Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Finn returns to my bench, settling his bowls on the ground before kneeling between them. The water steams, and I can’t wait to sink my aching feet in it, but I wait, all too aware of the many eyes watching to see if I make a wrong move.
Finn reaches beneath my dress, and my breath catches. His hands wrap around my shin and slide up. The heat from his skin seeps through the leather of my boots. “It’s my honor to wash the feet of my future queen,” he says softly, his fingers beginning to unlace the boots beneath my skirt. “To show my reverence and to prove my subservience.”
My cheeks are on fire again. It seems so wrong to partake in these rituals when we’re not actually a couple, when I’m not on my way to the throne, but in the way of the throne accepting a new king. More than that, his touch feels far too intimate. One big hand holds my leg behind my knee while the other removes my boots from one foot, then the other. It feels, embarrassingly, like a seduction, and if we weren’t being watched so closely, I’d surely ask him to stop.
Or maybe I’d encourage him to go on.
The fact that I don’t know for sure either way makes my cheeks burn hotter.
When Finn moves higher up my skirt, his calloused fingertips find the top of my stocking at the middle of my thigh. Eyes locked on mine, he hesitates there, trailing his finger right along the edge of the silk, as if he’s fascinated by the contrast between my skin and the thin fabric. I can’t breathe.
“What’s the problem, Finnian?” Juliana calls from her spot at the side of the gathered crowd. I must have been distracted by Finn to not notice her there. “Have you forgotten how to undress a female?”
My cheeks blaze with embarrassment at the reminder that we’re not alone, but Finn seems unfazed by her comment. Not even bothering to look her way, he flattens his palm on my leg and brushes my inner thigh with his thumb. “Are you okay?”
Okay? With his thumb stroking there? With his hands so far up my dress that he could— “I’m fine.” I’m a liar. Fine isn’t the right word. I’m burning. I’m aching. Half of me wishes we were alone, and the other half is grateful that we’re not.
He gently curls his fingers under the top of the silk and slowly rolls it down from just above my knee all the way off before going to the other leg. He doesn’t take as long on this side, but his fingers sweep far higher than necessary when searching for the top of the stocking.
When I shiver, he frowns. “The day will warm once the sun comes out,” he says, placing the second stocking neatly on top of the first. “But I promise there’s a hot bath waiting when we’re finished here.”
A bath sounds glorious, but waiting where? In front of all these people? “Should I brace myself for a special tradition in the tub as well?” I mean the question to come out flippant, but instead it sounds like I’m suggesting something indecent.
Finn only winks in response as he dips a washcloth into one of the prepared bowls of hot, fragrant water. He slips back under my skirt and washes my feet and ankles, trailing the washcloth all the way up the front of my leg to my knee, then around and back down my calf. And I can’t decide if he intends his touch to be sensual, or if he is going through the motions of the ritual. Perhaps it’s my mind and my desires that are responsible for the way his hands on my skin warm my blood. Or maybe the words he spoke in the dark last night are to blame. I want all of you.
But does he? Or does he really want this power and nothing more? It’s becoming harder and harder to convince myself that the latter is true.
With Finn on his knees in front of me, his soapy hands sliding up and over my skin beneath my skirt, it’s hard to think straight, but the truth is, any remaining suspicions I had that his motives might not be pure crumbled last night, when he fell asleep holding my hand. If I’m trying to hold on to that belief now, it’s only a desperate attempt at self-preservation.
I already have feelings for Finn, and it would be all too easy to fall so hard that there would be no coming back.
Someone hands Finn a dry towel, and he sweeps it over my legs and feet, drying the skin he just washed, his eyes still on mine. I shiver, but not with cold anymore. I’m imagining what’s waiting for us in the tent—our tent. A bath, he promised.