“Enjoying your shower?” His voice was thick with smoke.

He knew exactly how much I was enjoying it, and the knowledge that he could scent my arousal enflamed me instead of embarrassing me. I nodded anyway. “Are you being responsible?”

“Of course.” His hand slipped between my thighs. “Just being thorough,” he said, swirling his thumb across the bundle of nerves there.

I gasped, rising on tiptoe. The ache twisted deeply as my lips parted. I moaned as my hips lifted to meet his hand.

He kissed my shoulder as he eased his hands away. My eyes snapped open, and I started to turn toward him. “I’m not finished,” he said before I could speak. “Your legs still need to be cleaned.”

My brows rose. “Seriously?”

His eyes were like pools of warm honey. “Very serious.”

I couldn’t care less about my legs. “Casteel—”

“I would never forgive myself if you didn’t find your first shower to be as effective as a bath,” he said, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “But you should sit. You’re looking a little…flushed.”

“I wonder why.”

He chuckled deeply, and I briefly considered hitting him but decided against it even though he truly deserved it for teasing me like this. I let him take me to the bench and sat, sucking in a soft breath of surprise as I realized a faint mist of water fell over the space.

Casteel added more soap to his hands and lowered himself to his knees before me. “Comfortable?”

I glanced down between his legs as I nodded. He wasn’t even remotely unaffected by this.

“Good. Your comfort is my utmost concern.” Water clung to his lashes as he curled one hand around an ankle. He grinned, his gaze rising to mine as he lifted my leg. My breath snagged as he placed my foot on his shoulder. The position left me…oh, gods, it left me utterly exposed to him.

A shaky breath left me as I watched him shift his gaze to my very center. A hint of fang appeared behind his parted lips, and everything inside me twisted most deliciously. My palms flattened against the smooth bench as he drew his soapy hands up my calf and then my thigh. I held my breath as his fingers reached the crease between my hip and thigh. He dragged his hand along the inside of my leg, his knuckles brushing my most sensitive area. Air punched out of my lungs.

Casteel’s hand stopped there as he met my gaze. “Still comfortable?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

That sensually cruel smile of his appeared, and tension gathered sweetly in my body. He dragged his hand back down as the mist of water continued wetting my skin. When he finished, he placed my foot back on the floor and then lifted my other leg. Cooler air rushed against my heated flesh. He did the same as before, sliding the soap between my toes, over the pad of my foot, and then up and up my leg. I tensed, nearly straining in anticipation, my heart pounding as his knuckles once more grazed my core. Drawing his hand back down the length of my leg, he wiped away the soap and bent his head, kissing the jagged scar on the inside of my knee.