She accepted, enjoying the feel of his muscles beneath her palm and reminding herself to stay on high alert. There was something a littletoocharming about Isahn Yaranbur from Selwas.
seven
George makes a friend.
“So,thisisoneof the famous Domossan Baths,” Isahn rumbled as George closed the door behind them. Throwing his arms out wide, he breathed deeply. “Divine.”
Itwasa lovely spacewith patterned mosaics in cream with specks of color that spread across the floor and disappeared over the edge of the steaming pool. Large windows filled the walls and ceiling. Fitted with colored glass in shades of yellow, orange, turquoise, and blue, they basked the room in a happy array of light. Itwas“divine” even without looking at it through the eyes of an outsider.
“This is thecaldarium,the heated bath,” George offered before gesturing to a door on the left wall. “Through there is thefrigidarium, the opposite.”
“Why would anyone take a cold bath when there’s a hot one right here? Also, can we get in?”
She found him bouncing, ever so slightly, on the balls of his feet. It was adorable, and George quickly pushed down the weightless thing trying to flutter in her chest. “The contrast is refreshing. And yes, you can get in. You’ll findsubligar,the bathing cloths, behind that screen.” She pointed to a fabric-covered, freestanding wall at the back of the room.
“Clothsor clothes?” His brows shot up.
“Cloths. They’re... not quite clothes, but we won’t be naked. See you in a moment.” With that, she darted behind the screen for women and selected her outfit from the baskets.
Wearing a simple bottom in a thin but dark fabric and a mismatched—and too small—white triangle top, she reemerged.
Isahn stood a few feet from the pool in a bathing cloth of his own. The linen, apron-like flaps tied around his waist did absolutely nothing to hide the sculpted ridges and divots of his muscular thighs. A thin, fuzzy layer of light hair curled over his legs, softening their statuesque appearance. She shook her head to clear her thoughts.
“Is this right?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, sounding breathier than she liked.
Lord Yaranbur chuckled. “Like what you see?”
“Just get in the water.”
“As you wish.” With that, he took two long strides toward the pool and leapt in, knees tucked up to his chest.
A tidal wave of heated water drenched her. “Deiwa hathemi!” She tugged a sodden curl from her mouth. “I wasn’t going to get my hair wet!”
“Sorrrry,” he dragged out the word, looking unrepentant. “I’ll dry it for you when we’re done.”
“Sure you will.” George rolled her eyes before walking to the side of the pool and sliding in—as oneshould.Since her hair was already wet, she decided to go for it and dove to the bottom,kicking down until her fingertips touched the tiled floor. Sitting, George slowly released the air from her lungs.
She stared up at the ceiling, watching light dance over the rippling surface and the earl’s blurry, lazily kicking feet. His legs came apart for a moment, and she could seestraightup his cloth—but the view warbled. She pushed herself to exhale the last breath from her lungs and welcomed the strange burn that came along with it. Her black curls drifted around her, morphing and wiggling like slithering snakes, lengthened by the pull of water.
A cold current blasted her, wrapping around her waist and yanking her upward. She tried to scream, but only a tiny bubble escaped her lungs.
Gasping when her head broke the surface, she caught her breath, then shrieked, “What the fates was that?”
“I thought you drowned yourself.” He shrugged. “Didn’t like it.”
George rolled her eyes as she kicked her way backward.
Isahn said something she couldn’t hear, the rumble traveling to her through air and liquid.
“What?” Her voice sounded strange and distant through the water.
He replied with a shouted, “Nothing.”
Reaching the pool’s benches, lurking below the surface on all four sides, George braced her head on the outer tiles and floated. With her eyes closed, she basked in the humid warmth, the weightlessness, the rapidly fading pain in her lower back—always present, on account of her too-large chest.
The door to the bath house swung open, and she tilted back to see who was joining them.
