I hear the water before moonlight coming in through a hole in the rock above illuminates a natural hot spring. My eyes have adjusted to the dimness.
“This. Is. Divine.” I drop my pack as I walk and start tugging at the hem of my shirt. Halting mid-stride, I glance at Tovian. “Um. You mind?”
“A stripshow? Not in the least.” He winks, but turned away.
I watch his back fade into the gloom with growing disappointment.
Do I want to have sex with a complete stranger? Yes, I do. Once I get to Oceanside, there is a strongchance I won’t survive. Not one of the guards I set out with did, after all.
Mine is not exactly a great impulse, but I’m not keen to go to my death without at least exploring the chemistry crackling between us. Danger banging is a thing, or could be, if I’m reading the situation right.
A little physical release before I go and get myself killed seems in order—after I’ve bathed. Hours of adrenaline and exertion haven’t exactly improved my personal hygiene situation. I quickly strip down to nothing and unpin my hair. It falls in a long curtain down my back. Naked, I plunge into the warm, fizzing, impossibly blue water. My groan echoed from the stone walls.
“Feels nice, Ari?”
Tovian’s voice is as sexy as the rest of him.
“Wonderful.”Come on inis on the tip of my tongue. Tovian beats me to the punch.
“You won’t mind if I join you?”
I hesitate, torn between the inappropriateness of enjoying myself when the world is on fire, and the need to feel good for a few minutes. Part of me doesn’t feel like I deserve to feel good. Not until I’ve fixed…what? Everything that’s gone wrong?
That could take years.
It’s still enough to hold me back.
“I have soap, Arianelle,” he adds when I don’t immediately respond.
I’d fuck him for the soap alone, but the way he says my full middle name—which is a mouthful of syllables that roll off his tongue—makes my abdomen clench hard. I could feel the slipperiness between my legs, even with my body surrounded by warm water from the neck down.
“By all means, hop in.”
Maybe, if I ask nicely, he’ll do me the honor of soaping me up.
He’s not your maid, Raina,I scold myself. The scent of smoke tickles my nostrils. Jerking my head around, I find Tovian crouched beside a small flame.
The light from the fire illuminates a sheltered part of the cavern. Three cots—bent wooden frames, low to the ground, sit in a semicircle. Tovian has emptied his pack onto one, and placed mine on another, leaving one empty in between.
Hm.
Tovian clamps a lid over a small metal pot, and suspended it over the fire on a wire frame. There’s no way he carried that contraption with him. This must be a regular Ansi stopover.
Maybe the Ansi really do exist.
He doesn’t need to do much to get naked. Nor does he appear to have any shame about his body. The leather bands protecting his biceps come off, dropped onto the cot. Then the fur shin guards. He kicks off the supple leather shoes and stands to discard his shorts. I avert my eyes before they fall below his hips. I’m not going to be a perv.
Water splashes my face when he jumps into the pool. Bubbles frothed in his short springy hair when he comes up for air.
“Come here often?” I ask, deliberately misusing a terrible pickup line from the outside world. Tovian grins as if he gets my joke. My stomach flutters.
“On occasion. It’s one of many hiding spots the Ansi have in this area. When we don’t wish to be seen, we disappear.”
He swims closer to me. On reaching the edge of the pool, he stretches his arms out and tips his chin up, staring out the overhead opening at the deep sky and bright stars. A thin plume of smoke trails up and out.
“Do you ever wonder what’s out there?” he asks, softly.
If I tell him I’ve been beyond these thick rock walls, into the world beyond, he’ll know I’m no ordinary Auralian. Only a handful of people have ever visited the outside world.
