Perched on his thigh with my right side facing him, I could feel the muscles of his leg shifting to keep us balanced on the edge of the pool. I wanted to straddle that thigh and rock against it until pleasure blotted out everything else.
I searched desperately for a distraction. Sitting like this, I could see his face and the careful concentration furrowing his brow. Tiny water droplets clung to his eyelashes, sparkling in the low light. The man was incredibly handsome. My eyes traced the line of his nose, the arch of his cheekbones, the lush slash of his lips.
And I knew exactly how good those lips felt against mine.
He glanced up, and I sucked in a breath at the sight of his eyes. Molten color—silver and teal and copper—blazed across his dark gray irises.
He froze, his hands hovering, not quite touching. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Your eyes . . . are you okay?”
A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth. “You’re in my arms, practically naked, and I get to put my hands on you. Did you expect me to be unaffected?” His expression turned serious. “But it doesn’t matter. You are safe with me.”
I swallowed. “I believe you. Do you want to stop?”
“Nidru chich,” he murmured. “But I will if you are uncomfortable.”
I didn’t know much Valovan, but every good soldier knew nidru was the word for “fuck” because we were all twelve at heart and learning foreign curse words had passed the time. If I had to guess, I’d roughly translate it as fuck no.
I smiled at his vehemence. I didn’t want him to stop, but I was uncomfortable, just not for the reason he thought. I shifted, trying to ease the ache that burned low in my belly. I buried my head against his shoulder and told him the truth. “I wish we weren’t bound by a life debt.”
“Why?”
“Because I would really like to take you to bed.”
He turned to stone under me before groaning, low and deep. “Shall I renounce the debt and redeclare it in the morning?”
I chuckled against his shoulder and shook my head. “How do you know that I wouldn’t just let you bleed to death if you tried?”
“You wouldn’t,” he whispered. “Even if you hate the debt, you would still stop the bleeding.”
He was right, of course. I wouldn’t let him hurt for longer than necessary, no matter how much I disliked the life debt. Just the thought of the blood pouring from his wrist was enough to turn my stomach.
“I don’t want you to be hurt again,” I said. “If you insist on remaining in my debt, then you must remain in my debt.”
He brushed his lips against my temple. “My debt is not yet paid, so I will remain. Will you wait?”
I lifted my head. “You want me to wait for you to fulfill your debt? Then what?”
His eyes gleamed with wicked heat. “Then I will take you to bed and pleasure you so thoroughly that you will forget the rest of the world exists—until you writhe and beg, and only then will I give you the relief you crave.”
It should’ve sounded like the worst kind of braggadocio, but instead, it sounded like a promise, and I couldn’t help the tiny moan that slipped past my lips as desire overwhelmed me.
He swallowed and his hands tightened against my skin, then with extreme self-control, he smoothed the burning hunger from his expression. “But for now, I will continue to work the knots out of your arms.” He paused and met my eyes. “With your permission.”
I shifted again at the thought of him touching me after all of that, knowing that he wanted me as much as I wanted him. “Won’t that be torture?”
“I’ll still be touching you. That’s not torture.”
“Maybe not for you,” I grumbled. “I’m dying over here.”
The silver swallowed his irises, and he went absolutely still. The groan sounded like it was torn from the bottom of his soul. “Now it’s torture,” he murmured. “If you won’t let me help you, then you should help yourself.”
Was he saying what I thought he was saying? My face flamed red. “Help myself how, exactly?”
His eyebrows rose and his expression was pure sin.
Did I think my face was red before? It had nothing on the inferno in my cheeks now. “Here?” I squeaked. “Now?”
“Yes. I won’t touch you,” he vowed, his voice a deep, dark rumble.
I wrinkled my nose and waved an arm through the heated water around us. “In the pool?”
His grin was quick and fierce. “Is that your only objection?”
“What? I don’t know. Maybe.” Clearly, the thought of touching myself with him nearby had scrambled my brains.
I faintly heard a shower turn on, then Torran lifted me out of the water. The cool air caused goose bumps to rise across my skin and my nipples tightened into hard peaks. At least my sports bra was padded, so it wasn’t completely obvious.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, surprised anew at the ease with which he carried me. “Where are we going?”
“Not the pool,” he said, heat in his eyes.
Oh. Oh.
Before I could become too chilled, we reached the locker room, where one of the showers was already sending steam into the air. The lights were low, soft, preserving the intimacy of the moment.
Torran eased into the steamy water, then let go of my legs. I slid down his body until my toes touched the ground. I could feel him, hot and hard as steel against my belly. A peek revealed he had on tight black swim shorts that left very little to the imagination—and I had a fantastic imagination.
I reached for him, then aborted the motion halfway. Not while he was bound. I curled my fingers into a fist. “I should return to my room,” I whispered.
“Will you think of me?” he demanded. I wordlessly nodded. “Then think of me here. And I will finish your massage afterward.”
I shivered from head to toe, then ran my eyes down his body. “What about you? That seems unfair.”
A wild smile, hotter than a burning star, bloomed on his mouth. “I didn’t promise not to touch myself. And I get to watch you come apart. Seems fair to me.”
My breath caught, but while the large, tiled shower had a frosted glass door for privacy, the walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling. Anyone who entered the locker room would hear us. I glanced around uneasily. “What if someone comes in?”
“The outer door has been locked since you arrived. You’re safe.” He gently herded me toward the side wall, so the water sprayed our bodies and not our faces. He turned me around and put my hands on the wall, then carefully caged me in with his body, not touching, but so close that I could feel the heat of his skin.
“Okay?” he asked.
His voice danced down my spine, and I nodded. I couldn’t see him, except for his arms, and I felt protected and sheltered. It didn’t hurt that the rumble in his voice arrowed directly from my ears to lower.
Much lower.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he murmured, his voice husky. “So strong and fierce and caring. I wanted you from the moment I saw you, when your eyes spit fire and you refused to back down. I want to kiss you again. I want to kiss you everywhere, until you’re all I taste, and then I want to watch you come apart on my tongue.”