She didn’t know where to look, except that she couldn’tnotlook.
He began unfastening the silver buttons at the waist of his trousers, one by one, slowly and methodically. His hands were sure, unhurried, and each sound, the soft pop of a button, the brush of fabric loosening, ratcheted the tension tighter.
When he stepped out of the trousers, he revealed powerful thighs shaped by years of training. Her breath faltered again. His legs were long and solid, dusted with fine dark hair, calves cut from stone. Every motion was fluid and sure, the muscles flexing and releasing as he moved. Her eyes followed the line of his thigh to the curve of his ass, strong, perfect, and unapologetically male.
Then his thumbs hooked into the band of his underclothes, pausing. “I’m about to be fully naked in front of you,” he said, voice rougher now. “If you’d prefer to look away…”
Thaelyn growled low, the sound slipping out of her throat like a warning. “No.”
A slow smile curved his lips, hungry and amused all at once. “Didn’t think so.”
He slid the last barrier from his body and let it fall to the floor.
She felt the flush rising across her chest and cheeks, her breath locked somewhere between want and awe. She had seen Thorne in battle, in training, shirtless, sweat-drenched, cursing and furious. But this was different.
He stood bare before her without armor, without shadows, without pretense. Just heat, firelight dancing across his skin, and raw power wrapped in restraint. Thaelyn thought to herself,Gods, he was the most beautiful man I have ever seen.
Then he stepped into the water. The surface rippled with his entry, shifting gently around her. He moved behind her slowly, easing into the basin with a hiss of breath as the warmth engulfedhim. His hands found her waist under the water, and she shifted, letting herself settle between his legs, her back against his chest, the curve of her spine fitting into the hollow of his body. His arms wrapped around her. Not tight. Not urgent. Just holding. His breath tickled the curve of her neck.
Her pulse was a drumbeat against her ribs, her skin suddenly hypersensitive to every place they touched: his thighs brushing hers, his hands splayed gently against her stomach, the press of his chest against her shoulder blades.
“Thaelyn,” he murmured, voice low and near her ear, “you’re dangerous for me like this.”
She tilted her head back slightly, lips parting. “You started it.”
He chuckled, the sound dark and vibrating through her spine. “You are sure testing my limits of self-control.” He leaned into her; his low, ragged breath was right next to her ear. He softly whispered, “It is going to take all my strength to look at you like this, sit here and feel your naked body against mine, and not lose every shred of control I’ve got.”
She turned her face toward his, her lips only inches away. Steam curled around them like a spell, hiding the world beyond.
His mouth brushed the edge of her jaw. Then her neck. Then lower. Featherlight kisses lingered. Her eyes fluttered shut as his lips traced a line down to her collarbone, pausing where her skin was marked by a faint burn, as if in silent apology.
When his mouth returned, hotter this time, her breath shuddered out in a slow exhale.
“You’re strong. You always have been. But you don’t always have to be alone in that strength.”
She opened her eyes again. Met his. “I’m not used to people seeing me and not wanting to control me.”
“I don’t want to control you, Thaelyn. I just want you.”
She leaned her head back against his chest, eyes fluttering closed once more. When his arms wrapped around her, holding her, it wasn’t possessive. It wasn’t lust. It was a promise.
Neither of them moved to break the silence. And neither of them let go.
The water had gone still. Thaelyn rested against Thorne’s chest, the weight of his arms coiled gently around her waist. His breath moved in a slow, even rhythm that lulled her into a rare calm, her heartbeat gradually syncing with his.
Steam rose around them, veiling their skin like whispered silk. The scent of the air mingled with the faint spice of his skin and the residual glow of healing magic still laced in the water’s surface. It wrapped around them like a shield, warm, invisible, and intimate.
Then it came, not a voice exactly, but a low hum, like thunder on the horizon, something old, something vast, stirring beneath her skin.
“There you are, little storm,”came Nyxariel’s voice, resonating through the bond, a whisper behind her heartbeat.
Thaelyn’s eyes fluttered open. She didn’t move.
“You’re close,”she answered, mind-to-mind.
“I never left,”Nyxariel replied, her voice edged with gentle knowing. “But now, you are open. Your walls fall in his presence. The bond deepens.”
A slow warmth unfurled low in her belly, not from the bathwater. Not from Thorne’s arms, though they remained firmaround her. It was deeper. Older. A sensation of being watched, adored, and claimed.
