So, the splashing could not be rain.
Why was good-smell splashing waking her up?she grumbled inside her head.
Her eyelids were mostly dark, so there was not much light.
It wasn’t going to be too bright when she opened her eyes to figure out the splashing.
She cracked one eyelid open, squinting because even the flashlight on the dim setting was brighter than the Nepali night.
Deacon Father Maxence was stripped to the waist, half-naked, wearing nothing but black, tight boxer-briefs and a smile.
Well, she couldn’t tell whether he was smiling or not because he was facing away from her as he rubbed a small cloth down his arm, scrubbing his elbow and armpit.
A shiny thermal blanket lay over his sleeping bag and under his bare legs, where he kneeled on top of it. Sharp-cut crevices ran between the massive muscles of his thighs. His toes peeked out from under his muscular butt, a pale shade of tan under the black cotton of his underwear. His black hair was damp and curled in loose spirals near the nape of his neck and the tops of his broad shoulders.
His tawny skin was the color of a lion’s coat, but blue and burgundy bruises were beginning to rise on his ribs and above his underwear’s waistband.
He twisted, causing the thick muscles on his back and around his waist to bulge, and soaked the washcloth in a small steel pot beside his sleeping bag. He didn’t wring it out but merely gathered the small cloth in his fist and squeezed with one hand, shaking the droplets off his knuckles. His forearm muscles tensed and stood out under the tanned skin of his arm.
When he turned to rinse out the washrag, his back turned away from her, so she only got a glimpse of the black tattoo ink staining his skin. Again, her only impression was of delicate, shaded vertical lines running over the bulk of his muscles and the indentation of his spine down the center.
She asked, “What’s that tattoo on your back?”
Maxence didn’t startle at her sudden question. He just looked down at her and raised one black eyebrow as water ran over his knuckles and dripped back into the pot. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I woke up.”
Maxence blinked and shook his head before he continued to run the washrag over the heavy rounded pectorals of his chest, getting himself glistening and wet.
And her, too.
Not that they could,you know,because he was awhat-he-wasand she wasn’t going to do anything about it because she wasn’t like that.
Really,she wasn’t.
Likethat.
Fine masculine hair lay thicker down the center of his chest and formed a darker line all the way down to the waistband of his underwear.
She wanted to pet him.
Instead, she said, “So, that tattoo. What is it?”
Maxence leaned back as he stroked the washcloth down over the ripples of his abdominals, which forced the muscles of his torso to contract and made them stand out more.
Jeez, that was like one of those sexy dance moves the male strippers did when they were on their knees, and he looked just like one of them.
Dree’s fingers, now warmed, wandered down her sternum and stomach to the waistband of her underwear.
She couldn’t.
He wouldknow.
Hey, she was inside a completely enclosed mummy bag. Nothing except her face showed. If she could keep control over her facial expression and, to some extent, her breathing, hecouldn’tknow.
Her fingers dipped inside her panties.
Maxence was still looking down at the wet washcloth that stroked down the crevice between his abs and over the transverse lines that crossed his abdomen, and he said like he was just noting the weather and nothing sexy was going on, “My friend Arthur designed all our tattoos after we graduated from high school.”
