Areg resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder as they crossed the spacious lobby of the Cherry Blossoms Inn.

It was a very different kind of establishment from Auntie’s Attic. Hushed tones, tasteful carpets underfoot, polished wood, and marble surfaces all conveyed that the Cherry Blossoms Inn was the place in town where a discerning and moneyed traveler should stop for the night.

The front desk clerk hurried forward to greet them. “Should I send the valet outside for your luggage?”

“It’s just this,” Areg said, pointing to his backpack and the small suitcase. “Dame Oka plans to refresh her wardrobe during our honeymoon.”

“What a marvelous idea!” The clerk gave them a wink and rushed to the counter. “I apologize for the inconvenience, but I need to see your identification before checking you in. Police Chief Ultek’s orders.”

Areg placed the cards on the counter. “Of course.”

“Excellent, excellent.”

Visibly relieved, he glanced at their cards, then at their faces. Not a muscle had twitched on his face, not the slightest hint of recognition flashed in his eyes.

Areg exhaled slowly and glanced at Etana.

She glowed with an infectious joy.

“How long would you be staying?” the clerk asked, returning their ID cards.

Areg shoved them in the inside pocket of his jacket. “Only one night.”

One chaste night. Well, maybe semi-chaste. Goddess help him, it was going to be hard spending an entire night with Etana and not making her completely and irrevocably his, canceled marriage be damned.

If he’d had better odds of survival, he might’ve given in to his lust for her and claimed her delicious body tonight. Because he knew he’d marry her again, properly, as soon as a half-decent opportunity came along. But as things stood, Areg was the most hunted man in Eia. It was incumbent upon him not to ruin this remarkable young woman—the woman he couldn’t help falling for—in case he soon found himself too dead to marry her.

“I recommend the honeymoon suite,” the clerk said. “It was redone recently and still smells of paint a little, so it’s half-price—cheaper than our regular rooms.”

Areg nodded and paid.

“Can we have breakfast brought to the room?” Etana asked.

The clerk smiled demurely. “Of course, my dame. Shall I send in a maid to run a bath for each of you?”

“Yes, please,” Etana said quickly.

The bathtubs turned out to be positioned next to each other in a large, sunny bathroom. A maid ran them while Areg and Etana swallowed their warm bread rolls and pastries, realizing how famished they were.

As he stepped into the bathroom, a scent of lavender soap filled Areg’s nostrils. After days of makeshift sponge baths in creeks and lake edges, his body longed for soap. His skin craved it.

The maid placed big fluffy towels on the stand between the bathtubs and poured salts into the rising froth.

Areg rushed to brush his teeth.

Ah, what a pleasure to use a real brush, powder, and water! Not that bristled twigs didn’t get the job done, but he preferred the minty power.

Etana entered the bathroom just before the maid bowed and left.

She brushed her teeth, too, and then walked over to one of the bathtubs. “Don’t look until I tell you to.”

Nodding, he turned his back to her and removed his jacket and his pants.

Her skirts rustled as she removed them, and then there was silence. No bare feet padding across the tiles, no water splashing as she sank into her tub.

“Are you all right?” he asked, moving to turn around.

“Don’t!”

He froze.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I started unbraiding my hair and got… distracted.”

“By what?”

She hesitated and then said in one hot breath, “Your backside.”

Dammit, woman.

Was there any wiggle room between “semi-chaste” and “buried deep in her sweet cunny”?

“Is it to your liking?” he asked, his penis growing harder by the second.

“It’s very…” She faltered before whispering, her voice hoarse. “It’s very beautiful.”

He yanked his shirt off. “I’m turning around.”

“Wait!” Then came the padding, the splashing, and the sinking. “You may now.”

He spun around.

She was immersed in the steaming, soapy water up to her chin. Her eyes were cast down.

“Etana, you minx.”

She giggled. “This bath is heavenly.”

But he wasn’t going down without a fight. “Won’t you look at me now, sweet pea?”

She shook her head.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Why? Too embarrassed when I’m facing you?”

She nodded, blushing furiously.

Taking pity on her, he lowered himself into his bathtub, which was so big he could almost straighten his legs. By Aheya, that felt good.

A few moments later, he sat up, letting the thick, soapy foam slide down his shoulders, while the moist, fragrant air filled his lungs.

So. Fucking. Good.

“At home,” she said, blowing a puff of froth away from her face, “We have a sitting bathtub, and the same in the servants’ quarters in the Gokk house. I love being able to stretch out like this.”

“Enjoying your comforts, huh?”

“I really am.”

She stuck out an elegant foot, her skin slightly reddened by the heat, and began to rub it. Her fingers stroked the toes and the spaces between them, her sole, heel, and arch. Then she slid her hands up the delicious shape of her calf to the hollow behind her knee.

Areg stared, his hands itching to replace hers and his shaft rock-hard.

She switched legs, repeating the procedure, then lathered her arms.

He kept watching, aching for her.

“Do you mind looking away for a bit,” she said, “while I soap… the rest?”

It was his turn to go red in the face. Focusing on his own body, he began to rub it with one of the loofas the maid had left for them.

A short time later, he heard her step out of the bathtub. He turned away from her, even though he was dying for a glimpse of her butt, or front, or whichever angle was available. Except, he wasn’t going to just look. With both of them naked and his raging erection, the risk he’d go much further than he intended—that he’d go too far—was too high.

He heard Etana rub herself with a towel.

Then her steps as she padded… toward him. And then she stood before him, the towel wrapped around her hips, her wet hair smoothed back, and her breasts in the air.

He groaned like a famished beast.

“I owe you this, for earlier,” she said.

He stared at her high, rounded breasts, enthralled. They looked exactly the way he’d imagined them—and a thousand times better.

“They’re perfect.”

His voice came out all weird—breathless—and he smiled inwardly at the effect this little woman was having on him, a supposedly experienced man. Except, something must’ve been wrong with those experiences or maybe with the women who’d given them to him. Because he’d never been blown away like this by a female bust—not even when he had sex for the first time or after a long hiatus in the middle of the war.

“Come closer,” he rasped.

She stepped nearer, near enough for him to touch her. As though of their own volition, his hands went to her breasts. She’d just dried them. He made them wet. He rubbed his thumbs against her pink nipples and pinched them lightly between his fingertips. She watched his hand, intent, as her nipples enlarged. He traced the shape of her breasts with his fingertips and kneaded her soft flesh.

Her breathing grew ragged.

Wrapping a hand around her waist he drew her closer still and took her right nipple between his lips. She moaned, tilting her head back. His other hand had stayed on her left breast. He could hear her heart rate pick up. She moistened her lips. His sex responded, throbbing, straining, begging for that silky, pink tongue of hers, for those full lips around it.

Cool down, man.

Etana was a virgin, from a different social circle, raised much more conservatively than the sophisticated ladies he’d frequented. He’d never been with a woman like her before. She might be shocked—she would be shocked—if he admitted to craving a caress like that.

Chasing the image away, he focused on her right nipple, tonguing it to his heart’s content. When he felt satisfied with her increased moaning and how her heart raced, he repeated the caress with the other breast.

He loved every moment of it.

And then, suddenly, it wasn’t enough. He needed to claim her lips, taste her sweet tongue again, drink her in. His chest, his whole body ached to press against hers, so he could reel in her yielding softness, in her scent, in the warm silkiness of her skin.

Letting go of her, he grabbed a towel and stood. While Etana shifted from one foot to the other, unsure what to do, he tapped himself quickly, wrapped the towel around his hips and stepped out of the bathtub. He walked toward her.

She backed away.

But she didn’t look panicky or intimidated. She looked giddy with excitement. When her back met the wall, he planted his hands on either side of her head, trapping her with his body. And then he found her mouth, teased her lips apart with his tongue, and kissed her the way he’d wanted to. Her eyes drifted shut and she moaned into his mouth. Her hands roamed his damp back, his shoulders, his nape, delved into his wet hair.

“Areg,” she murmured as she broke the kiss to catch her breath.

Her gaze was hot, dark with desire.

Losing control, he reached around her and hitched up her towel. His hard-on against her belly, he palmed her pert, round backside and pressed both of them into the wall.

She stiffened.

Dammit!

Now, he’d gone too far. He’d taken too much, too soon. Forget too soon—he wasn’t going to touch her below the waist, not now, not later, not at night. Quite possibly, not ever.

“I’m sorry, sweet pea,” he said, drawing back. “I’m really sorry.”

Hopefully when they did this again at night—and he’d make sure the room was pitch-dark, so he wouldn’t see her—he’d be able to control himself better than this.

Aheya help me.