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I DOZED IN THE seat after the medicine took hold, magically settling my stomach. An odd sound had me blinking. Reyfyre had shut off the engine and the rattle of chains nearly stopped my heart. I snapped my gaze to Reyfyre.
“It’s just the anchor.” He took hold of my upper arm and helped me from the chair. “Let me show you the living quarters and then we can crawl into the bed and get some sleep,” he said through a yawn. His eyes carried the dark circles of the sleep-deprived.
My brain balked at his words, but I was too tired to argue. Besides, we had shared sleeping bags on the tundra. But it still left me unbalanced. Especially after the flare of heat his words had caused in me earlier in the day.
He grabbed the gun and swords, tucking them under his arms, and then swept up all the food contents I had organized on the table. “Those pots are probably good,” he said. “Grab them for me. I have dish soap downstairs and I’ll make sure they are sanitized after I get some sleep.”
I followed him down the stairs. When we entered the living quarters, as he called it, I paused on the stairs, scanning the rich wood and granite that sparkled under the lights. It was almost as big as the cottage living area and had two seating areas, one in the middle with a table and one aft. The bedroom took up most of the forward space beyond the sitting area.
“Pots go in the sink.” He nodded with his chin and then set the food on the table before he propped the gun and swords on the inside wall of the bedroom. He turned to me, pointing at a door to the left of the bedroom. “Bathroom.” And then he pointed to the opposite side of the boat at another door. “Shower.” Then his finger slashed to me, along with a warning tilt of his eyebrow. “But you cannot take your normally excessively long shower, otherwise you will deplete our water supply. Understand?”
I stared at the shower door and nodded, stepping toward the room.
“I get the shower first.” The snap in his voice was punctuated by him peeling his boots off and setting them on the floor in the bedroom. He opened one of the closet doors and pulled out a pair of boxers. “When I’m done, you can clean up and if you want a night shirt, have at it.” He waved at his closet, which had neat piles of various clothes on each shelf, and then disappeared into the shower.
I turned and stumbled upstairs to grab my pile of clothes and bring them down to the living area and peeled off my boots, setting them aside near the stairs. Then I commandeered an empty drawer I found in the bedroom for my clothing.
I rummaged through Reyfyre’s closet and found a soft blue tank top that would probably reach my knees. I took that and a pair of my underwear and crossed to the couch, waiting for my turn to wash off the grime from the last month of travel.
Reyfyre’s dirty clothes hung on the hook next to the shower door and I sighed. The only view I’d ever had of his bare chest was the night of the wolverine incident. And that was too brief. I could definitely get used to seeing more skin from Reyfyre.
I let out a soft chuckle. I must be tired if my brain went to objectifying the man. That’s exactly what Thor did to me on Asgard, and I hated it. I couldn’t start doing that to Reyfyre. Not when it had sent uncomfortable chills through me anytime that asshole leered at me.
The shower went off.
I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, giving Reyfyre some privacy as he stepped out of the bathroom.
“There’s a hamper in the bathroom. You can put your dirty clothing there and we’ll find a laundromat to wash them once we get to the city. You’ll find a clean towel on the hook of the door. That’s also where you should hang your clean clothing, so they don’t get wet.”
“Thanks.” I stood, collecting my things. By the time I turned toward the shower, he had already crawled under the covers on the right side of the bed.
“Good night,” he murmured just before his eyes closed.
I stepped into the shower and immediately understood why he hung his clothing up outside. The stall was the entire room, with a towel hooked on the door. Soap and shampoo sat on a small shelf and the rest of the walls were smooth, without breaks. The floor had a grate in it where the water drained.
I hung the shirt and underwear up on the hook under the towel and then stripped. I tossed the dirty clothing onto the floor outside of the shower and then turned on the water. Two months of grime sloughed off my body, and I scrubbed my skin and washed my hair twice before I shut the water off. I could have stood there for another hour, but his warning stuck with me, especially considering I had been the one to catalog what we had left, and we were low on water bottles.
I dried my body with the towel and slid on the underwear and shirt before I wrapped the towel around my hair. When I left the shower, I picked up the dirty laundry and headed into the bathroom to put it in the hamper and see whether Reyfyre had a brush or comb to untangle the knots in my hair.
Thankfully, he had both in the bathroom cabinet, and I towel dried my hair, hanging the wet towel on the bathroom hook before I brushed out my tangled locks. I searched and found a couple of unopened toothbrushes and cleaned my teeth with the half-used toothpaste in the cabinet.
Fully refreshed, I turned off the lights behind me and settled into the bed next to a snoring Reyfyre. I curled up facing him, studying his profile like I had under the northern lights. In the darkness, he looked almost cherub-like, and he smelled clean, along with a cinnamon undertone that made my mouth salivate.
The urge to caress the fae-wraith’s cheek crawled under my skin, and I turned away before I did something stupid. The shock wave of that sudden need made me shiver under the covers. I cannot fall for him. I cannot have that kind of weakness again!
Hippocrates had made me vulnerable. I would never be vulnerable again so long as Thor and Odin were alive.