“Well then, do it.”
Before I could mind my manners, Arwyn swept me up in his arms, stood up and then waded in a direction away from where the trial had discarded me. All the while, he didn’t look where he was going.
He only focused on me.
32
ARWYN
Hector floated on his back in the middle of the lake, eyes closed and lips wide in the most beautiful smile I’d ever witnessed.
Whereas he was unbothered by the world, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. A halo of grime and ash haloed him, disturbed with the soft movements of his arms. His slender figure was kissed by the fresh water, a puddle growing in his belly button.
I stood on the bank, bare feet sinking into the soft mud. Water lapped over my toes, not cold but not too warm either. It was just… perfect. A strange word to use whilst stuck in a limbo run by a demon lord.
I’d been in the same position for a while, just watching, studying Hector with every ounce of my attention whilst my mind whirled with the things I knew I had to admit.
Just not yet.
I didn’t want to ruin the air of peace that encased the lake, and everything in it.
A cool breeze danced over my naked body. I’d left the fitted black boxers, which seemed extra snug as I looked over atHector; his golden curls dancing around his head, his perfect skin, the body I knew so well, the body Icraved.
I gave up trying not to get hard over him. It was, if anything, an impossible feat.
“Are you going to join me, or continue standing there watching like the grim reaper?” Hector’s voice skipped over the lake’s surface like a stone.
“I’m just enjoying the view,” I replied. “Is that such a crime?”
Hector’s smile grew wider, his eyes fluttering open to face the endless blue sky. “Perhaps you’d prefer the view with only inches between you and it… Arwyn. Come to me.”
His last three words were my siren call. Unable to refuse him, not that I even wanted to, I took cautious steps into the shallows. It was hard not to giggle as the fine weeds tickled my ankles, then my shins all the way up to my thighs.
“How are you feeling?”
Hector cut me off with a sudden splash of water. “No. No questions. No worrying. Nothing but us, the water and silence. Okay?”
I swallowed down hard. “I can’t promise you silence, but I can meet you in the middle.”
“Meet me in the middle?” Hector drank me in, eyes wide and full of a mutual desire. “Do explain.”
“There are some things I want to tell you,” I said. “Especially before we go back to the base. I… I want us to be on the same page with everything. And for that, we need to talk about The Burning. Believe me, I want nothing more than to just exist here with you, and pretend like nothing is wrong, but I can’t.”
Hector studied me, eyes tracing up every inch—and I meaneveryinch—of my body.
“Such as?”
The rune-mark I cast on you. Eleanor Letcombe. My father’s secrets.“That’s a loaded question.”
Hector frowned, pouting with his lower lip. His expression alone had the power to set a fire in my groin. “Then I have rules. Only once I kiss you, we can speak. Until then, can we just… pretend like nothing is wrong. Okay?”
We were so close now. My hands reached out beneath the water, my long fingers entrapping his small waist in a vise-like grip. “What’s stopping me from kissing you right now, and getting to the nitty-gritty?” I asked.
Hector kicked his legs out, water forcing between us. He tried everything in his power to swim away from me, but I refused to let go. His laugh was the music to my soul. It loosened up my internal worries and started to brush them away.
This—us—was so easy.
I laughed alongside him, hungry hands grasping blindly for other parts of his body to hold on to. At one point Hector dove beneath the water, squirmed free of my hold, swam beneath my parted legs and came bursting back up behind me. I didn’t have the chance to spin around before his arms were around my shoulders, his legs clamping on either side of my hips.
