Her heart beat slowly at first, then picked up speed. The stone table in the center of the room was covered in a layer of blankets that were folded in half to lie across the middle, overhanging each side. Food was laid out over one end: a collection of fruits and berries of differing shapes and sizes, and more fish. Candles sat on the other end.
She heard footsteps to her right and Demetrius appeared at the bottom of the steps, holding two plastic buckets in each hand.
His face lit when he saw her, a reaction that warmed her deep inside. “You’re awake.”
She couldn’t stop the smile on her lips, didn’t even try. “I must have heard you coming down.” She motioned to the room. “What is all this?”
“Oh.” He looked toward the middle of the room, and she wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw his cheeks turn just the slightest shade of pink. “Trickery, really.” He set the buckets on the end of the table and waved his hand through a nearby trio of candles. The image flickered and faded as his arm moved through, then solidified again when he was gone. He shrugged. “Optical illusion.”
Amazed, she rose on limbs weaker than she wanted to admit and crossed to him, running her hand through the same space he just had. The candles flickered again and then the image reformed. “You can cast illusions? Wow.” She looked up at him. “Can you teach me how to do that?”
He smirked, that easy grin he’d shown her yesterday at the beach, the same one that transformed his face from intimidating to gorgeous in the span of a second. “Party tricks are one of my many talents. I can’t cast a protection spell worth shit, but if you need candles, I’m your guy.”
He reached for the fruit, but her hand on his forearm stopped him. She waited until his eyes ran back to her before she said, “I think you have a lot of talents. And I know without them, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Something soft flickered behind his eyes. Something she wanted to reach out and hold on to forever. But he didn’t close the distance between them, and this time she wasn’t going to make the first move. He’d brought her back here instead of insisting they go home to Argolea. For tonight, at least, she was going to be patient and see where this went.
He cleared his throat and reached for the food again. “You should eat.”
He set a plastic plate of fruit and fish in front of her. She tried not to curl her lip in disgust but knew she wasn’t successful when he chuckled at her side. “When you get home, you can have whatever you want. Here.” His big hands slid around her waist and he lifted her to sit on the table with ease. Warmth gathered beneath his hands and inched its way up and down her rib cage. But his touch was gone way too soon, and he put the plate in her lap and stepped back before she could think of something to say to stop him. “What will you ask the cooks to make for you when you get back?”
She fingered an apple slice on the plate. “A steak. A nice big juicy one.” As she sank her teeth into the apple and chewed, she imagined a rib eye instead. “With Cookie’s good garlic mashed potatoes and a side of asparagus. And chocolate cake for dessert.” She glanced his way. “What will you ask for?”
His lopsided grin faded as she ate. With one arm braced against the table, he looked down at his own food. “I don’t know.”
A strange foreboding trickled through her chest. What wasn’t he telling her?
He ate a few bites, and when he noticed she wasn’t eating much herself, took her plate and set it to the side. Neither of them, obviously, had much of an appetite. Her eyes followed as he moved around the table. “Lie back.”
She glanced down at the blankets beneath her. “Why?”
He lifted the buckets he’d brought in with him when she awakened and said, “I thought you might want to wash your hair. It’s too late to head down to the river, but I heated some water upstairs in case you wanted to clean up.”
Her heart thumped in her chest. Candlelight flickered over his bare chest and the angles and planes of his muscular body. He was wearing the same low-slung black pants he’d worn for days, frayed at the edges and ripped in the knees, but he was no longer sweaty and dusty, as he’d been earlier. He’d obviously dunked himself in the river when she was asleep, and then he’d brought more water back here for her.
Tingles erupted in her breasts, in her abdomen, in her thighs as she nodded and swallowed back a rush of emotions. “I…I would. Thank you.”
“Lie back then. And scoot toward the end of the table.”
She did as he said, realizing the blankets were positioned to soften the hard surface. When her feet were hanging off one end and her head off the other, she looked up to see him peering down at her with an intense expression she couldn’t name.
“Close your eyes.”
Warm water flowed over her grimy hair, dripped down to the stone floor at his feet. She closed her eyes as he poured liquid over every strand, then relaxed into his touch as he began to massage suds into her scalp.
“Where did you get shampoo?”
“Same place I found the toothpaste.”
She smiled. “Mm.”
“Like that?”
Yeah, she liked it. So much. His hands were like heaven, rubbing, touching, massaging, and every one of her muscles relaxed as he worked. He poured more water over her hair to rinse away the lather, then carefully dried her short locks with an extra blanket.
“How did you heat the water?” she asked. “All we have are plastic buckets.”
“Achilles’s helmet is metal.”
Her eyes grew wide. “You heated water in his helmet?”
“I don’t think he’s using it. Wish I hadn’t?”
No, she wished that helmet was the size of a hot tub so she could climb into it with him and he could work his magic fingers over the rest of her body.
He set the damp blanket on the table at her side and used his fingers to comb the tangles from her wet hair. Then he slid his hands under her shoulders and pushed her up to sitting.
She brushed the wet hair back from her face and tried to think of something to say. His hands tugging at the hem of her filthy tank top stopped all thought. “Lift your arms.”
Her heart picked up speed but she did as he asked. The tank slid up over her arms and dropped to the ground out of sight. Water sloshed behind her. Anticipation curled in her stomach. Then his hand landed gently on her bare shoulder, followed by a warm damp rag running across her back.
A sponge bath. He was giving her a sponge bath. The erotic implications of that puckered her nipples and arched her back.
“Too hot?”
“No, no. It’s fine.” More than fine. Better than fine. It was…paradise. She closed her eyes as he dragged the rag over her shoulders, down her spine, to the curve of her lower back and up again. Warmth gathered in her center, spread lower until she ached.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said softly.
“Hm?” He slid the rag down her neck, over her left arm. Water dribbled down to her fingers.
“What happened to your mother? We’d been told her party was ambushed.”
Her eyes floated open to focus on a candle on the floor twenty feet away. He continued washing her arms, her back, her sides as her mind drifted. She knew what the Argonauts had been told, what everyone had been told. Thirty years ago, before the war with the daemons had picked up in intensity, her mother had taken a group of chaperones—soldiers from the Executive Guard and her own personal assistants—into the human realm for a “mini-vacation.” A shopping trip, her father had called it. Andromeda had been as fascinated by human culture as the king, and every now and then he’d allowed her to cross over, so long as she was well protected. While there, they’d been overrun by a pack of daemons, and before the Argonauts had even been alerted, it was over. None had survived. But that wasn’t what had really happened. That was simply the lie her father had told to cover up the truth.