Seraphina began stripping off her clothes. The cloak fell at her feet, then the gray dress, her undergarments, and her stockings, until she was bare. Her skin prickled as she stepped into the tub, lowering herself slowly.
The moment the hot water surrounded her, she let out a moan of pure pleasure.
Across the room, she heard Rune grunt softly, a strangled sound that made her skin flush.
Heat pooled in her core, a tingling sensation that spread through her belly and tightened low in her abdomen. Her nipples hardened into peaks, and she was shocked to realize that she was aroused.
For the first time in two years, her body was responding positively to the presence of a man.
Seraphina felt a combination of fear and wonder, because this was new territory. Matteo had always been the only man in her life, the only man whose touch she’d desired, and she’d thought that part of her had died with him and with… what had happened to her.
She ran her hands over her ribs, feeling how thin she was, how the bones protruded from underneath her skin. She cupped her breasts and arched into her own touch, biting her lip to suppress another moan. How much better would it feel if Rune’s hands replaced hers?
Seraphina pursed her lips and released her breasts, gripping the edges of the tub instead. She stayed like that, unmoving,waiting for the tingling to pass and the arousal to fade. Because she couldn’t want Rune. She couldn’t want any man to touch her, not even one she trusted.
It was wrong.
As the minutes passed, however, her resolve began to waver. And why not? She was a woman, after all. A ruined one, sure, but a woman nonetheless, and she had womanly needs. She’d thought her body was asleep forever, cold and disconnected, but it turned out it still functioned.
She was lusting over a man who’d proven to her, again and again, that he cherished her and would never cause her harm.
Why not, indeed? Maybe it was a good thing that she could still feel and want. Maybe it was a sign that after all this was over, after she got her revenge, she could hope for a normal life.
A life with Rune.
Feeling somewhat better at this prospect, she sat up and started looking for the soap. Her hand patted the edge of the tub, searching, but there was nothing there. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized she’d forgotten to take it from the three-legged chair that also held the towels.
“Rune?”
“Yes?”
She spoke quickly, before she could change her mind.
“Can you please come here and give me the soap?”
Silence. Seraphina counted her heartbeats.
“You want me to–” He faltered.
“Please,” she insisted.
She heard the chair scrape across the floor as he stood.
“All right. I will keep my eyes closed.”
She chuckled.
“Don’t. You’re not used to it, like me. You’ll bump into something. Just come, Rune. Don’t overthink it.”
The only thing she hadn’t removed was her scarf. It was tightly secured around her face because it made her feel safe – a brick in the wall that separated her from the world, which not even Rune would be able to remove.
Seraphina pressed her hands to her chest, folding herself with her back curled and her arms around her knees. He wouldn’t see much, just a bit of skin exposed above the water. She waited, every nerve in her body on fire.
Rune stepped behind the screen, and his tall shadow fell over her.
Chapter Twenty-One
He let out a groan that sounded equally hungry and dangerous.
