brought her here, but there was no other choice. I couldn’t think of any other place to wait out the furious storm. Here there are strong walls and a place to make a fire. So here we came.
And now. . .
Now she is bathing me.
I have been bathed once before, when Abaddon’s consort cleansed and cut my hair after two centuries of madness.
But that was nothing like—
I suck in a quick breath as Ksenia drags the cloth down my chest to my lower belly. All my abdominal muscles tense, and I freeze, afraid that any movement or abnormal breathing patterns may scare her away.
Instead, she dips and wrings out the fabric and steps even closer when she returns. Again she drips that damnable sensuous cloth down my chest and to my abdominals, where she scrubs it back and forth, lower and lower.
“Ksenia,” I finally growl, everything within me straining. She is kneeling between my legs now. Does she not notice the large, straining hardness in my pants? Pants that are not nearly as thick and padded as hers are. Is she willfully ignoring it? Or is she simply an innocent?
“Yes?” she asks, and I do not know if I am imagining the strain I hear in her voice.
She does not move as she leans over to dip the cloth again, her body stretching over my thigh. I shudder at the extended contact. Since entering the church, she’s pulled off her ski mask and the cap covering her explosion of blonde hair. Her scent and the feel of her so close are maddening, enough to overwhelm me.
I should not have asked her to wash my front. I did not know the madness I’d be enticing. I want to grab her. I want—
I breathe out harder. I don’t even know the things I want. Things always forbidden to me. Things I only began to think about once I heard the noises emanating from Abaddon’s room when he returned with his consort.
Ksenia drags the hot cloth down my sides, scrubbing underneath my lowest pair of arms, one side and the other. Then again, she tortures me by dragging it back and forth low across my belly, right above where my pants close.
“Ksenia!” I hiss her name through my teeth.
“Yes,” she asks again. When I look at her now, her eyes are on my lips.
She bends over my thigh again torturously and goes through the whole process again, all but squirming against me. Surely she feels the hardness.
My thoughts torture me. I cannot stand much longer. I must either fling her away from me or, or—
She brings the cloth back, and carefully, lingering, she washes my face.
“There you are,” she says.
All I can do is groan low. “I want you,” I admit, speaking between my teeth. “Move away if you do not want what I want.”
“What do you want?” she asks, and I groan. Is this innocence speaking?
