Page 43 of Hot Zone

She stepped into the shadows beneath the nearest tree and turned her back to Rustam before she stripped. Then she stuck a toe into the water, sighing in delight. It wasn’t scalding, but it was plenty warm enough to soothe away the day’s aches and pains.

She waded in, sighing as the steaming water embraced her foot, then her calf. She sat down, groaning in nearly orgasmic pleasure as the water went to work on her aches and pains.

Rustam’s voice came out of the very shadows where she’d just shed her clothes, and she started violently, throwing her arms across her breasts. “I love it when you make that sound.”

Good Lord. She hadn’t heard him move, let alone seen his bulky approach. Man, he was quiet! She peered into the darkness, barely able to make out his broad shoulders.

But then he stepped forward into a shaft of faint starlight, dangling a small cloth bag from his finger. “Soap?”

“You are a prince among men.”

He laughed quietly. “You have no idea.”

As he retreated back into the shadows, she tipped out the bar of soap , which was scented with rosemary and something sweet and floral, maybe orange blossoms. It was heavenly. She leaned back, wetting her hair. She rubbed the soap vigorously between her hands and then worked the lather into her locks. She smoothed it over her skin, savoring its slippery glide.

“Rinse?”

She jumped again. Jeez. He was right behind her. “Uh, sure.” This time she stopped herself from covering her breasts. It was a brazen invitation, but they were both adults.

He held a large cloth in his hand. She watched over her shoulder as he cleverly fashioned it into a rough bucket. He scooped up water and murmured, “Lean your head back and close your eyes.”

She obeyed, and he poured a torrent of warm water over her.

“Again, please,” she murmured.

There was something incredibly sensual about bathing in front of him like this. The water danced over her skin like a thousand shimmering diamonds, its warmth and glide erotic. She threw her head back, and cool air wafted across her breasts. And somehow, all was as it should be. Rustam was her man, and she was his woman.

Except they hadn’t established either of those assumptions as fact, and she shouldn’t get involved with him at all. She was only going to be here as long as it took her to recover the Karanovo medallion fragment, and then she was going home. To a home so far away he couldn’t possibly go with her. And she was not crazy about the idea of staying in this time and place for the rest of her life.

But then a wave of soothing emotion washed over her. Apparently, he’d sensed her disquiet and had taken steps to calm her.

“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured.

Perhaps he mistook her apprehension for fear of him. She corrected quickly, “It never crossed my mind to worry that you would.”

He continued to pour water over her until her hair squeaked cleanly between her fingers. Then she stood up and he slowly rinsed her entire body with a warm cascade that did nothing to cool the ardor brimming within her. She turned around to face him so he could rinse her front. And she risked opening her eyes to peek at him.

She’d expected lust in his gaze. But she was staggered to see something else entirely.

Reverence. Awe, even.

She was a decent-looking woman, but Venus de Milo she was not. Certainly, after the legions of gorgeous women she’d seen for herself at the Persian court, he was immune to feminine beauty.

She muttered, “Hey, I’m not that attractive.”

Almost absently, he replied, “You do not see what I see. Your spirit. It’s a light that dances across your skin like all the stars in the heavens. You…dazzle me. I have never seen another woman like you in all my travels. Not among my people, not among yours—” He broke off abruptly.

She glanced down at herself and saw only pale skin starting to form goose bumps as the air cooled her wet body.

She frowned. “I wish I could see what you see.”

“Maybe you can,” he murmured, sounding almost surprised at his own words. He took a step closer. “Later. After…”

Her breath caught.

He raised his hands, unfolding a length of white cloth. She stood quietly as he dried her off with the linen. The not-quite-smooth feel of it sliding across her skin wasn’t sexual in any way, nor was how he lightly toweled her hair dry.

But the very fact that he was tending to her bath was so unbearably erotic she could hardly walk when he murmured that she should return to the fire to warm up.

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