She swallowed hard, lost for words. The tent grew fraught with unspoken words, unspoken desires they both felt. His movements were jerky and angry as he once again rubbed his body down.
Nixie was entranced by the flex and sway of his body as he washed himself. The way his lean muscles stretched and pulled like tight bands of rope. Pulse hammering violently in her ears, she didn’t hear him when he asked her a question.
In fact, she had no idea he’d even done so until he turned around and frowned at her. “Did you hear me, pet?”
She wetted her lips, because catching sight of his chest was even more distracting than his back had been. Feeling like her lips had suddenly gone numb, she shook her head. “Wha-what?”
The confusion lifted in his gaze and with a Cheshire-like grin, he beckoned her to him. “I said”—he thrust out his wet rag—“that my back needs cleaning too.”
She should totally tell him no. To do it himself. She wasn’t his maid. But damn if she didn’t want to touch him.
Mind reeling with conflicting thoughts, her body had no such qualms. Three footsteps took her to his side. She snatched the rag out of his hand and hesitated only a fraction of a second before dipping it into the still-pristine and clear bowl of water.
“How is that water still so clean?” she asked, not out of any real sense of curiosity, more to just keep her mind focused on something other than the fact that she was so close to him she could smell the crisp scent of soap and pine and mint that she found oddly appealing.
He tilted his head forward so that his chin rested on his chest. “The bowl belonged to a water sprite.”
There were five freckles on his left shoulder, and a scattered trail of them on his right. Robin had the type of musculature that could usually only be achieved from staying super active on a daily basis. It wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger-buff, but it was lean and ripped and she cleared her throat, trying mightily to ignore the fact that wherever she touched him his skin prickled.
“So you stole it, then?” she said in a husky voice. “Good to know certain parts of your tale are still accurate.”
His deep, full-bodied laugh moved through her chest like a spear. Nixie was about to drop the rag and scoot back when he grabbed her wrist, squeezing it in a vise-like hold and cocking his head. “And where are you going?”
Her nostrils flared. But when she opened her mouth, no sound came out.
“No, now it’s time to bathe you.”
Chapter 12
She crossed her arms over her chest, but because he’d not released his hold, his hand was now lingering dangerously close to her left breast. All Robin would have to do would be to twitch his fingers and he’d feel her molded to his palm.
He swallowed hard at the maddening temptation.
“I vowed to be a gentleman,” he whispered, and he wasn’t sure if he was saying it to ease her wide, terrified stare, or to remind himself that underneath it all, there was still something of an honorable man inside him.
Slowly, when he made no move to touch her further, she began to relax. Dropping her arms and giving him a minute, shuddery breath.
Goddess, she grew more lovely every moment he was around her. “Turn around,” he ordered, “slip your gown off the front, I shall only bathe your back and nothing more.”
Her brows lowered and he could sense her internal battle. At least it was a comfort to know he wasn’t the only one grappling with his awareness of her.
Then, as if she’d suddenly decided something, she turned, and with quick, jerky movements shoved the sleeves off her arms and, freed, pushed her top down.
For a moment Robin felt dumb, unable to process a coherent thought as he hungrily devoured the graceful and smooth lines of her body. Her midnight hair spilled like ink down her tanned back.
There was dust from the road on her, but in truth, she’d not been as dirty as he. She’d not needed a bath; the fact was he’d wanted to see her again. To see if the memories of her naked form was as exquisite as he remembered it being, or if he’d merely been in such a heady state of lust that he’d imagined the swan-like slope of her shoulders and neck, her heart-shaped waist, her perky breasts.
Nixie had her back to him, but he could make out the hint of swells, knew the dusky tipped nipples were mere inches away, so close his mouth suddenly watered for a taste of their honeyed sweetness.
Her fingers curled around her hair, gathering it into a knot that she held pinned to the base of her skull. “Well, Robin?”
It was a challenge and well he knew it. Unable to suppress his grin, he dipped the rag back into the water and expelled a hot rush of breath as the skin he desperately wanted to lick and fondle glistened beneath his ministrations.
Glowing like sun-warmed honey.