Sweaty from their trek and the feelings that refused to fade, Gwen was damn tempted to dive right in, but before she could, Asher stripped off his shoes and socks, his hands going to the fly of his jeans.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He didn’t face her, but she could hear the rare teasing smile in his voice. “Bathing.”
He was going to bathe. Right now? In front of her?
Sure. No big deal. She was a fully grown adult. Most supernatural creatures didn’t have hang-ups about nudity the way humans did. She could handle this. He’d go first, then she’d take a turn. They could draw their drinking water upstream when they were done.
Asher dropped his pants, leaving him in nothing but black boxer-briefs, which showed off the muscles of his thighs as he waded into the water. Then he turned to face her, a playful glint in his eyes she hadn’t seen in a long time. Sure enough, next came the shirt.
Damn.
There went the small amount of control she’d wrangled for herself over the course of their trek. Gone in an instant.
With an eye roll, she walked to a flat rock at the edge of the water. A second later, a splash told her he was fully submerged now. By the time she’d taken off her sock and shoes, and rolled up her pants to dangle her legs, she figured it was safe for her to look.
A horrible idea, it turned out.
A flash of movement under the surface caught her eye a second before Asher came up out of the water, facing her, lifting his hands to slick back his dark hair, his muscles rippling with the movement.
Now that was just freaking unfair.
It was like nature was trying to highlight all the hotness she’d been missing all this time. Hotness that had just been inside of her.
Oh. My. Gods.
Heat flared in her cheeks yet again.
Which was when Asher opened his eyes and caught her staring. His gaze locked in on her, and for once she couldn’t make out what he was thinking.
But she couldn’t look away, her chest growing tighter by the second.
Was he—
Asher swam toward her. “Why aren’t you coming in?”
She nearly shook her head. No, it couldn’t be.
Her oh-so-serious dragon wasn’t trying to…tease her, play with her?
Was he?
He’s not your dragon, Gwendolyn Moonsoar. He’s not your anything, she tried to remind herself. But that thought was feeling more and more flimsy by the second…considering the way he was looking at her.
She shrugged, trying to play it cool while her face was probably still flaming red. Maybe he’d put that down to their trek? “I’ll wait until you’re done.”
A frown flitted across his features, far more familiar and comfortable than his teasing, but then he swam forward until he could stand in front of her. “You don’t have to wait. There’s plenty of room.”
Gwen opened her mouth to wave him off with something vague only to get a little lost in the deep navy of his eyes. “I…don’t think that would be a good idea,” she found herself saying.
His jaw tightened visibly. “I would never—”
Without thinking, she pressed a single finger against his lips and they both sort of froze at the contact. Gwen swallowed and pulled away slowly.
“I know,” she whispered. “You’re not the one I don’t trust.”
Asher’s brows drew together, stopped, then crept back up as her meaning sank in that she was the problem here. Her and all her discombobulated feelings.
That glint from a moment ago reignited in his eyes, only up close it was even more potent, more dangerous. “Do you need rescuing?” he asked, his voice dropping lower.
Oh my gods.
The memory of their first kiss, the first time he’d said those words to her, swirled and blended with this one, and excited butterflies hit her insides full force. But she couldn’t.
They couldn’t. Could they?
What she wanted to say was, “From you?” like she had back then. Instead, she just shook her head and went to stand up, to put distance between them.
Only Asher grabbed her hand, his hold gentle as she stilled.
“I’ve missed you, Gwen,” he said softly. “I want you to know that.”
A lump of emotion and longing formed inside her throat.
Was he trying to make this a thousand times harder for her? More confusing? More need-inducing?
When she didn’t say anything but she also didn’t leave, he slowly moved closer, right up against her rock, so that he was standing between her dangling legs. He paused there. “I really want to kiss you, and not just in a dream, but I won’t if you say no, or if you need rescuing for real.”
This close, right in her space where she could feel the natural warmth of a dragon shifter radiating from his skin, feel his breath against her cheek…gods, he was temptation.
Gwen forced her gaze away, dropping it to her lap. It didn’t help. She still wanted to kiss him. “I—”
She shifted her gaze to the left and paused, then peered closer at his side.
What the—?
Then she choked.
Asher jerked to follow her gaze, searching the water around him for some threat maybe. “What’s wrong?”
She stared at him with her mouth ajar for enough time that he stopped searching for danger to bracket her face with his hands, his expression growing harder with concern. “Gwen—”
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