She heard his jeans buttons slipping free, louder than any sound should be in a forest. Maybe she only imagined the sound because she could see that his hands were at his waist.
“Would you turn around?” She stood in the hot water, it was hip high, so the only part of her that was exposed was from her waist up.
Silently, he turned, gaze on her body seeming as tangible as a touch. He watched her as he finished unfastening his jeans and slid them to the ground.
“Tell me I’m not selfish?” she half-whispered, half begged.
“You aren’t.” He smiled so that she couldn’t doubt him, even if he could lie. “Wanting isn’t selfish.”
“What if I want you to keep stripping? I still have my--”
“Not selfish.” He removed the last piece of clothing, standing naked before her. “Shall I stay right here, Katherine? Let you have both your look and your space?”
She swallowed. Nothing had prepared her for Urian, no amount of internet surfing or movies that she could only watch in the dark with her door locked and headphones on. He was there, naked and beautiful, and clearly as excited as she felt.
“What do you want, Katherine?” He trailed a hand over his stomach and downward, stopping just shy of touching himself. “Do you want me to stand here naked and silent? Do you want to watch me touch—”
“Join me in the spring.”
In a sliver of a moment, he was slipping into the hot water, hiding half his body from her gaze, but she couldn’t cross every line at once. Watching him touch himself sounded more tempting than anything ought to be, but it also sounded like it might be more than she thought any “first date” ought to be.
“What thoughts cloud your eyes?” he asked.
“Embarrassment . . .?” she admitted.
And Urian frowned. “Why? For liking the look of me? For wanting to look? For letting me see your lovely skin? For driving me mad with the urge to touch you?”
“No. Maybe? I don’t even know. We just met.” She sunk deeper into the water, so only the tops of her shoulders were exposed. “I don’t understand. I’ve met so many people in so many states, and I’ve never flashed my breasts atanyof them.”
“Poor things. They ought to weep at their loss,” Urian murmured. “I feel blessed.”
Katherine laughed. “Weirdo.”
He shrugged, making even that look sexy. “We aren’t mortals, Katherine. Never forget that. But . . . we aren’t simply fey either.Gancanaghsare rare. A female one? I’ve never even heard whispers of such a thing.”
“But . . . I don’t want to be . . .” She struggled to find the words.
A lifetime of mortal-only life was hard to overcome in a moment. Worse still, she couldn’t stop hearing her mother’s warnings that the fey were dangerous, that she might be dangerous, that a part of what she was could only ever be poison.
“Be what?”
“I’m not even sure,” she admitted. “I’m dangerous. Touching me isdeadly.”
“Not to me.” Urian stayed at a distance, not exactly on the opposite side of the pool, but not close enough to touch, not crowding her.
“You’redangerous,” she objected.
“Not to you.” He smiled at her. “In all the world, Katherine, I’ve never met anyone else who was less in danger from me. You are what I am. If there is anything dangerous here, it’s to both of us equally.”
She nodded.
“And Katherine?”
She lifted her gaze to him.
“Nothing you want of me is a reason for embarrassment.” He kept his voice pitched low. “I’ve spent over a century in this world. I’ve done things . . . tried things . . . and they are far more wicked than letting a beautiful woman look at my body.”
“What if I want to do more than look?” she whispered, looking down in embarrassment at how bold she was being, and even though she stayed far away from him, she could tell by the shadows in his eyes that he heard each word clearly.