Page 40 of Of Scale and Blood

“Perhaps not, but if you’re going to remove two items, then I need wash two items. Fair is fair.”

“If you’re going to be pedantic?—”

“And I am.”

“Then feel free.”

He returned the soapweed, and I got down to the business of washing, starting with his glorious chest and shoulders and working my way down his washboard abs before following the happy trail of hair down to his crotch.

“You’re flirting with danger there, my dear Bryn,” he warned as I lightly swept the soapweed over his cock. “That thing is primed and ready to go off.”

“Well, if it’s intending to go off in me, it had better be clean then.”

He laughed, a warm sound that ran across my senses as sweetly as any caress. I continued, every gentle sweep down his shaft and across his balls drawing a near incomprehensible sound from his throat.

Eventually, he caught the soapweed and tossed it well away from me. “Enough torture, woman. The boots need to come off.”

My gaze jumped to his, and my laugh died in my throat. I lightly pressed a hand to his cheek, skimming my thumb just under the swollen flesh under his left eye. “This did not come from a frond.”

“No, it did not.”

“Then why are you brushing aside the seriousness of the situation? Why say there was only the occasional battle, when evidence—your bone weariness and Kerryn’s statement that they wouldn’t have made it back without your help—states otherwise?”

“I am doing nothing more than what you always do.”

“I don’t—” I stopped. I actually did, and we both knew it. “Okay, lesson learned. I will try to do better in future, as long as you promise the same.”

“Oh, I do believe we can both promise that, but I also think we’ll both find the implementation a fraction harder.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh, I do believe you might be right.”

“Well, at least we agree on something.” He caught my waist and lifted me onto the coping. “Let me assist you with those boots.”

Amusement tugged at my lips. “Just the boots?”

“Well, it’s a tad harder to remove your leathers when your delicious butt is sitting on them.”

“Said butt can be lifted.”

“I thought you said there will be no sex until I have been fully scrubbed?”

“And the important bits now have been. Besides, a woman is entitled to change her mind, and that rod you have happening is looking desperate for attention.”

“Oh, it is, Princess, it is.”

He tugged off my boots, dumped them beside my jacket, then grabbed the bottom of my undershirt and tore it open, straight up the middle.

“And what,” I said, with mock crossness, “if that was a favorite shirt?”

“I’ll have another one made for you.”

“Thatis not the point.”

“No, sex is, so do be quiet and let me concentrate on getting these clothes off you.”

“I’m not one to be silent or do what I’m told.”

“I have noticed that, and I will admit, I find it quite arousing.”

---