Attraction. Desire. He was definitely attracted to me. He wanted me. I reminded myself that was something I could definitely work with. “I’m wet.”

“Fuck,” he rasped, his gaze tracking the droplets of water as they coursed over my breasts, the curve of my stomach, and headed lower still, between my thighs.

My skin tingled everywhere his gaze followed. “Can you help me with that?”

The tips of his fangs became visible as his lips parted. “Trouble,” he murmured thickly. “You are trouble, liessa.”

Something beautiful and powerful…

I couldn’t help but feel that way as I stood there. “A towel,” I said, chasing away some lingering drops of water just below my navel with my hand. “I was hoping you could hand me that towel.”

One side of his lips tipped up as his stare followed my hand. “Yeah.” He reached out without taking his eyes off me and grabbed a towel from the shelf. “I can help you.”

Heart thrumming once more, I stepped out of the tub. I tipped my head back as he approached. Ash said nothing as I reached for the towel.

“No,” he said, his chin lowering. “You asked for my help.”

Wordless, I remained standing as he drew the towel along my left arm and then my right, fully aware that he was staring down at me. Heaviness filled my breasts as he dragged the towel over my stomach, where my hand had been, and then over my hip. My skin felt as it had when I’d sunk into the steaming tub, except this heat invaded my blood and pooled.

“I’m not sure you will appreciate what I’m about to say. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t,” he said. “At least now, I know what you feel when I touch you.” He smoothed the towel up my stomach and between my breasts. The hair on his arm grazed the insides of my breasts, causing me to gasp. “That sound you make? It’s not forced.”

It wasn’t.

The tips of his fangs dragged over his lower lip as he moved the towel over the aching peaks. I jerked at the sharp swirl of pleasure I felt. “You don’t let me do this because it is your duty. What is expected of you.” He moved around me, swiping the towel over my back, careful to avoid the welts. “You allow me to touch you because you enjoy it.”

And that was true. It shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t enjoy any of this. I should remain removed from this part of my duty. Calculating. But there was no denying the tight tremor of anticipation coiling its way through me. There was no denying that I desperately wanted to feel. Like I had at the lake when I was just Sera, and he was simply Ash—just like he’d said earlier. “Are you reading my emotions?”

“I don’t need to.” The soft towel rasped over my lower back. “I can tell by the flush on your skin and how it…hardens in the most interesting places. The hitch of your breath, and the way your pulse quickens.”

“My pulse?” I whispered, legs strangely weak.

“Yes.” His cool breath danced over my bare shoulder. “I can feel that. It’s something that even a god can feel. It is a…predatory trait.”

I shivered in response to his words and where the towel now roamed, following the curve of my backside. My skin practically vibrated as that curl of anticipation coiled tighter, this time below my navel and then again even lower.

“You want my touch.” He guided the towel down my legs and then back up between them. His breath now touched my lower back. My eyes closed, but my mind provided the image of what I could not see—the Primal of Death kneeling behind me. “And that want?” His towel-covered hand slipped between my thighs, gliding over the throbbing flesh between them. Another ragged sound left me as his hand moved back and forth, gently rubbing. “It has nothing to do with any deal.”

It really didn’t.

“And what…what does that—?” I gasped as the cool skin of his arm brushed my heated, not even remotely dry flesh. “What does that change? You said you still have no need of a Consort.”

“I don’t.” He moved that damnable towel away from me, sliding it over my side and then between the crease of skin at the hip. He rose as the towel slipped between my thighs once more. I shuddered at the feel of the cold skin of his forearm pressing against my lower stomach. He moved the towel in soft, short circles. “But that doesn’t mean I am not interested in certain aspects of this union.” The cool tips of his fingers grazed my arm as he stepped closer to me, near enough that I felt his breeches-clad thighs against the backs of mine. “Just like that doesn’t mean you’re not interested in those very same aspects.”

The utter arrogance in his confident assumption irked me—and emboldened me. “There is very little about those aspects I find all that interesting.”

“You don’t?” The towel-covered hand continued moving slowly, tauntingly.

“No.” My hips jerked and then started to move, following his lead. His lead. Gods, it should concern me how quickly I’d lost control of this seduction. It would. But later.

“I think you lie again,” he murmured, a hint of a smile in his tone. “You’re as interested as you were when you begged me to kiss you at the lake.”

“Your memory is faulty. I gave you permission to kiss me.”

His fingers grazed the side of my breast as he moved his hand up and down my arm while moving the towel between my legs. “Or demanded that I kiss you.”

“Either way, that is not begging.”

“Semantics,” he murmured.

“It’s not.” I widened my stance, giving him better access.

“Really?”

“Really.” My eyes drifted open, and I looked down, past the puckered peaks of my breasts to where he had the towel snagged around the wrist of his hand.

“Lying so prettily, yet again.”

“I’m not lying. You’re just overconfident—” I gasped as he dropped the towel, and the cool length of his fingers replaced the soft material, pressing against my bundle of nerves. “Gods,” I breathed, immediately swamped by a riot of sensations as the tension curled so tightly, I felt breathless.

“No,” he murmured, his thumb swirling against that sensitive nub. “You are not interested at all in those certain aspects.” He sank a finger inside, parting the flesh.

I cried out, grasping his arm. I hadn’t forgotten the shocking contradiction of his coldness against my heat, but no memory did it justice. I shook.

“I remember how you showed me the way you like it. I play that over and over in my head. I could write a fucking tome on it by now.” His thumb continued moving. “When I’m fisting my cock, I remember how you held my hand against you at the lake.”

“Oh, gods,” I gasped. “Do you…do you really?”

“More times than I should admit.” His finger pumped in and out of me, bringing me closer and closer to the edge.

Suddenly, all that curling tension unfurled as fast and unexpectedly as a streak of lightning. It came on hard and fast and shockingly. If he hadn’t folded his other arm around my waist, there was a good chance the pounding waves of release would’ve taken my legs out from under me.

Ash’s fingers slowed, and only when my hips stopped twitching did he ease his hand from me. Several long moments passed as he simply held me there, our bodies only touching from the waist down. Neither of us spoke, and I had no idea what he was thinking, but as my body cooled, I realized that my attempt to seduce him had failed spectacularly. I had been the one seduced.

I sat on the bed, facing the closed balcony doors as the top of the robe I held closed pooled at my elbows.

Ash walked forward, unscrewing the lid on the jar he’d brought with him. “This will probably feel cold against your skin at first,” he said, sitting behind me. “And then it will have a numbing effect.”

I nodded, feeling off-kilter from what had transpired in the bathing chamber. He’d walked away before I even had a chance to regain control of the situation, the sign of his arousal a thick, hard ridge pressing against his breeches as he unhooked the robe and handed it to me. His restraint when it came to his pleasure was quite impressive.