Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
“ W hen you said bath, I thought you meant in a bathroom.” Nate eyed all the tiled surfaces and the steam rising out of what was more like a small swimming pool. It reminded him of the Roman baths he’d seen as a kid.
He rubbed his wrist. The skin was raw in places from the rope, and he carefully stretched his arms.
“This is the bathing room.” Rohan pulled his tunic off and dropped it into a basket. “That is for dirty clothes. You may put your shoes beneath the bench.” He stood there, not caring that he was naked with everything on display.
“So we bathe together?”
“Yes. Do you not? Who washes your hair?”
“Me. I wash alone. Except…” He couldn’t find the word. “After exercising, there are communal showers, but no one is looking or helping.” Most of the time, anyway, but he wasn’t about to discuss hookups.
“Undress, and I will show you how to bathe the Tarikian way.” His dark eyes glinted as if there might be more than bathing.
He’d have welcomed a rule upload along with the language upload.
He pulled off the tunic and put it in the basket, then sat to undo his boots and pull off the socks he’d been given.
Rohan waited. He cracked his neck and then his back. His muscles flexed with each move. He was all power and yet so gentle.
Yet there was a part of Nate that questioned the attraction. The power imbalance. The difference in their…species?
He unlaced his pants and pulled them down, aware that Rohan watched his every move with more than casual interest. He was not that buff, and he’d lost weight over the five. No, six days that he’d been there.
Aside from being an oddity who didn’t belong, Nate wasn’t sure why Rohan was so intrigued. Did it matter why?
Why was he questioning everything so much?
This morning, it had been much easier to pretend he was in a coma or something and that this wasn’t real. But it was, and this was his life for the next year and half a day. And it was better to be a minotaur’s pet than to labor for vampires or humans.
This way, he could teach and learn.
Rohan’s gaze drifted up to Nate’s face. That smile danced over his lips again, and he wasn’t hiding the heat in his eyes.
Nate tossed the pants in the washing basket. “Do you like what you see?”
“I do,” Rohan said with a small nod before turning and walking away. “Follow.”
Nate obeyed.
A man with pointed ears and long brown hair, wearing a simple robe, was in the main room. He inclined his head at Rohan. “I have gathered your favorites. Your new friend will need to make a selection.”
“He is used to bathing on his own, so will have the full experience.”
“Wait…what is the full experience?” What was he getting signed up for?
The elf smiled and appraised him, no doubt taking in the marks on his wrist and the bruises on his arms and legs from the rockfall. “Hair, nails, shave, wash, rinse, massage.”
Nate touched his jaw. It would be nice to shave, and his fingernails were a mess. He nodded but gave Rohan a look for using that tone when saying the full experience.
Rohan smiled, then walked over to the bath and down the steps. The water just covered his junk. Then he sat with a groan.
The elf picked up a rolled towel and placed it behind Rohan’s head.
Rohan tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “Make your selection, Nate, then join me in the bath.”
“What am I choosing?”
But the elf was already walking toward a set of shelves. Each glass pot was neatly labeled in the script Nate couldn’t read.
“I don’t read Tarikian.” He hated admitting that. If he was stuck here for a year, he needed to learn to read.
The elf gave him another look. This time, loaded with more concern. “Where did he find you?”
“In a tavern.”
The elf picked a jar off the shelf. “Were you raised by the rats in the rubbish?”
He was about to argue, but it wasn’t said with malice, and there was something about it that suggested it was a common phrase.
“This one? Or…” He reached for another jar and took off the lid. “This one?”
Nate sniffed both. The first one was more floral, the other woodier. “The second.”
“I will gather the rest based on that. You can try other scents another time, but sniffing all of them now will only muddy your nose.” The elf motioned him away.
With nothing else to do, Nate crossed the floor to the bath. Steam rose off the water, and he stepped in cautiously. The water was hot, but not unpleasantly so. Like everything else in the palace, from the chairs to the bed, it was minotaur-sized. If he sat on the bottom, he’d drown, so he sat on the step.
“There is a ledge opposite me for sitting.” Rohan didn’t open his eyes.
Nate moved around. The cut on his leg stung, as did his wrists. “How is the water heated?”
“Magic.”
“How often is the water changed?” Or was he sitting in unchlorinated people soup?
Rohan lifted his head, eyes open. “It is cleaned after every use…do your people wash in dirty water?”
“No…I was just trying to understand how it works. At home, I shower. Um…A spout that makes rain. You stand under it. And the water isn’t heated by magic.”
“And you are alone. It sounds terrible.”
The elf placed a towel behind Nate’s head, and he let his head fall back. “Not everyone could afford all of this.”
“Everyone has family or friends. No, no.” Rohan waved the elf away. “Start with Nate. He needs the most attention.”
Great, now he wouldn’t have the chance to see what happened first.
The elf dropped his robe and joined them in the bath. Nate swallowed, all relaxation gone.
“If you could sit up, I’ll wash your hair first.” The elf moved efficiently, pouring water over his head and then using a bar of what looked like soap to lather his hair, all the while giving him what had to be the best head massage of his life. His fingers worked into knots at the base of his skull and his jaw. By the time elf rinsed his hair, Nate wanted to melt.
The elf picked up a cloth and washed his back and arms before guiding him to lean back. Nate didn’t resist, resting his head on the towel. Next came the shave. He didn’t open his eyes even as the blade swept over his skin.
“Would you like other areas shaved?” the elf murmured when he was done.
“What? No.” The words out of his mouth were English. He repeated his refusal in Tarikian.
Rohan laughed. “We didn’t need the translation. The meaning was clear.”
The elf picked up Nate’s hand and began trimming and cleaning his nails, pushing back the quick with a tool that must have been designed for the job. There was no way Nate could have used the little knife-like thing to trim his own nails, not without shedding blood.
The elf moved onto Nate’s other hand and then his feet before washing his chest and abs. And while Nate tried to relax, he became aware of Rohan watching. He peeked beneath his lashes to confirm that was the case. It was. And Rohan’s cock had risen. The elf had to have noticed.
“I can do the rest.”
“Are you worried that I have never seen a prick or washed one?”
Nate tried not to cringe. “I am not comfortable being washed yet. This is new to me.”
The elf moved around to wash Rohan’s hair as if it didn’t matter. He took his time giving Rohan the same scalp massage that he’d gotten. And while Rohan’s eyes were closed, Nate took the opportunity to watch both of them.
“What are you considering, Nate?” Rohan asked without opening his eyes.
The elf said something in another language, and Rohan smiled. Was the elf making fun of him?
He wasn’t about to share his thoughts. He didn’t want to discuss his attraction to Rohan or his confusion over how society worked. “Just thinking.”
“You are supposed to be relaxing. Bathing is a time to enjoy and connect, not for solving problems.”
“It’s social?”
“Yes.” Rohan cracked open one eye. “You can ask your questions. It is the only way you will learn.”
That was good in theory. “I don’t want to be offensive.”
“Are you intending to offend?” Rohan asked.
“No.”
“Then what is the problem?”
The elf rinsed Rohan’s hair, then washed his skin, running his hands over Rohan’s back and arms. Rohan turned and leaned back as the elf kept going, washing his chest and abs, before running the cloth over Rohan’s erection and then his balls as if it were normal.
Did bathing come with a happy ending?
Is that what was going on here?
Rohan murmured something, and the elf nodded, wading out of the bath and slipping on his robe.
“Um…” Nate moved over to Rohan’s side of the bath. “Am I misunderstanding this? Does he…”
Rohan smiled. “Have sex? If he feels like it, and if the bather wants it.”
“It’s not his job?”
“Certainly not.”
“But he’s allowed to and won’t lose his job?”
“Of course he can.”
“But what if someone…” Nate frowned. “Where I come from, there are rules that people in charge can’t sleep with workers because they might coerce them.” Finding the words wasn’t always easy. It was like he couldn’t quite remember them.
“Your people coerce others?”
“Yes.” And worse.
“I have concerns about your world. No wonder you were troubled about me buying your debt. But consider this, why would anyone want a reluctant or unwilling partner?”
“I don’t know. But it happens…” He kneeled on the tiles next to Rohan, remembering the way he’d asked, as if to be sure Nate had wanted his touch to come. “And it’s okay to be… gay …” There wasn’t the word. “For men to like men?”
“Non-breeding pairs occur. Two men, two women. A werewolf and anyone else. Not all couplings result in children.” Rohan shrugged. “No one troubles themselves with who someone loves. Why would they?”
“You’d be surprised,” Nate muttered in English. He went to sit back on his haunches, but the water was too deep.
“If you want, you may sit on my thigh, as I’d prefer it if you didn’t drown and make extra work for the attendant.”
Nate eyed the massive cock.
“I am offering you comfort, nothing more. You really were raised by rats.”
“My parents are lovely. They’ll be wondering where I am.” They’d take one look at Rohan and scream. If Rohan had gone through the doorway by accident, no one would be helping him adapt. He’d be dead.
“I am sorry about that. But requesting a favor from a god will carry a high cost, and you cannot take on another debt, especially one that may not be known until the favor is collected.”
Nate wasn’t ready for another debt. He needed to treat this as a holiday. A sabbatical to learn about another culture.
He perched on Rohan’s thigh instead of going back to his side of the bath. The minotaur’s thigh was warm and hard beneath him.
“You cannot relax like that.” Rohan lifted him and turned him so Nate's back rested against Rohan’s chest. His cock brushed against Nate’s thigh, and he was very tempted to wrap his fingers around it to appreciate the size. “All your troubles will still be there when you get out of the bath. Close your eyes, little human.”
Nate rested his head on Rohan’s shoulder, but relaxing was impossible because he was so aware of Rohan. The way his chest lifted as he breathed. The hair on his thigh tickled Nate’s skin.
Rohan’s nose nuzzled at his neck, and his tongue flicked beneath his freshly shaven jaw. “I can smell your desire.”
A part of him wanted to pull away and climb out of the bath. But what would that achieve? Or prove?
What did staying prove?
“And?” The word fell off his tongue.
“And I like it. Have your massage before I am tempted to do more than you are comfortable with.”
“How do you know what I am comfortable with?”
“I think it is easier for you to let go when your hands are bound…though you may not be ready to admit that, either.”