There was only one solution. Carrying her to the tub, he tested the water with one finger and unceremoniously dumped her in.
“Luke!” she sputtered, shaking the wet strands of her hair and spattering him with silvery drops. The word held more of laughter than outrage, he took advantage of the moment to calm his racing heart and overloaded senses.
“Do you mind if I join you?” he said softly. The way she looked up at him, trying to mold her exquisite features into stern disapproval and failing with a giggle, made it suddenly easy to forget the demands of his body. His throat seemed strangely blocked as she held out her hand to take his.
Suddenly she tugged, and half the water in the tub sloshed onto the surrounding floor as he fell in. There was just room for two, as he had planned, even so, knee-to-knee was not the position he most favored.
“Come over here,” he demanded roughly. She only smiled, brushing water from her face, before scooting around and settling herself against him. Her sigh was blissful with contentment as she let her head fall back on his chest, her damp hair under his chin; the water rose up to lap at her breasts. Luke shut his eyes for a long moment, feeling her, feeling the pleasant ache where her back trapped his arousal between them.
“It’s a little lumpy,” she complained lazily, shifting m a way that made him open his eyes with a soft oath. “But I don’t suppose there’s much we can do about that.”
Luke groaned into her hair and bit the top of her ear. “Not unless you’ll settle for a very short bath. ” She moved again, a gentle torture that made him grab her hips to hold her in place, her breath caught.
“Maybe you’re right, Luke,” she murmured huskily. “I really would like a chance to enjoy this.” He could feel her deliberately easing the tightness from her muscles, loosening against him, though his own tension remained and showed no signs of departing. He would have had to be dead or kilometers away not to react to her, and even distance was no sure remedy.
But he leaned back into the sloping surface of the tub and breathed deeply until he could find simple pleasure in their touch without the driving urge to alleviate his hunger for her. Her breathing steadied, and her hands settled onto his thighs where they cradled her on either side; the touch was simple and without erotic intent. Brushing the damp tendrils of hair away from her face, Luke listened to the sound of their heartbeats and let himself be soothed by the rhythm and the heat of the water and by the wholeness that had replaced the broken void in his soul.
It was Joey who spoke first, she moved very carefully and woke Luke from his doze. “I need to talk to you, Luke—about what Philippe said yesterday. About—” She broke off for an instant, drawing in a deep breath. “About my being like you.”
Luke came to full wakefulness. He sat up, pulling her with him, wanting to see her face but unwilling to let her go long enough to make it possible. His heart began to beat again with a rush of adrenaline. “What do you want to know, Joey?” he said very softly.
“Philippe said—he said I could learn your language, the one you use as wolves—if I learned how to do what you do.” Her voice trembled, her hands tightened on his thighs, the short nails lightly biting his skin. “He said I had the ability to change. That I carry your blood.”
Closing his eyes against sudden fear, Luke considered his answer. He had started this, urging Philippe to reveal what he had deliberately made her forget. A test, he had told himself. A test to see if she could deal with any part of the truth beyond what little she already understood. A test of how much she remembered.
“Yes, Joey. It’s true. ” He felt her stiffen in his arms and relax again, too quickly for the fear or denial he had braced himself to deal with. Luke expelled the air trapped in his lungs. So she did know, in some way, the truth of it. But was her seeming acceptance due to the hidden memory of what he had told her that day in Val Cache, or a more certain inner perception? “You have the ability,” he continued gently. “You carry the blood. But it’s not my blood—it is, and has always been, your own.”