“Relax, Auren.”
It’s like my body was waiting for that command, because as soon as he says it, I’m able to release the vise grip around my nervousness. Slowly, I let my body ease, my breasts pressing against this muscular back, my cheek resting on his shoulder. I silently revel in it. This feeling is still very new.
I’ve never felt so safe as I do when he’s holding me. When my body is against his. It’s not safety with strings attached, it’s not comfort with conditions. He holds me like he wants nothing else in return, and it’s so foreign that I still find myself in awe at how this can be for me.
“Your thoughts are awfully loud back there,” Slade says.
I glance up at the thinning lines of blue along the ceiling. “I’ll try to keep it down.”
“On the contrary, I want you to voice them.”
“I was thinking…that this is still very new. That there’s so much we don’t know about each other.”
He doesn’t answer right away, instead letting his thoughts percolate in the air. “That’s true,” he finally replies. “I suppose the two of us have learned to be very good at keeping secrets.”
I let out a little laugh. “That’s an understatement.”
“But I think that’s what I’m looking forward to the most,” he confesses, his voice sounding sensually low. “Peeling you back, layer by layer. Learning you inside and out.” His hands squeeze my thighs, and even though he’s not talking about anything sexual, my body still responds like he is, my mind imagining him peeling off the layers of my clothes and laying me bare in a completely different way. “I’m looking forward to every edge of you that you’ll reveal to me.”
I swallow thickly, trying and failing to keep the heat from gathering low in my belly. “I look forward to that with you too.”
His head turns to the side so he can look at me over his shoulder. “Good.”
The thought of baring myself to him—in more ways than one—always sends my pulse racing. It’s invigorating and vulnerable, so scary and yet so thrilling.
I don’t know if I’ve been avoiding him or he’s been avoiding me since I woke up, or maybe it’s a combination of both, but all of that just feels so complicated compared to this quiet moment in the dark.
“Where are we going?” I ask him again.
“Such impatience.”
I roll my eyes. “Like you’d let me lead you somewhere without telling you where it was.”
“Oh, Goldfinch, I’d follow you to the end of the world and tip right off the edge, all because of a crook of your finger.”
My stomach does a flip. “Oh.”
“Oh, indeed.”
He continues down the cave and takes a sharp left. “Almost there.”
Then I see what looks like a dead end but is actually an enclave blocked by a short rock wall. As soon as Slade slips around it, there’s a…smell.
My nose wrinkles. “Did you just…”
“Did I just what?”
Great Divine. It’s strong. I have to suppress the urge to plug my nose.
I clear my throat. “I just can’t help but notice that it smells. Badly. All of a sudden.”
A startled laugh barks out of him. “That smell isn’t coming from me, I assure you. Though I’m a bit worried that you think I could produce something so…pungent.”
“I was worried too, believe me.” The smell is consuming the air, but then I realize that the air is also wet, and there’s a steady bubbling sound getting louder and louder.
“Here’s the culprit,” Slade tells me, just as he rounds another turn, where the small cave opens up to a room full of steam. The humidity instantly sticks to my skin and clothes, and the soft sound of bubbling draws my eye to the pool of water just ahead. “I chose this cave to build the Grotto because it was big enough to have a house and a training area, but this private hot spring was a definite perk.”
“Is this the only one?”
“In here, yes. But there are others. The villagers who live here have a couple past the pavilion, inside the mountain there. It’s much larger and has a couple smaller ones split away for more privacy.”
“Amazing,” I say, because while the pool of water is probably only just as long as Slade’s bed, everything about this enclave is cozy and intimate. I’ve gotten so used to the constant cold air that I practically melt into this steamy warmth.
As soon as Slade sets me down, I look around the softly glowing space. “It’s so pretty.” The veins of fluorescence running around the slightly domed walls and ceiling are reflected back in the water beneath, the blue clinging to the foggy air.