What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(93)

He cleaned them thoroughly, running the soap over my stomach and eventually touching it to the apex of my thighs.

“I can do it,” I said, flushing as I thought of him cleaning the most intimate part of me.

“I had my fingers inside you only yesterday, my star. Do you think I would hesitate to wash your cunt before I bury my tongue inside it?” he asked, rubbing soap-lathered fingers over me. He forced my legs wider, spreading me as he ran his hand over me and cleaned me.

I whimpered, the heat within me building as he stroked between my legs. He moved on to my legs as soon as he was satisfied, lifting them one at a time and washing them methodically. I was a mess of need by the time he turned me around and began to wash my back, his fingers hesitating on each and every scar.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to the worst one, kissing the sensitive skin that seemed to tingle any time someone touched it. The kiss felt like a promise of retribution, a reiteration of the vow he’d made to see the man who’d harmed me dead.

He touched a hand to my ass cheek, gripping it with bruising fingers as he lowered the soap. I jolted away from his touch, spinning to face him as he grinned at me. “I think not.”

He shrugged, rubbing the soap over his chest as if the boundary didn’t matter to him. “I’ll fuck you there one day too, my star.”

I blanched.

Was that even possible?

The serious look on his face gave me all the answer I needed, so I just shook my head and took the soap to finish washing myself there. Maybe with a normal man, that could be physically possible, though I doubted pleasurable. But for a man with a cock that seemed to hang down to his knees?

Hard pass.

I brushed off my moment of embarrassment, stepping toward him and lifting the soap to his body. I wasn’t willing to let the moment pass me by, knowing that our baths would normally be fraught with company watching our every move. This might be the only time in the near future where I could take the time to learn the contours of his body with my own hands while we were submerged in warm water.

I ran it over the muscles of his chest, staring at the place where my fingers ran over his golden skin. His gaze felt heavy as he watched my face, but something in me couldn’t force myself to look up and meet it. I knew that the moment I looked at him with my hands on his skin, my time to explore would come to an end.

I passed the soap over his shoulders and the scars almost covered his body in a way I wouldn’t have expected for a man situated to know of wealthy items for women’s care.

There was so much I still didn’t know about Caelum and the life he’d lived, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask with the steam in the air around us and his skin against my palm.

His muscles twitched against my hand as I trailed them down to his stomach, making me look up at him finally as I cleaned the grooves between each of the muscles carved from his abdomen. Only when that was finished did I drop my hand lower, cleaning the lines between his torso and the corded muscles of his thighs.

He hissed when I shifted my hand sideways, rubbing the soap against the top of his shaft. My fingertips brushed against his length, and I watched as he gritted his teeth. My other hand joined the first, wrapping around his cock as I ran the soap over him tentatively. The moment my fingers gripped him, he groaned. “Fuck.”

I washed him, sliding my hand up and down his shaft as the soap cleansed him. He’d already been hard by the time I took him in my hand, but there was no denying the way he hardened more in my grip, until he was like a rock, unforgiving, and I knew he would break me when he pushed inside me for the first time.

“Enough,” he grunted, covering my hand with his. He guided me, stroking himself with it twice more before he finally pulled it away and took the soap to finish washing himself.

I hesitated, wondering if I’d done something wrong or crossed some sort of line. I didn’t understand how I could have misread the situation. “Sit on the edge, Estrella,” he ordered, making me swallow back my nerves. I moved to do as he instructed, walking to the edge of the pool.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, staring at him as he turned his attention back to me. Danger glinted in his eyes, something animalistic rising to the surface as he prowled toward me. He deposited the soap onto the edge of the pool, grabbing me around the waist and placing me on the cold stone.

I shivered as he spread my legs, inserting his shoulders between them and staring at the center of me as if he wanted to devour me.

“Did you do something wrong?” he asked, tilting his head to the side as he carefully pulled my ass so close to the edge that I felt like I might fall into the water. One of his enormous hands touched the center of my chest, pushing me back until I leaned onto my elbows and stared down at the rugged lines of his handsome face. “If you didn’t stop, I was going to bury myself balls-deep inside you while you screamed. I only have so much control when you have your hand wrapped around my cock, my star.”

“Oh,” I murmured softly, watching as he slid an arm behind each of my thighs and gripped them. He shoved them wide, tilting me further until my back touched the cold stone beneath me.

“Oh,” he repeated, as if I was an idiot for being totally unaware of the effect I had on him. He leaned forward, dragging his tongue through me from entrance to clit.

“Oh Gods,” I whimpered, my back arching from the wet heat of his mouth.