Bute peered up at her, blinking his big black eyes.
“I’ll take care of you and make you whole again.”
nine
“We should bathe here,”Vade said when they reached a river. “This is the last water source before Ricaboro.”
He unbuckled his baldrics and belt, laying the weapon-laden equipment on the ground before pulling both the vest and tunic over his head. Every muscle rippled down his front, broad shoulders and arms so chiseled that he looked like he’d been carved from marble. His bronze skin had sporadic scars, most much smaller than she imagined, considering his line of work.
Orelia tripped on a root while staring at him, but as soon as she righted herself, her eyes drifted to the thick, dark hair covering his chest. Her gaze fell to the line of hair trailing below his navel and into his leathers. He stretched his arms above his head, the movement emphasizing the deep vee of his hips, making her wonder where exactly the vee stopped . . .
“Stop gawking and get in the water,” Vade said with a devilish grin.
She swallowed the saliva that had pooled in her mouth. What in the hells was wrong with her? He’d just murdered people a few marks ago for the gods’ sake!
Not wanting to disrobe in front of him, Orelia crept behind a boulder at the river’s edge and removed her clothing. She cradled her bar of strawberry-scented soap and peeked around the boulder when she heard him enter the water.
Vade surfaced in the dark glossy water and smoothed back his shoulder-length hair. She couldn’t stop staring at his bulging biceps, the one she’d held onto when she thought the Arbors were going to shoot them.
Gods-dammit, he was attractive.Orelia shook her head, hoping it would knock some sense into her.Murderer, she repeated in her mind until the despicable interest in him faded. “Can you face the other way so I can get in?” she called out.
“You worked at a brothel. Surely nakedness is nothing new to you.”
“Please?” Orelia implored.
“No.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath, she ran to the river, one arm covering her breasts and a hand over her crotch. Her toes squished in the soft silt as she waded in and slipped beneath the water until she was submerged up to her shoulders. “Jerk.”
He grinned. “Nakedness isn’t anything to be ashamed about.”
Keeping her chest below the water line, Orelia freed the tie from her hair and tilted her head back, letting the cool water pick through the strands. “I’m not ashamed.”
Vade grabbed his bar of soap off the rock he was using as a makeshift shelf and began cleaning his upper body. “Then why hide yourself?”
She followed his lead and set her soap on a shelf of her own.
Her throat went tight as she watched him scrub his muscled chest. “Some of us don’t want to share our nakedness with the world. Seems not to bother you though,” she said in a poor attempt to deflect her frustrating attraction.
“Definitely not.” Vade searched for something within the rocks, then made his way out of the river when he didn’t find it. He grew taller, and when the two small dips in his lower back just above his ass emerged, she looked away.
He may not have any sense of propriety, but she did.
Orelia noted the gangly branches of the surrounding willow trees skimming the water and the dappled sunlight casting shadows over the area. Too peaceful of a scene for the bloodshed that occurred earlier. She wondered if she’d ever be able to get used to Vade’s kind of life, or if watching him kill would continuously ruin her appreciation for such beautiful scenery as this.
She heard a splash, assuming he had gotten back in, but a glance over her shoulder revealed Vade standing on the bank. Orelia barely noticed the small bottle in his hand because she was too distracted by what hung between his legs.
Years in the brothel and she had seen it all. Cocks of various curvatures and sizes, some hidden beneath hoods, others not. Some small, some large. Many flaccid, and most erect. A man’s instrument was an abrupt sight compared to the smooth curves of a woman’s body. But this . . .this was not of this world. Even flaccid, his was the largest she had ever seen.
No wonder he was soarrogant.
“You seriously walk around with that all day?” The brazen words left her mouth before she could stop them.
He stepped into the water, monstrous cock swinging between his tree trunk thighs. She didn’t miss the subtle puffing of his chest. “You should see it when it’s hard.”
Orelia sunk into the water until it kissed her chin, knowing her face must have been flaming red.
He cocked a thick brow. “Interested?”
