“Is there anything you miss?” He releases my breast and smooths soapy water over my shoulder. Is he washing me, then? Or just caressing? I sit up again, so he can do as he likes, and one big hand smooths up my back.
I moan at his touch, because it feels so good. “Hamburgers,” I murmur, hugging my knees and resting my cheek against them. “Big, fat, sloppy hamburgers. With cheese and extra pickles, mayo and mustard, tomatoes, lettuce, and a sesame seed bun. Bacon, too. Oh yeah, totally dripping with bacon.” And now I’m hungry.
Aron chuckles, rubbing the washcloth up and down my back. “It’s always food with you.”
“Hell yeah, it is. I’m always hungry. That’s your fault.” I smile.
His fingers dance up my spine, then the washcloth brushes at the cleft of my ass. “Because I keep you in my bed and use you until you are begging for relief? Because I make you come at least twice before I slake my own needs? Because I am not satisfied until your cunt clenches tight around my cock and pulls me deep?”
I suck in a breath at his words. “Well, there is that, but I meant I’m always hungry because I’m your anchor. I have to eat for both of us.” In fact, I could eat right now, but I’m too lazy to get out of the water, because it’s warm and a flirty, thoughtful Aron is irresistible as he washes me.
I love the sound of his lazy chuckle. It fills me with warmth even as he glides the cloth over my back. “Do you miss your world, then?”
I knew this question would come up eventually. If anything, I’m surprised he hasn’t asked sooner. I’m also a little surprised I haven’t thought about it more myself. Earth hasn’t been on my mind much in the last few days. My thoughts have been completely and utterly about Aron. “Do I miss Earth? I don’t know. I mean, I miss hamburgers and strawberry milkshakes and cars—remind me to tell you about cars sometime. But it’s more like that was the world I was familiar with. I knew Earth. I knew how to get around on Earth. I knew what I was doing, and I knew what my choices entailed. I feel out of my depth here, and some of the stuff Aos doesn’t have scares me a little. Like, say, health care. Do you guys follow the whole “slap a leech on it” method for sick people? Because I really can’t approve of that. And I shudder to think of what passes for a gynecologist in this world.”
Aron chuckles again. “Is that…a yes?”
“It’s an ‘I don’t know.’ It’s an ‘it’s complicated.’ I’m sure as time passes, there will be a lot of things I miss. But right now? Right here, I can’t think of anything.” I’m too lazy, too happy, too content to be in this bathtub with him, cradled between big thighs as he washes my back. “Is that a bad answer?”
“It’s an honest one,” he says, and then I feel him touch my shoulder, and he presses a kiss to it a moment later. “You can return to your world, you know.”
My heart gives a funny little flip. “Gee, can I? Because I’m your anchor and last I heard, those sorts of bonds were set in stone.”
“They are for most, but the Spidae are different. If anyone can sever the bond between a god and his mortal anchor, it would be them.”
This sounds perilously close to what the Spidae told me when I was alone with them…when they were trying to manipulate Aron and me both by separating us and questioning us. Why is this coming up now? I turn and give him a worried look. “Have you been talking to the Spidae, Aron? Did they tell you I need to go?”
He arches a brow at me, surprised at my vehement reaction. “No. I have not spoken to them. I have been at your side, remember?”
Right. He hasn’t left me alone in days. My speeding heart slows down a bit. “Good. I just…I don’t trust them.”
“No one does.” He gestures at his scarred chest. “Lean back so I can continue washing you.”
I start to, and then hesitate, biting my lip. “I don’t want to leave you, Aron. Not to go home. I’m with you until the end, until the day you leave me.”
His expression grows solemn, and he stares at my shoulders, carefully