Chapter Sixteen
~Kalo~
The warmth of the bath seeped slowly into my tired limbs, loosening muscles that had been locked tight since the morning. Steam curled around me in soft clouds, and the scent of cedar clung to every breath.
I should have been relaxing, letting the tension melt away, but instead, my body thrummed with a different kind of tension entirely.
Leo sat beside the tub on the low stool he’d pulled over, trying very hard to look anywhere but at my naked body. His jaw flexed every few seconds, a sure sign of his internal battle against his natural instincts.
He wasn’t the only one fighting for control.
It had been so long since I’d been in a situation that even approached sexual, and longer still since I’d truly desired anyone.
But Leo… gods, Leo was beautiful. Quiet, and earnest, and gentle despite his size and strength.
In my time, men that looked like him were warriors.
Brutal and hardened, not gentle and caring.
Somehow, Leo was both, and that appealed to me in a way I couldn’t even fully articulate.
But the bond complicated everything. If I surrendered to this rising need and reached for him, I knew what it would do to him. He would see it as the acceptance of something permanent, and I wasn’t certain I would ever be ready to want anything permanent again.
On the other hand, a reaper wanted my soul, apparently. My dreams were filled with shadows, reminding me that my life didn’t belong to me. My ‘future’ might be measured in hours rather than years.
So perhaps… perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to give in to this growing need between us, just a little, before we had to face the reality of our situation.
For just this moment, maybe this one thing could belong to me.
I shifted slightly, letting the water lap higher against my chest. Leo’s eyes flicked downward, just for a heartbeat, before snapping back up to my face.
“Do the wolves in your pack normally bathe together?” I asked conversationally.
Leo let out a startled laugh, a crack in the tension that made my lips curve. “No. I mean, we, uh, sometimes shower together. After training, or a mission, but it’s not… it’s not like this.”
He gestured vaguely at the tub, and my eyebrows raised. “Like what?”
He swallowed as he sought the right word. “It’s not… sensual.”
“Oh.” I lifted a hand and slowly dragged it across my chest, letting droplets fall back into the bath with soft, deliberate plinks. His gaze moved down again, slower and heavier than before, but still didn’t dip below the waterline.
Leo cleared his throat. “Did, uh… did men bathe together in your time? When you were human?”
“We weren’t Romans,” I scoffed, wrinkling my nose.
His eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it as an insult, I was just curious…”
A soft laugh slipped from my lips. “I’m teasing you, Leo.”
The shy smile that spread across his face in reply struck me somewhere dangerously deep. “Oh.”
“But no, bathhouses weren’t common where I lived. Most bathing was done privately, at home.” A memory struck me out of nowhere, achingly bittersweet, and my voice faltered only a moment before I lifted my chin and added, “Akkara and I used to swim in the river together. Naked, of course.”
Leo swallowed hard. “And that’s where you… where you two…?”
“Explored each other?” I finished for him, amused at the way his ears flushed red. “Yes. That’s where it happened for the first time, anyway. The water was warm in the summer, like an embrace.”
I let my fingers slip lower beneath the surface, my fingers skimming the top of the hair above my cock, and the movement drew Leo’s gaze exactly as I intended it to. His lips parted as the air between us grew thicker.
“When was the first time you touched another man?” I asked, letting the question fall as casually as I could, as if I were merely asking about the weather.
Leo, however, instantly stiffened, his eyes snapping back to my face. “Never. I never have.”
My hand went still beneath the water as I repeated the word. “Never?”
His cheeks coloured as he shook his head. “I told you I’ve never been in a relationship.”
“I assumed you meant romantically, not that you’d never touched anyone.”
As I recalled, he said he’d never been in a relationship with a man or a woman. Did that mean he’d truly never been intimate with anyone? What a shame for that beautiful body to go unappreciated for so long.
“Well, I’ve touched myself,” he blurted out before wincing as he realized what he’d said. “I mean…”
“I know what you mean,” I assured him, dropping my hand further down again so that it rested against my shaft. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” The word was barely a breath as his gaze once again drifted down to watch my hand. The room seemed to shrink around us, growing warmer by the second. “I just… I’ve never felt the desire to touch anyone else before, or to have them touch me.”
“Before what?” I prodded.
His eyes flashed with panic as they returned to my face, their soft blue suddenly too bright. Immediately, I sat up, water sloshing against the tub’s side as I moved.
“If I’m making you uncomfortable, tell me. I don’t want you to be.”
“No,” he replied quickly, shaking his head. “It’s not that.”
“What is it then?”
Leo licked his lips, closing his eyes for a brief second as if to gather his courage before he spoke the words out loud. “I just want to touch you so badly right now, and I don’t know how to stop wanting it.”
Slowly enough that he could pull away at any second, I reached out from the bath and took his hand. The water on my skin only intensified the pleasant tingling sensation his touch brought with it.
“I don’t mind if you touch me, Leo. But it would only be that; something that feels good, for both of us, without any further meaning.”
A sharp inhale was his response, his blue eyes briefly flashing black as he communicated with the wolf that lived inside him.
I waited as patiently as I could through his deliberations, my thumb gently stroking across the back of his hand, until his gaze refocused and, to my great relief, he nodded.
“I understand. It would only be this. And I want to, but I… I don’t know how…”
That part didn’t worry me at all.
Gently, I pulled his hand towards me, down into the bathwater, the heat enveloping our joined palms. The fabric of his sleeve soaked through instantly, but Leo didn’t seem to notice.
His focus never left our hands as I circled his, wrapping my fingers around the back of his hand to guide it down onto my half-hard cock.
Sparks ignited between us, not small or subtle but a bright, living surge that rushed through me. Leo must have felt it too because he sucked in a gasp, his eyes widening with something close to reverence.
My cock wasn’t bad, but I didn’t fool myself that it deserved that reaction on its own.
It was the sparks, and as I began to move his hand up and down my length, I couldn’t keep my groan of pure pleasure in. Fuck, that felt incredible. It doubled, or even tripled, the sensation brought on by each action, and they felt pretty good to begin with.
Squeezing my fingers tighter around his, I offered silent encouragement for him to wrap his hand fully around me. He followed the instruction easily, his grip providing the perfect amount of pressure as we began to move more quickly.
With each stroke, the sparks tingled up my spine again, spreading through my whole body before settling back into my cock.
My pulse pounded in my ears until all I could hear was my heartbeat and Leo’s soft, uneven breathing next to me.
All I could feel was his hand around me, rough and solid, and all I wanted was…
“Oh, fuck,” I managed to pant before the pleasure pulsing inside me drew taut and suddenly let go. My body seemed to float in ecstasy, nothing holding me to this world but the feel of Leo’s palm around me.
When my eyes fluttered back open, I found Leo frowning down at the tub. “We ruined your bath.”
I glanced down to the cloudy swirl of my cum as it dissolved into the water, and let out a warm chuckle. “Trust me, nothing was ruined. That was exactly what I needed. Thank you.”
As if only just realizing he still held my cock in his hand, Leo released me and immediately got to his feet. “I’ll get you a towel.”
While he busied himself in a way that clearly soothed him, I let my eyes fall closed one more time, feeling more satisfied than I had in a long time.
If that ended up being my last day on earth, it really wouldn’t be a bad way to go.