"Callah, it's bad out there," he said, peeling me away from him just so he could turn me toward our room. "And no offense, but I really want to lie down."
"Okay, should you change first?" I asked.
He blew out a breath and started unbuttoning his shirt while he walked. "I'm too tired to care. I also have too much to say." The moment we were in the bedroom, he pulled it over his head.
I gasped, turning away as my face heated up. "Tobias!"
"You're supposed to have seen me naked many times by now," he said around a laugh.
So, timidly, I turned back. "I wouldn't want to shame you."
"You've seen my legs. You've seen my chest." He reached for his belt, opening that. "Don't worry, I'm keeping my underwear on."
And I watched. I tried not to stare, but while he changed into his sleeping clothes, he spoke, yet not even those words were enough to make me miss the bulges of muscles and thickness of his limbs. Doing my best not to gawk, I sat down on the edge of the bed.
"The Dragons have made a chain of camps," he explained. "We're trying to find a way around them or through them. The problem is, we aren't told which. Over and over, we're confronting small groups of the people up there, and they're fighting back. Callah, they have dogs, bows, and Dragons have poison."
"In their tails, yes," I said, aware I was staring at his abdomen.
He paused, catching me looking. "Callah?"
"Sorry!" I yelped, whipping my head around to the wall.
"It's okay," he promised. "I just wasn't sure what you were looking at."
"Your..." I could feel my face flushing. "...stomach."
"Why?"
"It's a very nice stomach, Tobias. I've never seen one with so many..." I made a motion with my hand, trying to explain the ridges of muscles.
"Callah..." he said, gently this time. "I don't mind if you look. I..." He chuckled. "It makes me feel less brutish."
"You are not a brute!" I insisted, turning back to make the point.
Only to find him facing me, every inch of his amazing chest on full display. There was a patch of hair in the middle, and a trail of it from his belly button that went lower. On his thigh, I could see the bandage I'd put on him earlier, and it was still dry, but the thigh it wrapped around? That was impressive too.
I clenched my hands in my lap, focusing on how tightly I was gripping them to keep my voice calm. "You are a rather handsome man, Tobias. Intimidatingly large, but very appealing to look at."
He shoved one leg into his sleeping pants, then the other. Hiking them up, he looked anywhere but at me, and his cheeks were as pink as my face felt.
"You are a very lovely woman, Callah." Reaching beside him, he grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head. "But we have a problem."
"Okay?"
"I just got promoted." He worked his arms into the sleeves, then eased the fabric down, hiding those muscles I'd been enjoying. "Callah, I'm now a team lead. I know the code."
"What?!" He'd just said we had a problem, but hearing that? I sat up straight, nearly standing. "But this is what we've needed!"
"And the door is being watched," he said. "I had to bang on it, and it didn't take long before it opened. That means someone's guarding the inside."
"Okay?" I wasn't sure what that had to do with anything.
"Gideon also told me to enjoy my promotion while it lasts. I think he's going to try to get me killed."
"Why?"
"Because he's a... a demon's butthole!"
