"The sounds you make when you come." His hand slid from her hip to the small of her back, pulling her closer. "The way you moan my name. The little snores you make when you sleep deeply."
Color shot into Mab's face. "I do not!"
"You do." His mouth curved, the closest thing to a smile she'd seen from him. "Soft ones. Like a kitten."
"I am not discussing this."
"You asked what I thought about." His hand found the laces at the front of her nightgown, fingers working them loose with practiced ease. "I also thought about these."
The silk parted. Cool air hit her skin, and then his hands were on her breasts, lifting their weight, thumbs brushing across nipples that hardened instantly under his touch.
"I told you this morning," he said, his voice dropping low. "I'm going to spend hours on these. Learn every way they move when you breathe. When you arch. When you're riding me and they're bouncing with every thrust."
Mab's knees weakened. She grabbed his forearms to steady herself, and he made a sound of approval deep in his chest.
"Not tonight." His thumbs circled her nipples, slow and deliberate. "Tonight I'm going to strip you bare and hold you while I sleep. But I want you to know what's coming. What I'm going to do to this body every chance I get."
He pushed the nightgown off her shoulders. It pooled at her feet, pale green silk against the dark stone floor, and she was naked again. Exposed. His eyes moved over her like hands, cataloguing every curve and shadow.
"You too," she said.
His hands stilled on her waist. "What?"
"If I'm naked, you should be naked." The words came out surer than she felt. "It's only fair."
His eyes narrowed. Not with displeasure. With something closer to curiosity, like she'd done something unexpected and he was recalculating.
"Fair," he repeated.
"Yes." She lifted her chin. "Fair."
For a long moment he didn't move. Then his hands left her waist and went to the laces of his tunic. He pulled it over his head in one motion, dropped it on the floor beside her nightgown. His boots came next, then his trousers, and then he was standing in front of her with nothing between them.
He was half-hard already, the ridged length of him darker than the rest of his skin, flushed with blood. As she watched, he thickened further under her gaze.
"See something you like?"
Her cheeks warmed, but she didn't look away.
"The basin," she said. "There's still warm water."
His head tilted. "What about it?"
"You've been working all day." She moved toward the basin stand before her courage could fail her. "Let me."
She dipped a cloth into the water, wrung it out. When she turned back, Varek hadn't moved. He stood in the center of the room watching her with an expression she couldn't read.
"Mab."
"You cleaned me this morning." She crossed to him, the cloth warm in her hands.
"That was different."
"How?"
He didn't answer. She took his silence as permission and pressed the cloth to his chest.
The first stroke made him inhale sharply. She dragged the cloth down the center of his sternum, over the hard planes of muscle, tracing the edge of the arrow scar. The water left his skin gleaming in the firelight.
