He stops three feet away. Water still drips from his hair, sliding down the tattoos that twist across his shoulders and chest. His skin is flushed, and I can feel the heat radiating from him even at this distance—not normal body warmth, but furnace-hot, like standing too close to a bonfire.
My eyes drop again. Can’t help it.
He’s freaking huge. Thick and long and so goddamn perfect I want to—
“Mara.” His voice is low, rough. “I did not expect—”
“I was looking for you,” I blurt out, dragging my eyes back to his face. “The woman in the village said you were here, and I just… I didn’t mean to interrupt—”
“You did not interrupt.” He pauses. Studies my face. Then, quieter: “And you did not look away.”
Heat floods my cheeks.Busted.“I—”
“I am glad you are here.”
The words hit me sideways. Glad?
Silence stretches between us. Tense. Charged. The air feels thick, like before a thunderstorm.
My gaze drops again. I can’t help it. He’s right there, hard and wanting and making zero effort to hide it. Making zero effort to pretend this isn’t affecting him.
“You should look,” he says quietly. “If you want to.”
My eyes snap back to his face. “What?”
“You want to look.” Not a question. A statement delivered in that careful, measured way he has. “So look.”
Oh. My. God.
This is insane. We’re standing on a mountain path in a village full of people, and he’s offering himself up like… like—
I look.
Let myself really see him. The breadth of his shoulders. The way water clings to the hair on his chest, his stomach. The lines of muscle that lead down to where he’s thick and ready and—
“Mara.” My name sounds different in his mouth. Strained. “If you keep looking at me like that, I will not be able to apologize properly.”
“Apologize?” My voice comes out breathless. “For what?”
Then K does something I don’t expect.
He lowers his head. “For what I did yesterday morning. It was dishonorable. You are under my protection, and I violated that trust. I took liberties I had no right to take.”
My brain fritzes out. “K, you don’t need to—”
“I do.” He looks up, and the intensity in his eyes steals my breath. “You are vulnerable. Injured. Far from your home. And I—” His jaw tightens. “I showed no restraint. No honor. It will not happen again.”
The old-world formality is so at odds with everything I know. Nobody talks like this. Nobody bows their head and apologizes like they’re confessing to some medieval lord.
While completely naked and hard.
But somehow, on K, it works.
It’s oddly charming. Genuine in a way modern apologies never are.
And it melts me.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” I say quietly. “You were asleep. Dreaming. You didn’t—”
