“Hold your breath.”
“I’m so glad you find this amusing!” she said tartly.
He chuckled. “The pool is only a few feet deep. You won’t be submerged unless you fall down. If you fall, get up.”
Smart ass, Dalia thought irritably as she sat down and tugged the boots off. When she stood once more, she looked down at the tunic she was wearing--another of those Reuel had supplied for her to wear. With her wrists manacled, she couldn’t take it off. Since he hadn’t offered to unlock the manacles, she assumed she was expected to bathe in it. Mentally shrugging, she turned to study the water again. The bank sloped down to the water’s surface, but not steeply. She thought she could manage to walk down it without slipping.
Reuel caught hold of the tunic as she took a step toward it. “You need to take this off.”
She turned and gave him a look. “My wrists are manacled together. Just how do you propose I do that?”
He frowned and patted the pockets of his trousers. His lips twisted wryly and she knew he hadn’t brought the key.
It seemed unlikely that he’d ‘forgotten’. Cyborgs didn’t have ‘memory lapses’. They might fail to observe. They might be deactivated, making it impossible to record. They might even suffer outside interference of their recording abilities, but they didn’t ‘forget’.
On the other hand, he’d brought the bundle when he’d brought her meal. Bringing her down to bathe certainly wasn’t an impulse.
Whatever it was he’d been doing since they’d arrived had undoubtedly so completely absorbed his attention that he’d overlooked that one important detail.
She was still wondering what could possibly have required so much of his active mental resources when he grasped the shoulders of the tunic and separated the seams. The tunic fell to her feet. She stared down at it with a combination of surprise and dawning outrage. “Your disregard for husbanding your resources borders on criminal!” she snapped angrily.
“It’s my tunic,” he pointed out. “And I’m already a criminal. What will they do? Jail me first for ten years, and then execute me?”
“But I was wearing it!”
“I broke the seams. It’s repairable.”
That seemed inarguable, but she was still irritated. Without another word, she turned and made her way to the pool. She hesitated at the edge and finally stepped in. To her surprise, the water was warm, almost hot in fact. After a fractional hesitation, she placed her other foot into the water and moved away from the edge until the water was lapping her knees.
Despite his reassurances, she didn’t want to test whether or not it got any deeper. Bending at the waist, she wet the cloth. Something drew her attention as she did so, and as she straightened once more, she glanced around at Reuel.
He was standing where she’d left him, staring at her, or rather her ass, as if every brain function had shut down. Apparently her stillness filtered through, for after several moments, he blinked. When he did, she turned around once more, frowning thoughtfully as she lathered the cloth in her hand.
After a moment, a faint smile curled her lips as the realization settled in upon her that, regardless of what he thought of her or felt toward her, he still desired her.
She didn’t consciously set out to seduce him. She didn’t even actually consider teasing him. To begin with, it was more a matter of curiosity than anything else that spurred her to experiment to see what she might do that would have a similar effect on him.
Dropping the soap, she bent at the waist once more and lathered her thighs with slow deliberation. When she twisted around to rub the cloth over her buttocks, she saw that he had that glassy-eyed look of complete absorption again, watching as she rubbed the cloth slowly over first one buttock and then the other and finally slipped the cloth along the cleft between the two.
He blinked when she did that, swallowing as if it took an effort to gather enough moisture into his mouth to complete the action. Warmth spread through her as she watched his face and she lost track of why she’d begun the tease him in the first place.
Straightening once more, she turned to face him as she rubbed the cloth over her breasts, down her belly and between her legs. He studied her hand for several moments before his gaze lifted to meet hers.
For several moments, neither of them so much as breathed. Abruptly, he strode toward her.
Chapter Eleven
Dalia felt her heart execute an erratic little stammer and then begin to race, as if struggling to regain its rhythm. Adrenaline gushed into her system, bringing a flush of hypersensitivity to her skin as Reuel reached her. Without hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against him, lifting her up to meet him as he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his own.
A deep sense of gratification filled her as he flooded her senses with himself. She had wanted him, but she hadn’t realized how deeply she had hungered for his caresses until she felt it gnawing at her vitals, felt her body clamor with instant need as her mind and body absorbed his scent and taste as if his essence were as essential to her as air and water.
A jolt went through him as he felt the chain of the manacle glide up his chest as she reached upward to grip his shoulders. Breaking the kiss, he straightened, lifting her off her feet and guiding her legs around his waist. She locked her ankles behind his back and lifted her arms, looping them around his shoulders and spearing her fingers through his dark hair as she lifted her lips to his once more.
He seized upon her offering like a starving man, his mouth hungry and demanding and supplicating all at once as he delved his tongue into her mouth and rubbed it sensuously, possessively along the tender inner flesh of her mouth, sending a flood of heat through her. Sharp needles of sensation wove through her, absorbed into her flesh at every point she brushed against him despite the teasing barrier his clothing presented.
Frustrated, she grasped the fabric of his tunic and gathered it into her fists, tugging it upward. He helped her, shrugging his arms from it, breaking the kiss long enough to pull it over his head and toss it in the direction of the bank before he hoisted her higher and kissed her throat and the upper slope of her breasts.
Moisture flooded her sex in a wash of anticipation as she felt him fumbling at his trousers. But the moment his mouth moved downward and covered the aching tip of one breast, her entire world focused on that one point of intensely delightful sensation. She gasped. Her arms tightened around his head, clutching him to her.
