“You’re uh, coming in the pool with us?” Gaze raised his eyebrows at her uncertainly.
“Of course.” Lexi tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact, though her heart was pounding. “I mean, why wouldn’t I? I’ll keep my underthings on, of course,” she added quickly. “For…for modesty, I mean.”
“Of course,” Gaze murmured, his pale eyes flicking over her body. “Would you like us to keep ours on as well?”
“Oh, that shouldn’t be necessary,” Lexi said airily. How was she managing to sound so nonchalant when inside she was fizzing like a carbo-drink? But aside from the heat in her cheeks—which hopefully wasn’t too apparent—she thought she was doing a good job of acting like this whole taking-a-bath-together thing was no big deal.
“As you wish, Mistress,” Gaze murmured and Bound rumbled,
“Whatever you want, Angel.”
The two of them began stripping but Lexi held up a hand.
“Stop, please,” she told them. “I think I should help you undress—both of you. As I said, I feel responsible and the two of you might have wounds you don’t even know about. Unless…” She bit her lip. “Unless that makes you feel uncomfortable?”
“Hell, no,” Bound assured her from his seat on the bench. “You can strip me naked if you want to, Angel—you won’t get any complaint from me.”
“Do what you want with me, too,” Gaze told her. He held out his arms, his blue eyes half-lidded again. “I’m more than willing.”
Heart pounding, Lexi went towards them. She had no idea why she had suggested that she should be the one to undress them—she only knew she wanted to see them from all angles—to admire their masculine bodies, which were so different from her own and from anything she’d ever known before.
She went to Gaze first. The Light Twin stood silently as she unbuttoned his dark blue shirt and pulled it off his long, muscular arms. His broad chest was smooth and muscular, his skin was a light tan and his silvery hair brushed his broad shoulders. Standing there, half-naked in her bathing chamber, he looked impossibly tall.
Lexi wanted to touch him all over but she restrained herself, though she couldn’t stop looking at him.
“Would you like to take off my flight leathers or should I…Mistress?” Gaze asked her in a low voice.
It was the second time he’d called her that, but Lexi didn’t correct him. Maybe she was acting like a Yonnite Mistress, she thought—a Mistress looking over the merchandise she had bought. But she didn’t really feel like she owned either one of the big Kindred warriors, despite the exorbitant price she’d paid for them. It was more like she was responsible for them—responsible for their wellbeing.
“I’ll do it,” she murmured, putting her hands on the front of the tight black leather trousers the Light Twin was wearing. She found the magno-tabs that held them together and gave a sharp little tug to open them.
Gaze sucked in a breath but said nothing as she slowly pulled the trousers down his long legs. Both males had already removed their boots, so he was able to step out of them with no problems which left him wearing nothing but a pair of dark blue undershorts that hid a very prominent bulge.
Was that his male equipment? Lexi couldn’t help wondering about it. All her adult life she’d seen vibrating phalluses and wands, some of which were supposedly shaped like a male’s penis, but she’d never seen a real one in person.
“Would you like me to remove my undershorts?” Gaze asked her.
“I’ll do it,” Lexi said again. Grasping the sides of the shorts, she pulled them down and bit her lip at what she found.
The Light Twin’s shaft was long and thick—much bigger than any of the pleasure wands that were sold on Zetta Prime. It twitched between his thighs like a sleepy snake and Lexi had the idea that it might get even bigger if it woke from its slumber.
I could wake it up, she thought, her heart pounding at the idea. If I touched him…if I stroked it and held it in my hand…
But what excuse could she give for doing such a thing? Biting her lip, she took a step back from the Light Twin.
“I, er, guess we’d better get your brother undressed now,” she remarked, trying to keep her voice even and calm.
“I guess we should. Do you want to undress him as well?” Gaze asked.
Lexi nodded. She might as well, she thought. And from the half-lidded look of sleepy lust the Dark Twin was giving her, he wouldn’t mind.
“C’mere, Angel,” he growled softly, when she took a tentative step towards him. “Make me naked, if you want to.”
“I just need to be sure you’re all right—you were quite badly wounded, according to your brother,” Lexi reminded him crisply.
Bound nodded.
“That’s fine—undress me.”
He was still sitting on the bench and Lexi stood before him, between his spread thighs. He was so tall they were still nearly eye-to-eye, despite the fact that he was sitting, but she found she didn’t mind the height difference. In fact, she liked all the differences between her own body and the big male ones of the two Kindred, she thought. It was surprising that she felt such interest in them—it was rather like tasting a new food you’d been told all your life was bad for you and finding it was delicious—your new favorite food, in fact.
Not that I’ll be tasting them or anything, she told herself sternly. Obviously the metaphor could only go so far. Though she had heard that males shot a kind of cream from their shafts—that was how they got females pregnant. They did something similar at the Impregnation Centers on Zetta Prime when a female wanted a daughter, but with a mechanical phallus filled with rarified semen which had been collected and sorted from donors across the galaxy…
She pushed her thoughts aside and unbuttoned the Dark Twin’s shirt, revealing a broad, muscular chest much like Gaze’s. However, Bound wasn’t quite as smooth—he had a small patch of curly dark hair in the center of his chest. A trail of the same dark hair led down his rippling abs and into the waistband of his black leather trousers. Lexi wondered if it continued on down to his groin. Well, she would see soon enough.
Bound was silent as she stripped off his shirt and Gaze helped him rise so Lexi could remove his trousers as well. He didn’t say anything until they were fully off and he was down to a pair of thin black undershorts which showed an even larger bulge than his brother’s.
Lexi spent some time examining the patch of pinkish, new-looking skin on his back and side where he’d been wounded and his body was healing. She was very gentle as she lightly stroked her fingertips over the new skin.
“Gods, Angel, your little hands are so fuckin’ soft,” Bound growled. He shivered a little as she examined him. “So soft and so warm.”
“How long ago did this happen?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Yesterday,” Gaze answered for his brother. “At least, I think it was just yesterday. The slavers that captured us drugged us at the space port and knocked us out. When we woke up, we were bound and chained in the hold of their ship. He cleared his throat. “I thought…thought that Bound was dead at first. For the longest time he didn’t move, didn’t respond when I called his name…”