She lifted her hand, ran it across his brow. “Your skin is clammy. Skata.”
She pushed him up quickly and slid out from beneath him before he could protest. And he was just opening his mouth to tell her he was fine and convince her to come back when he caught sight of what she was doing.
She gripped the bottom of her T-shirt and tugged it up, revealing the nearly sheer cami underneath. He sucked in a breath and held it while she yanked the T-shirt up and over her head as she had in his fantasy, then tossed it on the ground. She toed off her shoes and quickly reached for the button on her pants.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Holy Hades, was that his voice? He sounded like he had when he’d first come to, all wasted to hell and back. Belatedly he realized he was braced on his elbows, watching her with rapt attention. Like a man starved. Unable to look away if his life depended on it.
“I’m taking you into the hot spring,” she said matter-of-factly as she popped the button on her jeans and pushed them down her long, luscious legs. And oh, shit. If he thought he’d been hard before, he was seriously mistaken. His cock throbbed.
“Callia—”
“We have to get you warmed up now,” she said firmly. The fabric hit the ground around her ankles, and then she was wiggling out of the jeans, kicking them to the side and standing over him wearing only the cami and panties that made his mouth water, looking like a sex goddess come to offer herself as a sacrifice.
There she was. His soul mate. Practically naked and his for the taking. He’d have to be a fool to refuse her now.
She eased down, wrapped both her bare arms around his chest and eased him up to sitting. And the scent of her…it broke through his last defense.
“Come with me, Zander. This will feel good. I promise.”
He had no doubt about that. What little blood was left in his limbs shot right into his cock as she helped him to his feet. And with it, every protest he’d ever had where she was concerned slipped right out of his head.
Chapter Eleven
Callia hauled Zander to his feet. He swayed, but she caught him and managed to brace her feet on the rocks to keep them both from going down. Didn’t need her help? Bullshit.
“Hold on to me,” she said. She wrapped her arms up under his and around his back, supporting his weight. And holy cow, he weighed a lot.
He perched his palms on her shoulders. “I got it.” But he didn’t. Not even close.
She shifted under his left arm, slid her hand around his waist and grabbed his on her opposite shoulder to steady him. The blanket she’d tucked around him earlier slid to the ground and in the dim light she saw a flash of very male, very naked skin.
Ignore it.
She would. She was a professional. She’d seen plenty of naked bodies over the course of her career. And none—not even the really gorgeous ones—had ever turned her on.
None were Zander.
She shook off the thought, gripped his hand tighter at her shoulder. “Just a few feet to the pool. It’ll be hot.”
He didn’t say much as they moved slowly toward the water, and she was grateful for that. Even though the temperature in this section of the cave was like a sauna and perspiration slicked her skin, she was very much aware that she was wearing nothing more than underwear right now. But what were her options? She was obviously going to have to get in the water with him to hold him up, and she hadn’t brought a change of clothes. Wet undergarments were a small price to pay for making sure her patient lived and she didn’t freeze to death in the process.
They made it to the edge of the first pool. As she eased him down to sit on the rock ledge, she wished she’d thought to bring the lantern. It was darker on this side of the room. Shadows played across his skin as he dipped one toe into the water and pulled it back quickly.
“Skata.”
“I told you it was hot.”
She’d tested it earlier, just to make sure, and knew it was right around a hundred and four degrees, which wasn’t that bad except when you were already freezing. While he was preoccupied with trying to ease his feet into the steaming liquid, she slid into the pool and sucked in a breath as the hot water surrounded her legs and torso.
The bite was a shock to the system, but after a few seconds, her muscles began to relax. The water hit just below her breasts, the bottom of this part of the pool one continuous long flat rock that was smooth beneath her bare feet. She walked to where Zander was sitting on the edge of the pool, his feet now submersed in the water, his hands in his lap as he acclimated himself to the temperature.
Gods, he was really beautiful. For a moment, the look of him there, totally naked with the light from the lamp across the room highlighting the angles and planes of his very chiseled body, stole her breath. She’d seen him naked before, many times, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever stopped to appreciate his body aesthetically. Now she did.
His shoulders were broad, his chest muscular and defined, the play of muscle over bone so smooth it was as if he’d been carved from marble. His abs were taut and ripped, his arms as thick as her legs. And that thin line of hair that ran from his chest to his navel, then lower, was like a blinking arrow, urging her to keep looking.
She drew in a breath and told herself to wise up. He was her patient, she was his healer. Their past was so over and done with it wasn’t even funny.
Refusing to look down, she leaned into him and once again wrapped her arms under his and around his torso. His legs immediately opened, and within seconds she found his bare chest pressed up tight against hers. And other things. Most definitely where she didn’t need them.
Her heart rate kicked up being this close to him, just as it had in the king’s study, just as it had when she’d worked on him earlier. She had to grind her teeth together to keep her voice even. “Come on. We’ll go slow. It’ll feel good once you get used to it.”
He muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “I thought that was my line,” but then she didn’t care, because he was sliding into the water and she was focused on making sure his legs didn’t go out from under him.
He hissed in a sharp breath, let it out slowly. She kept a hold of him as they slid in deeper and the water rose up to their shoulders. His breathing slowed and he closed his eyes, but he didn’t make any attempt to push away, and she figured he either knew he needed her help right now or he was oblivious to the fact she was still holding him.
The water made him virtually weightless and easy to maneuver. Slowly she walked them to the side of the pool, where the rocks were smoother and more comfortable to lean against. Bracing his back against one very flat rock, she continued to keep her body tight against his so he wouldn’t slide under and drown.
Steam rose around them. The tips of her wet hair slapped against her shoulders. With a groan he rested his head back on the rocks behind him. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead, so she lifted a hand from the water, shook the droplets from her skin and wiped his brow.
“Hmm,” he said as her fingers ran across his skin. “That feels good.”
A half smile curled her mouth before she could stop it. He’d always loved it when she massaged his forehead and ran her fingers through his hair. “Better?”
“Way better.”
“I told you you were cold.”
“Not anymore. I think I feel my toes again.”
Her smile widened. That was definitely good news. She continued to rub his forehead, his temples, trail her finger down the bridge of his nose and up again. Had he broken it at one point? She didn’t remember the small lump there in that spot. She glanced at his throat, at the long jagged scar he’d gotten in some fight. This one she remembered well. Remembered running her fingers and tongue over it as they’d made…
Dangerous, a little voice warned. If you don’t stop touching him, you’ll cross the healer-patient line…
She frowned. She was part human, wasn’t she? Didn’t she deserve a few minutes of downtime herself? After the last few ho
urs—days, for that matter—she deserved more than a few minutes. Hell, after the last ten years she deserved a lifetime of peace. Why couldn’t she relax and enjoy these few stolen moments with Zander, free from the animosity and anger that had ruled them both for so long? Was it too much to ask for just a handful of minutes to remember why she’d fallen for him in the first place?
Yes. Definitely yes. Getting close will only end badly.
As she sat there stroking him, arguing with herself and feeling guilty, she found she wanted this moment to last. Needed it to. For reasons even she didn’t understand.
Almost as if he heard the voices in her head, his eyes popped open, shattering the serenity. She stilled when she realized he was completely focused on her, the blue-gray pools of his irises as clear as she’d ever seen them. “What?” she asked hesitantly.
“Why did you come?”
“I…” Okay, yeah. Damn those superhero healing properties. He was definitely lucid now. “Because Titus asked me to.”
“You could have said no.”
True. And she’d considered it. For all of two seconds. But like a fool, she’d never been able to turn her back on him. “I made a vow to help those in need.”
“Even me.”
It wasn’t a question. They both heard it. Instantly she remembered all too well how he could turn a blind eye to those in need. And just like that the peaceful moment passed.
She dropped her hand back into the water and focused on that scar on his throat to avoid his gaze. Water droplets glistened on his naturally tanned skin, ran over the puckered surface.
“Even you.”
Silence settled between them. His breathing and the lap of water against rock was all she heard.
“Where did you go?” he finally asked. “After?”
Shock registered. That he was asking. That he even cared. After all this time, did it even matter anymore? She thought about not answering then figured, why not? “I…I needed some time. I stayed where I was. In Greece.”
He nodded. And she couldn’t help wondering whether he’d known where she was all along. “I heard a rumor you went to a human medical school.”
He had? News flash to her. Why would he even care? She could ask. She wanted to. But ultimately decided against it. She didn’t want him becoming agitated in his state, and if he was trying to satisfy some morbid curiosity, then she’d just let him. For now. “I did. I studied at the Aristotle University of Thessaloníki.”
He lifted a hand from the water to scratch his stubbly jaw. “Weren’t you afraid? In the human realm, alone? Argoleans are prime targets for daemons.”
She shrugged, stared at a droplet of water that ran from his cheek, down across his strong, square jaw and under, to trail down his scar. “At first, a little. But Thessaloníki is a big city. I made sure I was never really alone. Daemons don’t like to make a scene in front of humans if they can avoid it.”
“They used to avoid it,” he said quietly. “Things are different now.”
Yeah, they were, weren’t they? Now that Atalanta was mortal again her daemons didn’t care who got in their way. She’d been so lucky the day…
Her stomach churned, but she forced the memory back. “My father was also with me for a while. That made it easier at the start.”
“Oh, right,” he said with very clear disdain. “Your father. Why does that not surprise me?”
She lifted her eyes to his and saw in his chiseled features that the contempt he’d had for her father was very much alive and kicking today, though why it mattered to him now she’d never know. He’d once accused her of letting her father rule her life. And for a long time, she had. But when it came down to the most important decision, she’d gone against what her father wanted. And paid dearly.
She looked back at the water curling softly around Zander’s skin and tried not to remember the pain. But it never really went away. “Do you really want to talk about my father?”
“No.”
His immediate answer was no real surprise. So why did the blunt word make her chest ache?
“I just want to know one thing,” he said. “Why did you come back? If the human world was so great, why return to Argolea at all?”
What answer could she give that would make sense? She didn’t want to tell him her father had begged her to return. Or that the increase in daemon activity in the area had scared her enough to make her consider returning to a world that devalued its females. And she definitely didn’t want him to know about the daemon she’d run into one night walking home from class. That had definitely been a sobering experience, especially after the way the creature had stared at her like he recognized her. She’d been lucky the group of humans had come by when they had and she’d escaped unscathed. But she definitely didn’t want to tell Zander about it now or see his I-told-you-so smug expression.
So instead she shrugged and simply said, “It was just the right time to come back.”
He studied her with intense eyes, as if he knew she was omitting the truth. She averted her gaze and stared at his throat again, but her adrenaline pulsed, and her heart rate kicked up under that ruthless stare.
At some point during their conversation she’d let go of him, but he seemed to be supporting his own weight just fine now, and the conversation was already too intimate for her liking. She didn’t need to add physical proximity to the mix.
Just about the time she was going to tell him he was being rude and ask him to stop staring, he shrugged. His features relaxed as he slid farther into the water. “Must be nice having an in with the Council so you can come and go as you please. Most Argoleans aren’t so lucky.”
Lucky? The scars on her back tingled. And her mind skipped over the first few months she’d been home. She wouldn’t call that luck. Not by a long shot. She’d call it…misery.
Before she could think of an answer, his head disappeared under the water.
And all of it—the irritation, anger, even the misery—poofed right out of her head.
“Zander!” She braced her feet on the bottom of the pool and swept her arms through the water to find him. Only he was gone. Vanished. Right out from under her.
Panic closed her throat. It was so dark she couldn’t see him, the water nothing but a glassy black oil slick. Why had she let go of him? Why hadn’t she thought to bring the lantern closer?
“Zander!”
His head popped back up out of the water, and he gave it a shake, sending water droplets raining down around her. “Man, that’s hot.”
She nearly screamed with the mixture of relief and anger bubbling through her veins. Her eyes grew wide and she clenched her hands together in front of her in fists. Then she punched his good shoulder with what little strength she had left. Water sprayed up into his face where she’d slapped at the pool. “Oh, my gods, you scared the crap out of me. Why did you do that?”
He had the audacity to look confused. “Do what?”
And that’s when everything—his agreeing to bind himself to Isadora, his injury, being here with him like this, so close, their conversation and his disappearing under the water to scare her—coalesced in her brain until it was too much. The air whooshed out of her lungs on a groan and she let herself fall back into the pool, let it cradle her exhaustion and, for a second, take it all away.
Far, far away, where she didn’t have to think of any of it.
“Callia? What are you…? Skata. Come back here.”
His hand wrapped around her ankle. She felt him pulling her, but she didn’t fight the gentle tug, not even when water rushed over her face, cutting off her air. She was so tired. Emotionally wrung out and at the end of her rope. He was right. Coming here had been a major mistake. Had she thought she could handle being around him? She couldn’t. She needed to leave now and get back to her clinic, where things were normal. And predictable. And, dammit…safe.
Her feet bumped into his rock-hard chest, then her knees. She sensed him leaning over her, and then his arms wr
apped around her waist. She still didn’t fight him, didn’t have it in her, not when he hauled her up out of the water, not even when they were chest to chest and she was sliding down the long plane of his body.
She sputtered, coughed, sucked in a deep breath as water ran down her face.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked in an irritated voice.
She coughed again and tried to shake the water out of her eyes. “Me? You’re the one who pulled…the disappearing act.”
“I was getting my hair wet, not sailing out to the open ocean for a midnight swim. You have no idea where this pool leads or what’s out there in the dark. First Titus, now this. Are you trying to punish me here?”
She stilled in his arms. Slowly looked up at his now-frustrated face. Tiny lines cinched his eyebrows together and creases marred his perfect forehead.
What did Titus have to do with anything? And why on earth would Zander think she was trying to punish him?
Water ran from her hair down her face to drip onto his broad chest. She stared at his bewildered expression, gave her head a small shake. Told herself she was seriously hearing things. “Are…are you still loopy from the meds I gave you? Or am I?”
He frowned. “One of us is.”
“Why—?”
“Because, dammit, I think I’m about to kiss you.”
That jumpstarted her muscular system. She pressed her hands against his shoulders as her eyes grew wide all over again. “Why in Hades would you—?”
He was so close she didn’t have time to brace herself. His mouth captured hers in a searing kiss that radiated all the way to her toes. His lips were hard and unforgiving and he tightened his arms around her as he crushed her to him, pulling her in until she had no choice but to grab on for dear life or slide under the water and drown.
Their attraction had always been combustible. Insane. Definitely unhealthy, when she thought of everything that had resulted because of it. Gods knew, she didn’t need a repeat of the years of pain she’d already endured. So why wasn’t she pushing him away?
He slid the tip of his tongue along the seam of her mouth. “Open for me, Callia.” His tongue made another long lingering sweep. “Let me in.”