And that ache…
Finally, Alexus looks up at me. It’s another wide-eyed gaze as he takes me in—crown to foot—slowly. But then his gaze narrows into a dark and lingering look, tracing my curves like a touch. I see hunger and loneliness in him. I’ve seen loneliness in him before, and it breaks my heart every time. It’s as though there’s some darkness that haunts him, some great emptiness that can never be filled. But I have still often wanted to try.
“Come sit,” he says, and I obey. Alexus has a way about him. When he utters a command in that calm and steady voice, no one denies him.
Still, I’m self-conscious as I move in his direction, and even more so when he doesn’t lower his arm from the back of the settee as I sit beside him. I’m glad he doesn’t. It’s as though he’s answering my silent question about whether he wants me near.
Tonight, he does.
He hands me his liquor, like I might need the liquid courage more than him. I’m not sure that’s the case, especially when our fingertips touch and his powerful thigh—stretching the leather of his trousers—grazes the bare skin of my exposed leg. I take a healthy drink anyway, enjoying the burning slide down my throat, the way it pools warm in my belly.
Water sloshes in the tub behind us, alerting us that Colden is finished bathing. The air tightens. We’ve never been together like this. When we’ve shared a room and slept in the same bed, it’s with trousers and sweaters on. The first time, Alexus even took to the floor come midnight. Tonight, however, the atmosphere feels electric, or maybe I’m imagining everything, and my heart is the only one in the room that’s racing.
“Gods, I feel like a new man.” Colden pads over to the liquor cabinet that stands next to the hearth. He’s wearing nothing but a thin, damp bathing linen around his narrow waist.
I take another drink of Alexus’s liquor and swallow hard, trying not to stare at my king’s body—the way the lines of his back flex as he pours his glass, the way the bath linen stretches across the curves of his ass, the way the material bulges at the front, such a thin barrier between us and what appears to be a very gifted and well-endowed part of his anatomy.
A throb pounds through me, forcing me to squeeze my thighs together to dull the achy need there. It doesn’t work.
This is going to be the longest and most miserable night of my life. I’m already in agony.
How I wish it could be different.
“I want to bathe, too,” Alexus says out of nowhere.
I snap my head around. My heart all but stops, my hand tightening around the glass. Alexus is looking right at me, though his gaze drifts to my clenched thighs, which I quickly release.
Even Colden turns, stopping mid-pour, wearing a stunned expression. “You? Getting naked in a room with other people in it?” He chuckles. Darkly. “My, my. Please grace us with such an anomaly.”
I bite down on my lip and momentarily close my eyes. If we are all half-dressed or naked tonight, I will not survive. I already want them both so badly I can hardly stand the idea that I will wake up tomorrow just as I woke up today: without knowing the experience of being with them. But short of blurting out my desires—something I’m sure the barkeep would recommend—Colden and Alexus will never know the thoughts torturing my mind.
Alexus stands and moves toward the tub, giving Colden a cocky look as he passes. “I didn’t say you could watch.”
There’s a shift in his tone, his voice layered with something I’ve never heard from him. Something sensual. A little playful. It sends a chill dancing across my skin.
Colden smiles, revealing bright white teeth. “As if you could stop me.”
I expect Alexus to get in the tub. I expect ten levels of awkwardness as Colden sits beside me half-naked while we listen to Alexus strip and wash behind us—misery for us both, I’m sure.
But that isn’t what happens.
“Can you work your magick for me, Petra?” Alexus asks. “The water has cooled, and it’s filled with Colden’s grime.”
Colden’s smile grows wider.
“Absolutely,” I answer, stuttering and fumbling about as I look for somewhere to sit my glass. My legs are shaking. It’s as though I’ve forgotten how to function.
Colden crosses the ornate rug between us and reaches for the drink in my hand. The still-damp skin of his abdomen and blond trail of hair that disappears into his towel are right in front of my face, along with that bulge I noticed earlier.
“Flustered?” he asks with a wink, lowering his voice. “Wait until the bastard takes his shirt off.”
Every inch of me feels set on fire as I stand before Colden, noticing the tension in his jaw when I meet his stare. I’ve experienced this moment too many times not to recognize it for what it is. He’s struggling to keep from glancing down at my breasts.
I face Alexus, my nerve endings alight, my mind filling with images of the three of us naked and tangled.Magick, Petra.I focus on that throughout the next several minutes, trying to suffocate the other thoughts in my mind. It isn’t easy to make that much water vanish and reappear, but Alexus believes in practice, that much is for certain, so he’s never afraid to ask.
Soon, the copper tub is refilled. Alexus stands across from me on the other side of the vessel. Holding my gaze, he reaches over his head and tugs off his tunic.
I’ve seen glimpses of his scars, and the many runes carved into his skin, but he’s never told me of their purpose. I know a bit about runes, though, and I’m sure these are just more signs of his secrets, signs of his past. Signs he will never discuss with me.
