Chapter 12 #2
He looked tired. Not the bone-deep exhaustion of battle, but the worn-down weariness of a man who had spent hours managing logistics and people and problems. His tunic was different from this morning, darker, and there was a smear of something that might have been ink on his forearm.
"You slept," he said.
"I did." Mab stood, suddenly aware of how she must look. The borrowed nightgown too tight, her hair still a disaster of tangles, orange juice drying sticky on her chin. "I didn't mean to sleep so long."
He crossed to her, and his hands were on her before she could think to step back. One at her hip, the other cupping her jaw, tilting her face up. "You needed it."
"You've been busy."
"Inventory. Manifests. Messages." His thumb traced her lower lip. "Dull work. I thought about you the whole time."
Mab's breath caught. "What did you think about?"
"The sounds you make when you come." His hand slid from her hip to the small of her back, pulling her closer. "The way you moan my name. The little snores you make when you sleep deeply."
Color shot into Mab's face. "I do not!"
"You do." His mouth curved, the closest thing to a smile she'd seen from him. "Soft ones. Like a kitten."
"I am not discussing this."
"You asked what I thought about." His hand found the laces at the front of her nightgown, fingers working them loose with practiced ease. "I also thought about these."
The silk parted. Cool air hit her skin, and then his hands were on her breasts, lifting their weight, thumbs brushing across nipples that hardened instantly under his touch.
"I told you this morning," he said, his voice dropping low. "I'm going to spend hours on these. Learn every way they move when you breathe. When you arch. When you're riding me and they're bouncing with every thrust."
Mab's knees weakened. She grabbed his forearms to steady herself, and he made a sound of approval deep in his chest.
"Not tonight." His thumbs circled her nipples, slow and deliberate. "Tonight I'm going to strip you bare and hold you while I sleep. But I want you to know what's coming. What I'm going to do to this body every chance I get."
He pushed the nightgown off her shoulders. It pooled at her feet, pale green silk against the dark stone floor, and she was naked again. Exposed. His eyes moved over her like hands, cataloguing every curve and shadow.
"You too," she said.
His hands stilled on her waist. "What?"
"If I'm naked, you should be naked." The words came out surer than she felt. "It's only fair."
His eyes narrowed. Not with displeasure. With something closer to curiosity, like she'd done something unexpected and he was recalculating.
"Fair," he repeated.
"Yes." She lifted her chin. "Fair."
For a long moment he didn't move. Then his hands left her waist and went to the laces of his tunic. He pulled it over his head in one motion, dropped it on the floor beside her nightgown. His boots came next, then his trousers, and then he was standing in front of her with nothing between them.
He was half-hard already, the ridged length of him darker than the rest of his skin, flushed with blood. As she watched, he thickened further under her gaze.
"See something you like?"
Her cheeks warmed, but she didn't look away.
"The basin," she said. "There's still warm water."
His head tilted. "What about it?"
"You've been working all day." She moved toward the basin stand before her courage could fail her. "Let me."
She dipped a cloth into the water, wrung it out. When she turned back, Varek hadn't moved. He stood in the center of the room watching her with an expression she couldn't read.
"Mab."
"You cleaned me this morning." She crossed to him, the cloth warm in her hands.
"That was different."
"How?"
He didn't answer. She took his silence as permission and pressed the cloth to his chest.
The first stroke made him inhale sharply. She dragged the cloth down the center of his sternum, over the hard planes of muscle, tracing the edge of the arrow scar. The water left his skin gleaming in the firelight.
His hand caught her wrist.
"You don't have to do this."
"I know." She didn't stop. Worked the cloth along the ridge of his collarbone, down the curve of his shoulder, across the ink stain on his forearm. "I want to."
The words hung between them, and she hoped he would understand what she was saying. Not I want to clean you but I want to choose this. I want to give something instead of only receiving.
His hand released her wrist.
Mab worked in silence. She rinsed the cloth, wrung it, returned to his skin.
The water was cooling but still warm enough, and she learned the topography of him with each pass.
The smooth stretch of unmarked skin along his right flank.
The rough texture of the scar tissue crossing his ribs.
The way his stomach muscles tightened when she dragged the cloth lower, toward the dark hair that trailed from his navel.
She hesitated.
"Keep going." His voice was rough. "Unless you want to stop."
Mab dipped the cloth again. Her hands didn't shake, which surprised her, given what she was about to do. She wrung the water out slowly, watching the droplets fall back into the basin, and then she turned and knelt in front of him.
His breath hissed between his teeth.
She pressed the cloth to his thigh. Started there, where it was safe, where the muscle was thick and warm beneath her hands. She worked the fabric up toward his hip, across the crease where his leg met his body, and his cock twitched.
"Mab."