Twisted Metal Heart - Eve Langlais Page 0,61
legs. “Is that supposed to be sexy?” Because the words weren’t, but the tone and the look on his face…
“It’s called flirting. Ancient art lost to the citizens. You really should try it.”
“Why would I want to flirt?”
“Because it’s fun and often ends up naked.” The grin melted her.
“If you want me naked, you just need to point me in the direction of a bath.”
“Did I hear the word bath?” Alfred zoomed into sight. “There’s a stream to your left. Appears to be fresh water, not even knee high. The current isn’t too severe either.”
Titan took his attention away from her and addressed the robot. “Sounds perfect. Lead the way. We’ll follow.”
They walked the bike in order to better listen. But it was also probably a good idea to let the bike cool down after a night of hard use. The alternator feeding the energy creating a circular usage could melt down if run for too long. The fact it hadn’t seized might explain her fatigue. Even asleep, her psionic ability reached out and coaxed the metal around them. In this case, got them a few more hours of run time.
The stream gurgled as it flowed past the polished rocks. Kneeling by the side of it, she cupped the clear fluid, sniffed it, and then drank.
“You should have boiled it first,” Titan remarked, crouching beside her.
“It’s clean.” She could taste it. It revived her, and she greedily sucked some more in before her hands went to her clothes.
“What are you doing?”
“Washing. You should, too. It might be a few days before you get the chance again.”
“But our clothes—”
She took hers and dumped them in the water, scrubbing them and watching the filth run away, taken by the current. “They’ll dry in the sun once we get out of the forest.”
He clomped into the water, fully dressed. He scooped the fluid over himself, and she leaned back, shaking her head.
“Get naked.”
“No.”
“I’ve seen every inch of you. Your penis was inside me. Don’t tell me you’re shy?”
“I am not shy,” he bit off. “Fine.” He stripped his shirt and showed a body even leaner than before, not an ounce of fat on it. Just pure muscle.
That pulse between her legs started again. Standing with her wet shirt, she wrung it out and noticed how his gaze was drawn to the dripping water then lower.
Could he tell by looking at her that the sight of him aroused her? Turning, she draped her shirt on a tree trunk as best she could then finished rinsing her pants. By the time she hung them, she realized he stared at her.
“Something wrong?”
“No.” The hands holding his shirt dropped, but not before she saw the bulge.
He still wanted her. What would he do if she got close and touched him? Make her gasp with pleasure, or would he push her away?
She whirled rather than find out. “We shouldn’t waste too much time here. I don’t know if the king will have sent soldiers after us.”
“You mean Roark? Possible. More likely, though, we’ll run into people who’ve heard of the bounty instead.”
“Only if you tell them who I am.”
“How common are redheads? Because I’m gonna tell you right now, you’re the first I’ve met.”
“I have nothing to dye it another color.” She grimaced. “Do you have a knife? We could hack it off.”
“No.” He practically barked the word. “We’ll just keep you out of sight.”
“We can’t avoid people if we go to Sapphire City.”
“Why are we traveling to the city? Isn’t that Enclave controlled making it the worst place to go?”
“Not entirely,” she hedged. “What do you know about the Sapphire Kingdom?”
“It’s on the ocean.”
“It used to be that the Sapphire Kingdom stretched from the mountains, past the marshes and ran for several hundred miles along the coast. However, the villages closest to the northern border were abandoned. As to the southern ones, a few of them rebelled.”
“Kind of like the Marshes.”
“Not entirely, because all the habitants in the Marsh banded together, whereas the outpost towns just stopped being citizens.”
“What did the Enclave do?”
She shrugged. “Not much to those they still wanted to trade with. See, the Sapphire king is rich. Very rich. The city he rules also serves as a giant port. It’s where the Enclave kingdoms receive the majority of their trade goods from other continents.”
He tensed. “Hold on, there are other continents?”
“Yes.”
“And their people travel here?”
Riella nodded. “While not exactly a popular destination, Sapphire does get its fair share of traffic.”
“Meaning people who surely funnel