Nelle snatched the antidote out of the air when I tossed it to her. She quickly uncapped the vial and tipped her head back to swallow the concoction down. Her nose wrinkled and mouth puckered at its foul taste as she smacked her lips. She leaned over to offer back the empty vessel, and I packed it away.
Unwinding the towel from my hips, I wandered over to the warming rack and hung it over the metal railing. Slipping back into the bath, my body stirred the water and parted tendrils of steam as I waded toward Nelle.
“Thank Skalki and the Simonises,” she breathed with relief, as the medicine boosted with magic worked its way through her system. Both of us watched in fascination as the rashes faded from her flesh until finally, it was only her natural honeyed skin glowing in the bathroom.
“Better?”
“So much better,” she grinned.
I stood behind her and continued where we’d left off before Penn’s arrival disturbed us. My fingers followed the grooves of her spine, and I kneaded all the knotted, stressed muscles.
Earlier, Nelle had removed her underthings and allowed me to lather her up with the special soap to help the itching, and I’d carefully glided the bar all over the curves of her soft body. Surprisingly, she’d surrendered completely, allowingme to gather up her long hair and froth it up with shampoo before she’d dipped back to half-float, the blond locks fanning and whirling in the water, while I carefully dragged my fingers through the silky length, teasing out the suds. Afterward, I’d applied conditioner, and she’d pressed back, almost purring in contentment as I’d massaged her head until she’d become limp and compliant, sighing in pleasure.
Now, Nelle canted forward, her hands braced over the lip of the bath while I stood behind and massaged down her back. “Oh my gods…So good,” she moaned, before urging me, “Lower…Yes,right there.”
We’d talked for the past half hour, and occasionally actually laughed. I’d asked more about her childhood to keep her distracted from itching her raw skin, but there were times we’d fallen into a comfortable silence, entirely at ease with one another without the necessary urge to fill the dead air with chatter.
However, there was something I was curious about. “You made a wyrm burrow.”
Nelle’s spine stiffened beneath my palms, and I instantly regretted mentioning it. “Yes, it would seem so,” she replied in a too-quick, too-sharp voice, indicating she didn’t want to talk about it. A moment later, her body softened along with her voice. She twisted around to face me, and my hands fell away to drift by my sides in the water. She hesitantly met my gaze. “Thesway…it wasn’t awful,” she confessed quietly. “I was content.”
“Happy?”
She nodded with a shy smile.
“Did you want to kiss me?” I asked. Unease scraped along my bones regarding our kiss in the burrow. Nelle couldn’t look at me. Those dark lashes fluttered anxiously before they lowered to brush the swell of her upper cheeks to hide her gaze. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you want to kiss me again?” I husked, shifting closer.
Mutual desire swirled through the steamy air as she opened her eyes. Her pupils waxed dark as a new moon as they slipped over my face to linger on my lips. “Yes,” she breathed.
My heart rapped a riotous beat as I bowed my head. “Do you want to do more than just kiss me?” She didn’t answer me with words. Instead, she reached upward. Her delicate hands electrified my skin wherever they touched as she glided them through the wet ends of my hair and around the back of my neck. She drew me down as she rose on her tippy-toes to press her pomegranate-red lips against mine. “Maybe while we’re here,” I murmured against her lips, my hands sliding down her sides to wrap around her thighs and lift her up. She hitched her legs around my waist, and I sank us both down into the water. “How about I dirty you up all over again?”
Her joyous laugh vibrated inside my mouth.
So I did, holding off until I’d kissed and touched and tasted almost every part of her body and she was begging me to take her. I turned her around to kneel on the sunken seat that encircled the bath, and buried myself inside her from behind with a lustful groan.
I pulled Nelle upright, holding her tightly to me so her back was pressed to my front, and she wound a hand around my neck for support. I angled her head gently toward mine so I could steal wet, dirty kisses as I thrust, shifting the pace of my strokes between maddeningly slow and pistoning fast, driving up her moans and whimpers as my hips clapped against her pert ass and the water roiled and splashed and slapped the stone. My hand drifted downward to tease her exquisite breasts before slinking between her legs to strum my fingers over her clit, circling and pinching to tip her over the edge. This time as Nelle orgasmed, pulsing and clenching around my cock, bending my mind inward with the intense pleasure blazing from her to me,she silently cried a name. A name I couldn’t hear, but I could read it on her lips. And it wasn’t Crowther.
Afterward, with stupid grins and teasing touches, we washed each other with the strawberry soap she favored so much. She sat on my lap, resting against my chest with my arms banded around her middle, my fingers drawing patterns on her belly. Both of us were lazy and sated and wished to do nothing else but relax in each other’s company.
Nelle traced a languid trail over my arm, winding a fingertip over a line of Ukkenskrit. “Is my tale tattooed here?”
“No.” I brushed a lock of wet hair behind her ear. “None of us had the heart to do it.” Even Kenton hadn’t wanted to inscribe Nelle’s capture on his skin. Jett had maintained he would have if we hadn’t had to alter the tale to hide the fact we’d brought down a wyrm. However, I’d detected the faintest trace of unease from him.
“Oh?”
Her surprise tingled beneath my skin before it mellowed into satisfaction.
I felt Nelle’s body tense before she half-twisted around on my lap. Her gaze flitted to mine, away, and then back again. She gnawed on her plump bottom lip as if unsure how to say something.
“What is it?” I asked, frowning.
“Last night you were having a nightmare.” Sympathy shone across her features as she placed a hand on the wyrm branded over my chest. “You were calling out for your mom.”
Sorrow thickened in my throat, and I was about to nod when I suddenly realized what I was looking at. I had my very own monster hunter right here, perched on my lap. Hope burned bright through my veins, and my tongue tripped over the words as they rushed out. “Do you know of a Horned God called Florin?”
A notch formed between Nelle’s brows as she considered my question. The wrinkle smoothed away when she shook her head,no.
