Prisoner

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Four

Except when I got to River's room, I froze.

What the fuck was I supposed to do? Just throw the door open and jump his bones? Was I supposed to knock, even though I never once in my life knocked on any door? I didn't really want to spook him, as tempting as it was.

I took a deep breath, glanced down at ol' tiny down there, squeezed my eyes shut for a second and reminded myself that this could work. I just needed to relax. River was different. It wasn't like he hadn't seen me before, but then, he'd never really seen me erect, was the thing. It was weird when I wasn't feeling horny, but even weirder when I was.

Ugh. No. River was different. That was why we'd come so far. I trusted him. Never once has River given me a reason not to.

With that logic in mind and the faint whisper of anxiety reminding me not to get my hopes up, I just opened the door and walked into a dimly lit room. I stepped inside slowly, closing the door behind me as I turned and raised an eyebrow at what appeared to be a random cluster of candles all flickering in the darkness. But then, there were so many candles, it was pretty well lit once my eyes adjusted.

The smell of something woodsy and something sweet and floral like lavender. I had no idea where the smell was coming from until I came further into the room and saw there were little sprigs of lavender around the room. It was almost like the rose petal idea, except not nearly as cheesy and it smelled way better. I swung my eyes around the room and spotted the bathroom door cracked open and a steam cloud billowing out across the floor.

Oh shit. That was kind of fancy. How did he time that so well?

I swallowed and paused again before I got to the bathroom door.

He's not ready, Hades's favorite mantra, popped into my head. I stared at the door, stared at the rolling steam and I could hear the soft flicker of water, meaning the tub was full and River was in there waiting for me.

This was it.

I know we didn't have to do this. If I walked in there and told River I wasn't ready, I knew that he would accept that without hesitation and probably try and talk about feelings and shit, and that made me smile to myself. I covered my face with my hands, hid my mouth for a second to try and fight back the smile before closing my eyes and giving up.

Yeah.

I could do this.

I took a deep breath and pulled my shirt off over my head, dropping it on the floor by the door. I shimmied out of my pants and kicked them somewhere into the abyss, because by now, my brain was spinning. I was caught between terrified and excited.

I stepped in front of the door, hesitated with my hand over the handle.

"I hope you plan on coming in here at some point," River's voice said, making me blink and look up to see him watching me through the crack in the door with his eyebrow raised, his arm hanging out of the tub, "The water won't stay this warm forever." I was gonna pretend it was the steam making my face hot all of a sudden. Definitely not awkward. I cleared my throat and pushed the door open, keeping my back to River, but I could hear him moving around from the splashing in the tub. I kept my hands folded down in front of me, trying really hard to move them so they were at least at my chest and not over my fucking groin, but it was hard not to cover an area I wasn't used to people seeing out in the open.

It wasn't the naked part.

It was the my dick is clearly small, especially when it was erect part that made me nervous. Obviously I didn't care about that shit around Hades and the rest of the idiot family, but with River, it was completely different for obvious reasons.