Page 105 of Blood Day

I couldn’t picture it at all. It made no sense. Why would the superior beings hide?

Master Cedric kissed my temple, his palm rubbing my arm as he held me close. It was such a strange sensation to be held like this, especially by a being as powerful as him.

Vampires and lycans never exuded care or affection. Sensuality and hunger, yes. But nothing like this.

I struggled to correlate this version of Master Cedric to the one who used to lead my fighting courses. To the one who had failed me without remorse.

It was like his time away had changed him.

Yet he’d been just as hard on me earlier during the course exercise. So perhaps not. Perhaps I was just seeing a new layer of his personality.

He’d carried me after I’d been beaten in his class. He’d cured me, too.

Maybe it really was him after all.

Or maybe this was just another manipulation meant to break me.

I sighed, tired from all the thinking and processing of details. I just wanted to exist for a moment without too much thought. To escape to an oblivion where I could merely feel without worrying about anything else.

He’d offered me that escape in the form of a game.

“I want to play,” I whispered, my head rotating back to survey his stunning features. “I want to play your new game.”

Master Cedric’s thighs tensed beneath me as his lips curled. “All right.”

He didn’t immediately move, his dark gaze holding mine for a long moment. His irises gave nothing away, his expression unreadable apart from the small grin flirting with his mouth.

That slight smile made him even more handsome, almost cruelly so. His jawline and cheekbones were flawless and symmetrical, and his eyes were dusted with long black lashes.

So beautiful.

And he’d given me permission to touch him. To explore him. To bathe him like he had me.

I want that,I thought, my blood heating with the notion.I want to touch him.

My courses had prepared me for it.

But Six was nothing like Master Cedric—a fact that didn’t intimidate me so much as excite me.

I should be afraid.

I should be running away in search of a towel.

However, I couldn’t move. I wanted to play his game.

“Now you’re ready to play,” he whispered, lifting me off of him and setting me on my feet.

I nearly swayed, more from the loss of contact than my previous dizziness, but his hands caught my hips as he stood behind me. Then he slowly maneuvered me beneath the showerheads again.

“The sponge is there,” he said against my ear as he pointed at the item in question. “The soaps are here.” His hand moved to gesture at the bottles. “I’ll be right over there.” He indicated the wall he’d been against minutes ago. “The game ends when you leave the shower.”

He pressed a kiss to my temple and released me.

Then he stepped over to the marble slab and placed his palms against the wall once more.

I swallowed, my gaze running over his flawless physique to his muscular ass.I get to touch that.

My insides warmed at the thought, my hands already moving toward the sponge. It wasn’t like the ones I used in my service classes. This was soft and gauzy rather than tough and firm.