I groaned. “It’s not you. Olivia has problems with authority figures. You being a Lock Lord might not go down that well.” Olivia had once been a street kid at the magistrate’s mercy. I would never force her to meet Justin without prior warning.
“Understood. I’ll let you ease her into it.” He splashed a bit of water across my chest. “This is nice. I could do this every day.”
“I couldn’t. The water bill would be untenable.”
Justin laughed. “I’ll front your water bill if you bathe with me.”
“I’m not running a public bathhouse.” I splashed him back.
“You could. I’d pay good money to use this, especially if it came with my own private bath boy.”
I laughed.
“Soap.” Justin held his hand out for the bar I was holding.
I passed it over.
“Thank you. Do you have a cloth?”
“I can’t believe I forgot.” I reached over to the small cabinet beside the tub. Inside were a pile of clean cloths to wash with. I snagged a faded-blue one and handed it over. “I think the job of bath boy is going to be yours.”
“I accept. The benefits are amazing.”
I relaxed against Justin, soaking in both his attention and the heat. “We’ll find your son.”
He tensed behind me and slid the cloth randomly across my chest. “We will. I only hope it’s not too late.”
“Maybe someone will ask for ransom soon.”
“We’ll have to hope they don’t think I was trying to get rid of him. The magistrate thought that immediately. No one is going to ask for money if they think he’s unwanted.” The pain in Justin’s voice tore through me. Despite what he had said before, Justin must have bonded with the baby after he held him.
I squeezed Justin’s wandering fingers. “Don’t panic yet. We can put an advert in the paper asking for his return. Then they’ll know he’s wanted.”
“If it’s not too late. It doesn’t take much to snuff out a baby’s life. They are fragile beings and can’t fight back.”
I didn’t like this new jaded duke. Justin had always been the more optimistic between us. “You must not think that way. If there is a group of people who are hiding because of their mechanical forms, maybe they stole him to rescue him?” It was a wild idea, but I didn’t want Justin to lose hope. “Either way, we will find out where he has gone.”
There was nothing else we could do tonight. I twisted my neck to kiss Justin, seeking to distract him from his worries. Justin eagerly returned my kisses. After several minutes, my neck began to ache, and Justin’s hard length pressed against my spine.
“You drive me to madness,” Justin growled in my ear. He wrapped one hand around my erection, the other cupped my balls. “You make me ache for you. No one else has ever affected me like you do.”
“Good.” Despite my previous anger at him. Justin held my foolish heart in his hands.
The slow slide of Justin’s fist up and down my shaft had me arching against the hard erection poking me in the back. “You are so beautiful.” He nipped my shoulder.
My toes curled from the sensation. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to pollute the water.”
Justin’s warm laughter puffed across my shoulder. “Fair enough.”
We quickly left the bath. I grabbed two towels, then handed one over. I didn’t dry as thoroughly as usual, need and want had ripped away my patience. I raced to my bedroom with Justin’s footsteps thundering after.
I had barely passed the doorframe when Justin grabbed me around the waist and tossed me onto the bed. Good thing I had cleared it of books the night before.
I had little time to worry about my bedtime reading habits before Justin joined me. His kiss, hard and demanding, curled my toes. “You should always be in my bed.” His voice dipped into a sexy husk.
