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Chapter Twenty

Oskar

One minute he was balanced precariously on grass-bordered shale; the next, the world was tilting at a sharp angle and he was coughing up water.

Why, that little—

Oskar righted himself, sputtering. Guinevere giggled as she treaded water by his side, wet and naked, so gloriously naked beneath the neck-deep, rippling turquoise surface. He desperately glued his eyes to her face, refusing to let them travel any lower.

She blatantly found his predicament hilarious, and a man’s pride could take only so much. It was pettiness that spurred him into peeling off his wet tunic and tossing it onto the banks. Followed by his boots, his trousers, his underwear.

Her laughter died at some point during all this.

She was studying him with eyes so big and violet beneath heaps of wet silver-blond hair.

Unlike him, she wasn’t doing a great job of keeping her gaze at a decorous level.

He remembered how responsive she’d been when he kissed her in the swamp, and if the blood in his veins hadn’t already been rushing south at the mere fact that she wasn’t wearing any clothes, it was certainly doing so now. With haste.

She finally looked at his face long enough to see the menace there, and her lips quirked against another giggle as she started backing away.

Oskar followed, padding on the lake bed until it dipped far below his feet. “I can put up with a lot of things for you, Gwen,” he said softly, “but I’m not putting up with this. ”

She burst out laughing. Again. Ah, but he sort of missed those first few hours when she’d been afraid of him.

For her impudence, he sliced his arms through the water, sending a wave her way.

It hit her and she shrieked, vengefully splashing him back before swimming toward the waterfalls, as quick as a fish.

The soap that had been pried from his grasp during his ignominious plunge into the lake now bobbed at the periphery of his vision, a pink slab, roughly flower-shaped.

He retrieved it before giving chase to Guinevere—a chase that did not last long, for she reached the lowermost fall, which was as good as a dead end.

She stopped swimming and spun around, the turquoise currents shifting over her copper skin, and she faced him with a wide smile, breathless with mischief.

The lake had shallowed again. Oskar’s bare feet touched lightly over smooth rock as he advanced on his quarry. He held up the soap with what he hoped was a threatening glint in his eye. “Time to finish what you started, princess.”

“Have mercy,” Guinevere not-so-earnestly implored him, almost doubled over from the force of the mirth that shook her slim shoulders.

The last of whatever annoyance Oskar might have felt due to his unexpected swim drained away.

It had never stood a chance. Gone was the painfully timid lady he’d rescued from the bandits.

In her place was a playful woodland nymph, her smooth brown skin glowing against the backdrop of layers of waterfalls, her eyes a deep, deep amethyst in this autumn light.

This part of the lake came up a little past her waist, only sections of her pale, drenched hair covering her breasts.

She was temptation incarnate, so vibrant, so filled with joy at being alive.

He couldn’t look at her for long without a peculiar ache settling within his rib cage.

But neither could he bring himself to look away.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, and he had to wonder at his own voice, that low, gravelly thing that was nearly inaudible beneath the rapids.

Guinevere hesitated only for a moment. Only long enough to swallow once, a graceful rippling amidst the water droplets that dotted her throat.

Then she waded toward him slowly, the lake surface sloshing and the waterfalls cascading and the birds singing, and how could everything else be movement when Oskar’s inner world had gone so still?

This is harmless, he fiercely but silently insisted as she came to a stop in front of him.

The lies that people told themselves. His hands settled on her shoulders, carefully turning her around.

He gathered her pale hair in his fist and worked the soap through it with as much gentleness as he could manage, rubbing it into her scalp and then combing the rose-scented lather through the silken strands.

He tried not to glance down her front, at her now uncovered chest—gods knew that he tried—but he was so much taller than her, and it was impossible to not catch a glimpse here and there.

Her breasts looked as magnificent as they’d felt in his hands, perky and full, with dusky pink nipples that begged to be taken into his mouth.

He’d thought that he was safe with his lower half submerged in cool water, but a certain appendage refused to succumb to environmental awareness.

It twitched and, much to his horror, it rose, and he took a small, panicked step back so that she wouldn’t feel it against her buttocks.

“All right?” she hummed.

“Yes.” He coughed. “It’s slippery here, that’s all.”

“Be careful, Oskar.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” he muttered.

He was relieved when the time came to splay her hair down her front again, hiding those maddeningly perfect breasts, but it was a relief that didn’t last long.

Because running the soap down her back, feeling all that slick skin, was both a gift and a slow torture, not helped in the least by her little shivers of delight and the contented sounds she made.

“Ooh, that feels so good,” she breathed out as his thumbs traced the curve of her spine.

Gods help me. Oskar gritted his teeth. He was so hard that it hurt.

Give me strength. He hurried through the rest of his task, scrubbing the lingering salve from her arms and neck, already pondering the logistics of retreating behind the nearby shrubbery to take himself in hand without her knowing.

He knew that he would remember how her body felt beneath his fingers for the rest of his life.

That tiny waist, those delicate elbows, those elegant shoulder blades, all that soft, soft skin—he would relive every bit of her in his dreams until his last breath.

But that was a concern for the future. For now, right now, every inch of him was clamoring for release. The sheer need fogged up his mind, leaving room for only the faintest glimmer of common sense: he had to stop touching her.

“All done,” he announced, his arms falling away from her form.

There it was once more, Guinevere’s hesitation. Oskar saw it in the way her shoulders tensed, coppery and dimpled against the falls. Some kind of decision seemed to unfold throughout her entire being, and finally that lovely spine straightened in determination.

Right before she backed into him, leaning all those soft curves against his frame.

“You missed a spot.” She sounded bashful yet fierce at the same time. As though bashfulness waved a battle flag. She smelled like roses. “Could you wash my front, too, Oskar? Please?”