Lucia
Later, as Lucia sat wrapped in a towel, the steam of the shower still clinging to the air, she felt the silence.
It was comfortable, thick with a charged, unspoken intimacy. She risked a glance at Ragnar, who was now leaning against the wall, a towel wrapped low on his hips.
Her gaze lingered despite herself.
Broad shoulders sloped into arms corded with muscle, the kind earned from years of fighting rather than vanity.
His chest was beautifully defined, dusted with gold hair, tapering to the deep lines that arrowed toward the towel at his hips. The firelight slid over the ridges of his abdomen, each rise and hollow catching in gold and shadow.
The angry gash on his cheek was still there, but in the soft light of the fireplace, it looked less like a raw wound and more like a
