She laughed. “Turn around, Urkot, so I can finish up.”
“Ah, yes. Modesty.” He turned away from her and strode to the edge of the pool, where he’d left his things. He would not allow himself to look back, no matter how tempted he was to do so. The glimpse he’d had earlier had to be enough.
He collected the cleanleaf and, forcing himself not to glance in Callie’s direction, walked to the spot where she’d been standing when he’d first arrived. Urkot leaned his head back and let the falling water cascade over him. When he straightened, he crushed some cleanleaf and used it to scrub his hair.
All the while, he heard the quiet sounds of Callie moving in the water, washing herself.
He would not look. But in his mind’s eye, he saw her hands move over her body, caressing her skin, kneading her breasts. His palms tingled with the craving to grasp her. To slap her ass like she had, to feel that flesh give beneath his touch. He longed to witness her reaction—to see just how arousing a spanking would be for her.
And though he did not act upon them, those thoughts had consequences. The heat in his blood surged, pulsing through his entire body, and his stem ached, pressing forward. He pinched his claspers around his slit, but he could not trust them to keep him from extruding. This was too much.
Uncertain of what else to do, he lowered himself, ensuring that his slit was hidden beneath the water’s surface. But the new warmth around it did not ease his desires.
Steady and unmoving as stone. That was what he needed to be, for his sake and for Callie’s. But it was difficult. So, so difficult. Even if he managed to keep himself outwardly composed, there was so much happening within him, a storm building, raging.
Clenching his jaw, he leaned back into the falling water to rinse his hair. He closed his eyes, plunging himself into darkness as the water overwhelmed his hearing. But Callie still shone in that darkness. She was too bright to be snuffed out.
Tension coursed through him. Even the times he’d been stricken by the mating scents of female vrix had been easier to resist than this. Did she have any idea how wholly she was tempting him, how greatly she was testing his self-control?
Urkot released a heavy breath through his nostrils and inhaled slowly, focusing on the feel of his chest expanding as he filled his lungs. The odor of the water battled the crisp, sweet fragrance of the cleanleaf, but there was a hint of something else in the air, something familiar, something he could never have ignored.
Callie’s scent.
It was at once delicate and earthy, with a hint of morning dew and a sweetness that was all the more alluring in its subtlety. He’d breathed in her scent many, many times before, but this time was different. This was the first time he’d smelled her while his desire was roaring, while his control was tattered. And it was nearly enough to convince him to cut the last threads of his restraint and give in to instinct and need.
After taking several slow breaths, holding each until his chest burned, he finally leaned forward. The echoing sounds of water flowing in the large chamber returned to him.
Keeping his back toward Callie, he opened his eyes and scrubbed his body. Fortunately, the feel of his own rough hands on his hide did not stoke his inner flames, but he took no risks. He worked as quickly as he could, lifting his lower body from the water only long enough to clean himself before sinking back down to keep his slit and claspers hidden.
“Can I…” He lifted a hand and twirled his finger like Callie had earlier.
She chuckled. “You can turn around, Urkot.”
He did so to find Callie sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs folded up and crossed. She’d wrapped herself in white cloth, concealing much of her flesh from view. As much as he craved another look at her body, he thanked the Eight she was covered, because even the tiniest glimpse would’ve severed his control.
She smiled at him and dipped her fingers into the open jar of vineroot oil beside her before running them through her curls. “Feel better?”
Betterdidn’t seem like the right word. He certainly felt…strongly, felt different, but did he feel better? Not while this desire consumed him. Yet he did not have the words to express his true feelings to her, and he did not know how she would’ve taken them if he had.
“Yes,” was all he could bring himself to say.
Callie swept her gaze around the chamber. “I think I’ve grownuhdiktedto this place.”
Urkot strode toward her, water quietly sloshing around his legs. “Uhdikted? I do not know that word.”
“Sorry. It means that you like something. A lot. So much that it becomes a habit that you can’t break. An…obsession.”
Was he becoming addicted toher?
He stepped over the pool’s edge and plucked up his own cloth to dry his hide. “Why are you addicted to this place?”
She gathered more oil on her fingers and slowly combed them through her hair, working out the tangles. “Because it’s like…like nourishment for the soul in a way I never understood before.
“Everything was always go, go, go since I was a little girl. As a kid, my siblings and I were always moved from one place to another depending on my parents’ house flipping projects during the summer. If it was during the school season, we stayedwith our grandmother so we didn’t miss any classes. We never really had a stable place where we could justbe.
“We finally settled down when our parents becamereeltorzwhen I was a teenager, but because they worked in the luxury market, they had certain expectations of me. During their social events, I had to be polite, I had to smile, I had to be anexempluhreechild to help them look good. And under no circumstance was I to cause any trouble in school.”
Urkot dabbed his face with the cloth and lowered himself onto the ground beside her.
