Page 42

The carved ridges of his abs flexed inches from my face as his fingers worked the bar through the ends of the ratty mess. “You can rinse.”

Sweet hell, the hoarseness in his voice and the hooded glaze in his eyes produced a tingly throb between my legs.

Squatting, I dipped beneath the surface and shook out the bubbles. When I rose before him, his gaze lowered. The turquoise necklace he’d given me hung between my breasts, but his eyes were fixed on the C-shaped scar that curved from my collarbone to beneath my boob. His lips bowed down at the corners.

Not this again. He had stopped the mastectomy from being completed, but he blamed himself for not killing my attacker before the dissection began. For that reason alone, I resented the ugly thing.

“If this scar wasn’t here,” I said softly, “where would your eyes be?”

His head snapped up, mouth set in a grim line. Suds floated along the waistband of his narrow hips, his white-knuckled grip around the soap creating more bubbles.

I grinned. “Taking off those jeans will be fun.”

The soap bar plunged into the water between us.

I eyed him through my lashes, and man oh man, that scowl. He was so volatile, standoffish, very much the loner in the group. No wonder his Lakota name was Lone Eagle. But despite his coarse personality, his body was a work of art, every sculpted edge polished and honed with care. From the lean cut of his waist to the broad stretch of his shoulders, corded muscles sloped and flared over a canvas of strength. And those indentions that dipped low on his hips served as a teasing road map to the mystery he refused to expose.

My face heated. I’d never seen him without pants, never felt even a nudge of an erection, but I bet his cock was just as hard and intimidating as the rest of him.

Shit, I was staring. “I just meant… Wet jeans are, you know, heavy, sticky?” Awkward.

He cleared his throat and paddled the water for the runaway soap. “I’m multitasking. Laundry and bath. Two birds…” His hand rose, one soap secured.

My bloody clothes scattered the shore. Wish I’d thought of that.

He jerked his chin in the direction of his pack. “I brought you fresh clothes.”

Of course he did, always looking after me. As he stood there with water beading on his flat stomach, I wanted to catch those drips with my tongue, follow the rivulets beneath the surface, and thank him intimately.

The hardness in his glare warned me off. Seriously, as an experienced stalker…err, tracker, he was as deadly with those looks as he was with the bow.

I snatched the soap from his hand. “Your turn.”

To my surprise, he unstrapped his bow and quiver and sank to his knees. Holding the weapon to the side, he wet his hair then stared up at me expectantly. The way the moonlight glanced off the coppery pools of his eyes… Fuck, he was killing me.

He didn’t look at my boobs, which were right there, inches from his face. But we were both aware of my nudity, pretending to ignore the heat stirring the small sliver of air between our bodies.

His distance had become so ingrained, I felt knocked off my axis. My hands actually shook as I pushed the sudsy soap through his hair. The strands fell around my fingers in thick, heavy, shockingly soft clumps.

I’d done this often for Roark and Michio. But Roark’s hair was a tangle of dreads and braids, and Michio kept his short, leaving little to hold onto.

A hum rumbled from Jesse’s chest. Or was that a moan?

I massaged his scalp, smoothed out the knots, and lost track of time, discovering, giving, and…closing the distance. When his forehead brushed the skin between my breasts, he jerked away, ducked his head, and rinsed.

I chewed my lip, wondering if it would always be this strained between us. The impact of his visions returned with a vengeance, pushing against my chest and weighing down my shoulders.

He stood to his full height, slipped the bow and arrows over his back, and plucked the soap from my grip. I expected him to haul me out of the pond and return to business as usual. We needed to check on Michio and the nymph and give the others a chance to bathe.

But he didn’t move. His hair, which normally stuck up in finger-raked spikes, now hung in wet strands across his forehead. His nostrils flared with a deep breath, and his lips bounced between a grimace and a smirk. He seemed to be wrestling with something.

My hand reached up of its own accord and traced the ridges of his chest.

His muscles bunched beneath my fingers. Again, he didn’t push me away. He wanted affection, needed it. What would he do if I demanded we pick up where we left off in France and move beyond that first and only kiss?