Page 49 of The Sorcerer's Thief
Yeah, no. As delicious as this is, I want to taste more of him.
All of him.
I pull off his finger and kiss the tip. “Shall we see if there’s room in here for two?”
He eyes the bathing barrel skeptically. “There most assuredly isn’t.”
“Well, then, I’ll just have to sit on the rim while you have your turn.” I rise, beads of water rolling down my body, and reveal everything.
His gaze drops to the apex of my legs, where I’m hard. Where I’ve been hard half the evening and a good portion of the last few weeks thanks to the presence of this sexy sorcerer in my life.
He’s seen me nude, but this is different. I’m naked forhim. My bare skin is warm and slick with bath oils while he’s still fully dressed in clothes for travel. I need to make him naked forme.
This time, when I reach for his belt, he doesn’t interfere. Nor does he stop me when I strip off his doublet and tunic. He helps with the rest of it—boots, breeches, underclothes—until he’s all skin and, surprisingly, freckles. A splattering of them across his chest and on his forearms, dark like his hair against his pale fae skin, somehow endearing him to me even further.
“It isn’t pretty,” he says just when I’m thinking,he’s so pretty.
“What do you mean?”
The vulnerability of his expression is entirely new. “My back. My shoulders…where they used to be.”
Oh. His wings. I should have thought of that, should have realized he might be hesitant. Reflecting back, I’m aware he’s been strategic when we bath, making sure not to reveal everything.
“It’s a lot worse than my fingers.”
I wasn’t thinking about this at all. I was far too busy scanning his lower regions, which don’t disappoint in the slightest. I can’t wait to get my hands all over him. How his back looks doesn’t matter, and yet he worries, so I must be sensitive.
I press my palm to his chest, right over his heart. It’s racing. “Let me see?”
His stare intensifies, but he turns with a sigh. “I could put my shirt back on. If it’s too gruesome.”
It is.
And it isn’t.
I chew the inside of my cheek to keep anything stupid from coming out of my mouth while I think about what to say.
Angry pink and white scar tissue ripples out in bumpy lines from the surrounding skin, like roots pushing their way through an earthen floor. The pain he must have endured is unimaginable. And below, so many stripes from the lash of a whip.
Too many to count.
A part of him now and forever, one that can’t be overlooked or ignored, but a part that’s insignificant to the person he is to me.
There’s nothing to say, so I use touch instead, running my damp palms over his back and shoulders as I drop kisses across his nape.
He shivers but doesn’t pull away. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Mm, want to,” I murmur the words against salty skin. “Get in. Please.”
He does, awkwardly, gripping my hand for balance.
Water sloshes as I slide out of the tub and onto the wooden rim, hard under my ass. If I have my way, we won’t be here very long before there’s something hardinmy ass, so it’s fine.
“You know, I’m angry about what happened to you. I’m horrified by what you must have gone through.” I add oil to the sponge and wash his back over the old wounds. “But I’m not sorry our paths crossed. Not sorry to have come to know you. The way your back looks is the least important part of you.”
“It’s kind of you to say that, but I know how ugly it is.”
“It’s not. But I would heal you if I could.”
