Focus, or sleep in a wet bed tonight.
We were so close to finishing. Theo was working on the roof above the front door. Only a few more buckets to go.
Although the dark clouds on the horizon were getting closer, the brutal heat dried our building material quickly. Thank fuck. The hair rising on my arms gave me the feeling thisstorm would be a bad one. It’d been suspiciously long since our last rain. The air felt sticky, heavy, electric. The scenery was a little more green than usual, a foreboding yellow tint cast across the blue trees.
“Theo be careful!” I called up when I noticed his leg tangled in rope.
“Will do,” he called back, rotating his hips in a way that seemed to make the situationworse. The rope wrapped around his ankle.
Our shouting disturbed Nurghle from his nap on the front steps. With a big yawn, the little guy stretched out and moved to the base of the ladder to rub his cheek on the square edges. He couldn’t be more than ten pounds, but I didn’t want to risk him shifting the ladder. Especially when Theo was already being so careless.
“No, Nurghle, baby!” I said urgently, hurrying over to grab him.
“What’s wrong?” Theo asked, turning to investigate.
I wasn’t sure if it was the clang of metal or the “fuck fuck fuck” that warned me that something was wrong, but I looked up just in time to close my eyes before the lukewarm muck spilled over the top of my head. It covered my face, fell into my cleavage, and coated my arms in heavy globs. Even my hands were covered; wiping my eyes only made things worse.
“Viv! Oh shit.” There was more clanging and the sound of creaking wood as Theo climbed down the ladder.
I spat out what had fallen into my mouth. “So much for careful,” I muttered.
His thumbs pressed into my eyes as he tried to clear them for me. “You’re right. You’re right,” he repeated. “I’m so sorry.”
Finally able to peek an eyelid open, I smiled at his guilty expression. It was a rare sight to see Theo uncertain, and it was endearing. “I guess I should get this off of me quickly before it hardens, huh?”
“You get first dibs at showering,” he said sheepishly, pushing a clumpy strand of hair out of my face and looking up at the clouds on the horizon. “We may need to stop for the day. Do you mind if the entryway isn’t weatherproof tonight?”
“I can live with that.”
What mattered was the bed was going to be dry. I couldn’t wait to get into it.
With him.
We hadn’t slept close to each other since those nights at the inn, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t reminisce regularly on our shared body heat trapped underneath the blankets. In the alcove, it was a free-for-all when deciding where to sleep.Put a blanket wherever. But with a dedicated mattress…
Theo disappeared into the alcove while I stood on the other side of the rocky column to wash off—such was our showering ritual. Neither of us had made a move to drop the formalities since we returned from that Drifael trip. Wild, given the fact that he knew what my cum tasted like. I just didn’t have the confidence to initiate yet, although I was slowly working up the nerve. Problem was, I couldn’t figure out whyhehadn’t tried to start something, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me self-conscious.
I dropped my dress and bodice into the warm stream surrounding my feet, hoping to get them soaking before the clay could set. It hadn't rained in several days, and the waterfall showed it. The stream was barely strong enough to free flow overthe ledge. What should have been rinsing me clean was instead making thick muck soup all over my skin.
My heart rate picked up. The longer I washed, the more it started to feel like the mask of mud was growing heavier on my body. Trapping me.
“Theo?!” I squealed through my teeth apprehensively.
“Is everything alright?”
“I don’t think this is going to cut it! It’s not enough water!”
“What do you mean?”
“Like—” My throat caught as I tried to think of how to explain this. “—it’s absorbing the water instead of getting washed away.”
What was I supposed to do? Lay in the two-inch-deep creek at my feet and roll? If this stuff was waterproof enough to protect my house, it reallyshouldn’tharden in a thick layer on my skin. Theo’s arms were—surprisingly—hairless, but mine weren’t! How would I get it off? Would it be like a full-body wax? That sounded fucking painful. And, oh my god, the hair on my head! Was it starting to burn? Or was I imagining the stinging tingles pricking my skin?
“There’s a river nearby. Let’s get you in there quickly.”
Theo appeared around the corner of the stone column, his eyes immediately dropping down. My heart stopped. Despite him having eaten my pussy until I basically passed out in his arms, he had neverseenme naked. I crossed my arms around my waist self-consciously, waiting for him to lead the way. My panic doubled when my forearms started to stick to my stomach.
A dangerous shadow cast over his face, or maybe that was just how it looked when his eyes darkened and his naturalmarkings rose to the surface. Despite the anxiety I had about becoming a human brick, I suddenly felt very sensitive between my thighs. I was in a vulnerable position, and he looked hungry. It was primal. Just like the last time we…
