Chapter 18
Wrexxon
The green water was almost scalding, stinging the cuts and abrasions I'd accumulated during the raid.
The heat penetrated deep into muscle and bone, pulling out the tension that combat always left behind.
The minerals in the water were intended to heal the body as much as they were intended to permeate the mind with feelings of euphoria.
I should have been giving myself entirely over to the sensations, letting the minerals in the water do their work, as they knitted together flesh and soothed bruised muscle.
This was my routine after every raid—the green water first to heal and then the red to calm my galloping heart and pulsing adrenaline.
Instead, I could think of nothing but the naked woman in my bed. I groaned, the sound echoing off the stone walls, and bit down on my bottom lip hard enough to hurt.
My body had responded to the sight of her exactly the way any male's body would, especially since the sheet had barely covered her breasts, leaving her shoulders bare and golden in the light. Her hair had been loose and tousled, as if an impatient lover had run his hands through it.
But as much as I’d hungered for her, I’d walked away. Laughed and walked away. Tvek me.
I worked my fingers through the braids that had held my hair in place, letting it fall long around my shoulders.
Then I dropped my head back against the stone edge of the pool, stared up at the water cascading down the wall, and attempted to think of anything else.
I forced my mind onto the satisfying crunch of Imperial armor giving way beneath my axe.
Then, when that didn’t work, I recalled the prickly-skinned Althurians I'd met at the last trade station, their clicking language metallic and their multitude of eyes disconcerting.
Finally, I focused on the smell of the sparring ring after a full day of training, the odor of sweat pungent and eye-watering.
But my mind kept circling back to the naked woman in my bed, who'd just offered herself to me. It had been clumsy and desperate, but it had been an offer no one would have faulted me for accepting. But I'd rejected her.
Tvekking hell, why had I rejected her?
“Because she wasn’t sober, you bastard,” I whispered to myself, my lips hovering barely above the surface of the water.
I'd seen the empty wine bottle, had caught the slight unsteadiness in her movements, and had picked up on the flush staining her cheeks.
More crucially, she'd shown nothing but defiance, so the sudden shift was so out of character it could only be strategy or desperation.
Despite my rigid, aching cock, I would not take what wasn't freely given, no matter how much my body screamed at me that I was an idiot for walking away.
With a shake of my head, I propelled myself from the green water and slipped into the crimson. The temperature change was immediate, the warm water less startling than the hot and the oils snapping my senses into place.
I stayed in longer than usual, trying to give her time to dress and sober up, but after the water had done its work and then some, I realized I didn't hear any movement from the other room. No footsteps. No rustling of fabric. No sounds of someone getting dressed or moving around.
Standing, I let the water sluice off my body before I stepped from the tub. Then I grabbed a length of cloth from the hook on the wall and wrapped it around my waist, securing it with a quick knot.
When I walked back into the main chamber, I expected to find Jasmine dressed and waiting. Instead, she was still in my bed. Not only that, she was still wrapped in nothing but the sheet, which had slipped dangerously low to reveal the top of her breasts.
And she was asleep.
Her breathing was slow and even, soft sighs escaping with each exhale and her dark hair was splayed across a pillow. My pillow.
"Tvek," I cursed in Vandar. It was an understatement.
Jasmine was naked in the bed where I was supposed to sleep, and her deep breathing told me she wouldn't be waking anytime soon. The wine had clearly done its work, and I suspected a dip in my bathing pool hadn’t helped.
My cock swelled again, and I huffed out a ragged breath. This had to be some kind of cosmic joke at my expense. “The gods of old are testing me.”
I stared at her, taking in details I shouldn't be noticing, like the way her eyelashes fanned across her cheeks and the slight part of her full lips as she breathed. Then there was her smooth skin, unmarked by the scars that covered my own body.
I stepped closer and ran the tip of my finger down one exposed shoulder. She released a breathy moan that sent desire arrowing straight to my already stiff cock. "Tvek," I cursed again, but this time with more heat behind it.
I was a Vandar raider, used to taking what I wished. I had taken her from her planet, hadn’t I? Wasn’t the fate of a war bride to share my bed?
Even so, I didn’t want her to be forced to submit. I wanted her to want me, to beg me, to eagerly spread her legs for me. There was nothing more exhilarating than a female who was hungry for you, and now I knew there was nothing more frustrating than one naked and asleep.