Chapter 39: Volume 1- [ - 40 ]
Their internal voices overlapped, tangled, two women thinking the same thoughts in different registers — Sera’s sharp and analytical, Lira’s soft and panicked.
"Stay," he said. "Please. Just while I bathe. Then we will talk about what happens next."
The word ’please’ landed on them like a warm hand. He was a lord, and he was asking. Not commanding — asking. The distinction mattered. It mattered so much that neither sister thought to question why a lord would say ’please’ to two merchant’s daughters, because the alternative — leaving, alone, into a night full of goblins — was unthinkable.
They stayed.
Sera stood by the wall, her arms crossed over her torn dress, her chin up, her eyes fixed on a point above Caelum’s head with the rigid discipline of a woman who was determined not to look down. Lira sat on the small bench near the boiler, her hands in her lap, her gaze on her own fidgeting fingers.
Caelum stepped into the tub. The water was hot — almost too hot — and he hissed as it enveloped him, the heat settling into muscles that had been carrying tension since the morning. He leaned back against the copper rim, his arms draped over the edges, and let the steam work on him.
His cock floated beneath the water’s surface. Visible through the clear mineral water. Impossible to ignore.
Sera’s eyes drifted downward. She caught herself. Looked up. Looked at the wall. Looked at the ceiling. Looked at her sister. Lira was staring at the water — at the shape beneath it — with the fixed, unblinking gaze of a woman who had been hypnotized.
’Lira. LIRA. Stop looking at it. Stop—’
’I cannot. I cannot stop. It is — it is right there. Floating. I have never seen — I have never seen a man’s — not a real one. Only the drawings in those books — the ones I bought from the traveling merchant — the ones I hide under my mattress—’
Sera’s internal voice stumbled. ’She reads — what books? What kind of books does Lira — does she read those kinds of — the kind with the pictures—’
Caelum, who heard every word of their internal monologues, smiled to himself. ’Hentai,’ he thought. ’In a world without internet, they read hentai. God, I love this world.’
"My lord," Sera said, and her voice was carefully controlled, the voice of a woman trying to maintain composure in a situation that was rapidly eroding it. "Is there — is there anything you need? Soap? A towel?"
"Actually," Caelum said, and he let a note of embarrassment enter his voice — the quiet, self-conscious embarrassment of a young man asking for something he found difficult to articulate. "I was wondering — could one of you help me wash? The road was muddy, and I cannot reach my back properly, and—"
’He wants me to — wash him? Touch him? His — his back? Just his back? But he is — he is naked. In the tub. And that thing is right there and if I reach in to wash his back, I will be — I will be close enough to—’
"I will do it," Lira said, and the words came out before she could stop them. Her face went scarlet. She looked at Sera. Sera looked at her. A brief, wordless communication passed between sisters — the kind that needed no sound, built on eighteen years of shared experience.
’I will do it because if you do it, you will not be able to look at him without seeing it, and you are the one who has to negotiate with him tomorrow.’
’I will do it because I want to, and I hate myself for it, and I do not care.’
Lira took the soap. Moved to the tub. Knelt beside it, her knees on the wet stone, her hand reaching into the water.
She touched his back.
The contact was electric — not for any supernatural reason, but for the simple, devastating reason that she had never touched a man’s bare skin before. His back was warm, slick, the muscles firm beneath the skin, and her fingers trailed over them with a hesitation that was partly fear and partly something else.
Caelum sighed. Let his head fall forward. "That feels good. Thank you."
’He said it feels good. I am making him feel good. My hands on his back. His skin under my fingers. I should not be thinking about this. Father just died. I am grieving. I am not — I am not supposed to—’
’Lira.’ Sera’s internal voice was sharp. ’Lira, his face — he is smiling. He is enjoying this. Not the washing — he is enjoying that you are doing it. That you are kneeling there. That your sleeve is getting wet and your dress is clinging to your—’
Sera looked at her sister. Really looked. Lira’s sleeve was soaked to the elbow. Her dress had ridden up as she knelt, revealing the calf and ankle. Her chestnut hair had fallen forward, brushing against Caelum’s shoulder. And her face — her round, soft, pretty face — was flushed, her lips parted, her breathing shallow.
Sera felt something she did not expect to feel. Not protective concern. Not moral outrage. Jealousy.
She shook the thought away. It would not leave.
"Lira," she said aloud. "Let me take over."
Lira looked up. Their eyes met. The communication was instant and understood: ’I need to do this because if you do it any longer, I will not be able to stop myself from doing something we will both regret.’
Lira moved aside. Sera knelt beside the tub, took the soap, and began to wash his back with the brisk, efficient motions of a woman performing a task. Her hands moved over his shoulders, down his spine, along his ribs. Professional. Practical. Detached.
Except that her eyes kept drifting to the water. To the shape beneath it. The thick, floating, impossible shape that seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat.
Caelum shifted in the tub. The movement caused a ripple, and the water level dropped momentarily, revealing the head of his cock above the surface — fat, crimson, glistening — before the water settled over it again.
Both sisters saw it. Both sisters’ arousal meters, which Caelum could now read with a glance, spiked: Sera from 45 to 62, Lira from 58 to 71.
’Holy — it moved. It moved on its own. It is alive. It is a separate creature. It has its own—’
’Stop. Stop. Stop. He is a lord. He is here to help. He killed a goblin for us. He brought our father’s contract. He is being kind. He is being gentle. He is—’
’He is hardening,’ Sera’s internal voice whispered, and the whisper was barely audible even to herself. ’It is getting bigger. Under the water. I can see it growing. Because of us. Because of Lira’s hands on his back. Because I am kneeling here. Because—’
Caelum turned in the tub. Faced them. The water was clear, and he made no effort to hide himself. His cock — now half-hard, thickening, the head rising toward the surface — was fully visible, a pale shape against the copper bottom that grew as they watched.
"Sera," he said, and her name in his mouth was a different word than it had ever been. "Lira."