I wash with lavender soaps I found in an amber glass jar, even running some of the lather into my hair and rinsing. I take a deep inhale, then duck beneath the water, relishing the heat soaking into my bones. I linger there, holding my breath.
When I break the surface and wipe the water from my face, I blink my eyes open, only to find Colden and Alexus standing frozen just inside the room.
Their eyes are wide,taken completely off guard.
“Fuck,” is all Alexus says, the word hanging on the edge of an exhaled breath, low and deep.
“My sentiments exactly.” Colden sets his pack on the floor. “Pardon our disobedient eyes.” He turns and shuts the door behind him, sliding the lock while Alexus, face reddening, clears his throat and slowly gives me his back.
It takes a matter of seconds before it dawns on me that the water isn’t covering my breasts.
“Oh, gods. So sorry.” I reach for the bath linen and stand, water coursing off my body as I quickly fold the towel around myself and step from the tub. I lean over the still-steaming water and squeeze out my hair. “I didn’t think you two would come up so soon.”
Colden steals a peek over his shoulder before facing me while Alexus crosses to the dressing table and leans his pack against it, sighing just loudly enough that it reaches my ears like a whisper.
“The barkeep said you decided to forego a bath,” Colden informs me. “We knocked. When you didn’t answer, we thought you might be sleeping.”
“I didn’t hear.”
That mischievous smile of his unfurls across his lovely face, and one blondish-brown eyebrow arches over a dark eye. “Obviously.”
I glance at Alexus’s wide back as he sheds his cloak and traveling coat. He’s so quiet. I know that seeing me bare-breasted was awkward. We’ve been careful and lucky on this trip—there’ve been no other moments like this. Which might be the problem, because a strange tension floats in the air now, radiating from Alexus Thibault like heat. It makes something in the pit of my stomach tighten.
He opens the top drawer of the dressing table and withdraws a black garment. He turns and, after assessing me from crown to foot, walks toward me, handing me the bundled fabric. “The barkeep said to tell you about this. A clean gown.”
Clutching the bath linen against my chest with one hand, I hold his gaze and accept the gown. “I’m sorry,” I say again, quietly. “I didn’t mean to?—”
Alexus folds his big hand around my arm and kisses my forehead. “Do not apologize. I’m the one who should be sorry.” His thumb strokes my skin, still hot and wet from the bath, as the corners of his mouth lift a little, not enough to call it a smile, though the effort is there. “I suppose that ale was stouter than I believed, because when I saw you, I lost my manners.”
I stare up into his green eyes, feeling his warmth so close, his grip gentle on my arm. My nipples harden, and a tender ache builds between my legs. All I can think about is what it would be like to finally kiss him the way I’ve imagined the last few years. To lay him back on the bed, crawl over him, and ride him while Colden covers our bodies in kisses.
“I think I might take a quick dip in your bath, princess,” Colden says, interrupting the moment with his typical, perfect timing.
The heat and magnetism between me and Alexus snaps as we abruptly pull apart, and I try to breathe. Standing by the fireplace, Colden has already stripped free of his cloak, coat, and sweaters. All that’s left is his tunic and leather trousers. When he tugs his shirt over his head with one hand, revealing a torso that’s just as leanly muscled as I have always imagined, that ache between my legs throbs.
It’s just skin, Petra.
Yes. Naked, beautiful, Colden skin. Skin I’ve longed to touch too many times.
Alexus looks at him too. Their eyes meet for a long moment, the way they so often do. Colden once told me that he and Alexus aren’t lovers in the sense I used to believe, that they’ve only ever shared certain common intimacies, whatever that means. He also told me that Alexus’s heart is a mysterious landscape locked behind a wall he keeps erected at all costs. Surely someone must have the key. A part of me has long wished that someone could be me, but somehow I already know that it can’t.
Tightening my fist in the gown, I shake my head to clear it. “Enjoy,” I say to Colden, trying to ignore the curves of his muscled chest or the deep lines carving his abdomen. “I’m going to dress for bed.” I nod toward the dressing screen, a wooden trifold affair with a white, almost gossamer-like material stretched so thinly over the frame I’m certain Colden and Alexus will still be able to see me when I change. I can’t decide if they might want to see me or not. Insight is my gift. Intuition flows thick in my blood. And yet tonight I can’t determine what anyone is really thinking except for me.
Alexus steps aside, and I cross to the dressing screen. Behind the thin barrier, I slip into the silken gown which is far prettier and daintier than it should be for a piece of clothing found in the owner’s chambers of a northern tavern. It fits perfectly—if I were trying to seduce the men sharing the room with me.
There are no sleeves. Only straps. And though the garment comes to my ankles, two slits travel up the sides of my thighs, clean to my hips. The top fits over my ample breasts comfortably, like many of the clothes tailored for me at Winterhold, while the rest is snug in all the right places. It’s as though the gown was made by…
Oh, my gods.Magick.
The barkeep.
Partly annoyed at the woman, yet also thankful for a clean gown, I take a deep breath and blow it out before stepping from behind the screen. I remind myself that these men have seen plenty of women in far less clothing than what I’m wearing.
As though they’re both attempting to keep certain tensions down, neither of them looks at me. Colden is leaned back in the tub, hair wet and slicked back. Beads of water glisten on his skin under the firelight. He’s silent, and Colden is never silent, especially in moments ripe for his innuendo-laced remarks. I know he sees me in his periphery, but he keeps his gaze trained on the curved edge of the copper tub.
Alexus sits on the settee in front of the hearth, tunic untied and open, revealing a sliver of scarred and muscled chest. His knees are spread wide, and he has one arm laid across the back of the settee. He cradles a glass of dark liquor in his other hand, the glass at rest on his thigh as he stares into the low flames warming the room.
Quietly, I check the changing table for a robe. Nothing, of course. To end this misery, I could crawl into bed, bury myself beneath the covers, and try to sleep. That would be better than enduring this awkward silence. I’m anything but tired, though. My skin is warm. Flushed even.
