It worked surprisingly well. The shower was tiled, I guess because the spray would have turned the thing into a mudslide every time you tried to bathe otherwise, and they were somehow still cool. They made a nice contrast with the water, and felt good against my too hot skin when I rested my aching head on them.
I liked this shower, I decided.
I might just live in here a while.
And then somebody joined me.
I looked blearily over my shoulder. “They let you out of jail already?”
“Wasn’t in jail,” Pritkin said. “I was ‘briefly detained’.”
“Ah.” It wasn’t a quippy comeback, but in my defense, a naked war mage pressed up against your back is quite a distraction.
That was even more true when he commandeered the washcloth, and began sliding a soapy rag all over my battered body. The glamourie still covered my face, but the rest of me wasn’t looking so hot right now. I expected a lecture about that, but didn’t get one. I didn’t get any conversation at all, in fact, which was nice.
Really nice, I thought, as the rag dipped between my legs.
But nothing happened except for me getting clean. And then rubbed down with a big, somewhat scratchy towel, because war mages don’t believe in luxuries. Sometimes, I’d swear they were an order of monks!
Or maybe not, I thought, turning around. And noting that somebody was feeling frisky. I tried to lend a hand, only to have my wrist caught.
“Not a chance.”
I looked up into still burning green eyes, and felt confused. A half incubus—especially one deprived of sex by the demon high council for something like a century—did not turn down a naked, freshly scrubbed, warm and willing partner. Unless it was this half incubus.
He frog marched me over to the messy bed instead, and pushed me down, face-first.
Okay, I thought, cheering up; this could work.
Only to find out that it was time for first aid. Very stinky first aid, in the form of some foul smelling grayish-green goop that got slathered all over every cut, abrasion, and tiny bruise he could find. Including one that I’d gotten horsing around with the girls the other day, and which had nothing to do with dark mages or impromptu ski trips through the bowels of HQ.
I sighed. This was not sexy. “This is not sexy,” I told Pritkin.
“You’re not up to sexy.”
“How do you know?”
“Incubus.”
Hard to argue with that.
But I tried, anyway. “Maybe we could work up to it?”
“How about this?” he said, and bent low, until his body was flush with mine and his hot breath was ruffling the damp curls at the base of my neck.
“That’s a good start,” I mumbled into the pillow. “Now talk dirty to me.”
“A new pizza place just opened in the crossroads.”
“Pizza?” I heard my stomach rumble encouragement. I turned my head to the side. “What kind of pizza?”
“Deep. Very deep. Thick and meaty—”
“How thick?”
“As thick as you can handle.”
“I can handle a lot.”