That iron fist around my heart? It lifted to my throat and squeezed tight. “I can’t lose you. Ever.”
“You won’t.” Maddox brought me closer, flattening his palm against my lower back. His hand dipped beneath the hem of my shirt, and the graze of his calloused fingertips on my skin elicited shivers throughout my body.
I rose up on my tiptoes and threw my arms around his neck, tugging his head down for a hard kiss. It was driven by the desperate need to feel him. To taste him. To know he was really with me and that he was safe.
He returned the kiss just as heavily, sliding his hand farther up my spine while gripping the back of my head with the other, fusing our mouths together in a way that had my head spinning.
But as much as my body craved his, sex wasn’t my goal.
I broke the kiss. “Let me take care of you.”
“You already are,” he responded before licking the seam of my mouth. “With your lips.”
Stay strong, Evan. Don’t give in to his charms.I was a man on a mission, after all, and wouldn’t be swayed; no matter how deeply he kissed me, the hard line of his cock straining against the front of his trousers as he ground his hips into me.
Although incredibly hard, I tore myself from him and stepped over to the claw-foot tub. The burning hunger in his stare simmered as curiosity took its place. I flipped on the long faucet, and the magical runes on the side faintly glowed orange as the cold water heated. I added bath salts that had a woodsy smell and then checked the water to make sure it was hot enough but nottoohot.
It was perfect.
“Hop in,” I told him.
“Will you be joining me?” Maddox undid the front of his trousers and pushed them down. His thick cock sprang free and bobbed between his muscled thighs, the glistening tip making me groan under my breath. I wanted to take him in my mouth and suck him like there was no tomorrow.
“Nope,” I said. “This is for you.”
“Well, that’s no fun.”
I grinned. “Just get in the bath, Maddox. Or I’ll withhold muffins from you for a week.”
“That was a low blow.” With a smirk in place, he approached the tub and stepped in. A rough groan left him as he sank into the water and tipped his head back. “This feels good.”
Yeah, that didn’t help tame my wild sexual fantasies. I most definitely imagined him doing—and saying—that exact thing while I rode his cock.
“Muffin Lord at your service.” I grabbed a wash cloth. “So sit back and enjoy some pampering.”
“Pampering?” Amusement rang in his voice. “Why do I get the impression this is a bribe of some sort?”
I exaggerated a gasp. “How dare you insinuate I have ulterior motives.”
He smiled at that and closed his eyes. They opened as I started washing him, and he watched me with a tender expression
My desire to crawl into the tub and ride him nine ways to Sunday diminished as I washed his chest. Just like when I was helping him remove his armor earlier, there was something incredibly intimate about bathing him like this.
“You know, ever since I came to Bremloc, I’ve always had someone taking care of me in some way.” I lathered more soap into the cloth and ran it across his broad shoulders and down his arms. “You’ve protected me. Briar has healed me several times. Lake watches over me. Callum and the knights have watched over me too. Prince Sawyer has gone out of his way to help me. But I don’t feel like I’ve really done anything to earn any of it.”
“You don’t need to earn it, Evan,” Maddox said. “We don’t do those things to receive anything in return. We do it because we treasure you.”
“I treasure you too. All of you.”
“Some of us more than others, I hope.” That smirk touched his lips again.
I flicked soapy water at him.
“Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked, growing serious. “Because you feel as though you owe me?”
“No.” I dipped the cloth into the water to wet it before gliding it up his neck. “I’m doing it because I love you. And even though you put on a brave face and say you’re okay, even though you say there’s nothing for me to worry about, I know you’re shaken by what happened today.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he finally spoke, there was a tremor in his voice. “I am.” Expelling a breath, he tilted his face to the ceiling. “However, I’m not afraid for myself. I fear for my knights. I fear what will become of Bremloc if we fail to stop the attacks. The man I met with at the Guild… his intel gave us the person behind them. But something still doesn’t add up. My gut tells me it’s more than meets the eye. It’s all building to something bigger.”
