Chapter 178: Losing The Fight (18+)

Tera’s eyes opened to the sound of water.

It wasn’t the stream’s usual murmur, but the sound of splashing and pouring water.

She blinked, slightly disoriented. The stars had shifted above her, which meant she had been asleep for at least an hour. The grass beneath her was cool and slightly damp with dew.

But most importantly, she noticed she had been covered with a fur hide.

She shifted and turned her head towards the stream.

Calis was standing in the water.

He was facing away from her, the current only reaching slightly below his knees as the moonlight painted every line of his body in silver and shadow.

Tera’s breath stopped.

All his fur coverings were piled at the bank, and he was buck naked.

She had seen that back before. But when he scooped up water to pour it over his head and splash his face, Tera could not help but watch the water run.

The water cascaded down the groove of his spine, splitting into rivers over his lower back, and tracing the sharp cut of his hips and the finely sculpted dip of his ass.

’Whoa...’

Her mouth went dry as a familiar tingling sensation swept across her skin.

His hair was different wet. The shaggy, dark strands that usually fell across his forehead and partially obscured his features were slicked back against his skull, plastered flat and dripping. Without the hair in the way, his face was fully exposed for the first time.

He was hot...

Tera’s heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her fingertips. Her nipples felt tender as they pulled taut against her top, and a low ache started to settle between her legs.

’Don’t stare. Stop staring.’

As much as she was telling herself that, it was a struggle to look away.

Calis turned slightly in the water, reaching down to wash his arms, and the shift in angle exposed the side of his torso. The obliques that cut down his sides were so sharply defined that Tera could see them flex with every movement. Water ran down his chest in thin streams that caught the light before trailing across the ridges of his stomach.

[Host’s heart rate has increased by 41%]

Tera didn’t respond to the system. Her brain had redirected all available power to her eyes.

He moved again, turning further, and Tera’s gaze followed the dark trail of hair that started below his navel and led downward to—

Oh.

He was hung.

She could vaguely make it out, but the mass she was seeing made the heat pulse between her legs so sharply she held her breath.

She would like to have that...

[Host’s arousal levels have—]

’If you finish that sentence, I will drown you in this stream.’

[...]

[(꒪ᗜ꒪;)]

He moved again, one hand briefly brushing down his stomach as he rinsed, and the motion made his cock twitch against the open air. A dumb, helpless pulse that sent another rush of slick heat through her.

’Oh...’

Was this how Xavi and Ermin felt when they would watch her wash herself?

Calis went still.

His hand froze mid-motion before he turned to see Tera.

Tera stiffened.

None of them made the slightest move as the moment stretched.

Tera was still lying on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, exactly where she had fallen asleep. But her eyes were open. Fixed on him. There was no pretending she had just woken up.

She had been watching him.

He knew it.

She knew he knew it.

His eyes shifted through several things very quickly. Surprise, then a sudden rush of raw, unguarded emotion.

His pupils blew wide, and at that very moment, his cock twitched and grew rigid, and swelled slightly in size. The sight of that thick shaft made her stomach clench. And without deeper water to hide him, there was nothing left to the imagination. Vein, weight, and the taut pull of his lower stomach as he shifted, and the hard length bobbed with the movement.

Then the walls slammed back into place.

His jaw locked, and every muscle in his body went rigid, straining with the effort of holding still while hard and fully exposed under her gaze.

They stared at each other.

Tera could see his chest heaving. His crimson eyes burned with lust so intense it made her skin prickle. He looked at her like he wanted to put her on her back and rail her right there and then.

Another wet pulse hit her so hard she felt it up her spine.

Her legs pressed tighter together, but that only made the sensation worse.

A single droplet fell from his jaw into the stream, and the sound was deafening.

Tera broke first.

She turned away, rolling onto her other side, back to the water, and pressed a hand hard against her chest like she could force her heartbeat down by force.

’Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’

Her whole body was on fire. Her nipples were stiff against her top. Her skin felt too tight. Between her legs, she was so wet she could feel the slick moisture on her inner thighs.

Her pulse was beating greedily in her cunt now, and every throb pushed the ache deeper.

Just from watching a male bathe?

The absurdity of it gnawed at Tera.

Tera’s eyes landed on Bessier and Olaf.

Both males were completely unconscious. Bessier had slumped sideways against the tree trunk, his mouth hanging open. Olaf had curled onto his side like a cub.

Her two bodyguards were dead to the world.

Tera pressed her face into the grass and groaned silently.

She could teleport home. Open a portal, step through, climb between Xavi and Ermin, and let them take care of the ache that was currently eating her alive.

But the thought made something twist uncomfortably in her stomach.

Going home to her mates while the wetness between her legs had been caused by a different male felt wrong in a way she couldn’t fully articulate. As if she would be using them to scratch an itch that belonged to someone else.

Tera groaned again, quieter this time.

She would handle this herself.

’Get it together. You are a grown woman. You’ve had sex in two lifetimes. You can handle seeing a man naked without losing your shit!’

Her pussy throbbed in direct disagreement.

When the silence behind her had stretched long enough, Tera turned back toward the stream.

Calis was gone, and he had taken his clothes with him.