Exiled Villainess: They Threw Me Out, Now Every Beastman Wants Me

Xavi was surprised. ”What?”

Tera wasn’t sure she wanted to take back what she said. Retreat was not an option.

But on another note, she did want to do it. At least to offer him some help after he had consoled her earlier. Her mind and heart had felt a whole lot lighter since then.

”You helped me. Let me do something for you. This is what I can think of, please.”

Tera hoped she sounded convincing. She knew she wasn’t.

”You want to... wash me?”

”Yes.” She nodded, trying to look like this was a perfectly reasonable offer and not the thinly veiled excuse to touch his body that it absolutely was.

Tera wanted to genuinely help him. She also genuinely wanted to run her hands over every inch of him. Both things could be true at the same time.

”I am not a cub.”

”Why does one need to be a cub to be washed?” Tera bit back.

Xavi studied her face with that intense, searching gaze. Something flickered across his expression, too quick for Tera to catch.

”You do not have to repay me,” he said slowly.

”I know. I want to.”

A beat of silence.

Xavi looked curious, then released her foot gently and stepped back.

”Alright,” he said.

Tera’s brain celebrated with a silent scream of victory. ’SUCCESS!’

She had not thought this through, but she was committed now and was not going to back down.

She stood up carefully, testing her foot. The pain was completely gone. Whatever Xavi had done, it worked.

Tera started taking her clothes off and felt Xavi’s eyes on her.

He was watching her undress with a stillness that was entirely different from his usual calm. His gaze tracked the movement of her hands, the loosening of the fabric, the slow reveal of skin beneath.

Tera’s pulse kicked up, and the familiar heat that she had been trying to manage all day bloomed low in her belly.

She wasn’t cold anymore.

She untied the hide covering her chest first. Her nipples tightened instantly against the cooler air as they bit her breasts. Then she folded the piece and set it aside, very aware that Xavi had not looked away even once.

Next came the lower wrap. She loosened the knots at her hips and let the hide fall. She was completely bare now, with Xavi’s golden eyes locked on every inch of her.

A slow, heavy awareness settled between them.

Tera stepped into the water.

She walked toward the water’s edge, and the first step into the lake sent a violent shock through her entire body.

Her arousal nearly evaporated at how cold the water was.

”Shit—!” she hissed, dancing in place as the lake water closed around her ankles and then her calves. Goosebumps raced up her legs and across her stomach.

She quickly rushed in, and by the time she reached him, the water was at her waist, and the heat radiating off his body was worth the shivering steps she had taken.

Tera smiled, feeling the water slightly grow warmer around him.

Xavi’s gaze traced the lines of her bare shoulders, the swell of her breasts, the water lapping at her waist. His eyes were steady, dark and completely unashamed.

”Are you still cold?” he asked.

Tera waved off the question. ”Not anymore.”

She waded closer, wringing the hide top in her hands to squeeze out the excess water. It wasn’t a proper cloth, but it would serve. She twisted it until it was damp rather than dripping, and held it up. It would have to do. She really wished she had soap.

She would have to figure out how to make one soon.

”Turn around, hot stuff.”

Xavi wondered if she was calling him hot, but did not understand that second word. He glossed over it, too distracted by the beautiful woman before him.

But what did she intend to do with her hide?

Xavi raised a brow. ”Why are you using that?”

”To wash you.”

”I do not understand why you need a cloth.”

”Because scrubbing with bare hands doesn’t clean properly. You need friction. And texture. And—” She sighed at the blank look on his face. ”Just turn around.”

Xavi turned, and Tera was confronted with the full landscape of his back.

She had seen it from the bank, but up close, it was almost absurd how well-built he was.

She wished she could take a bite.

Her eyes lowered, and she finally noticed the old scars marking his skin in certain places. It made her have the silent reality that there were still those monsters out there.

Tera reached up to press the cloth against his shoulders, and that was the first problem.

He was very tall, and she was not.

Her arms weren’t quite long enough, and she had to lean in, rising onto her toes, with one hand bracing lightly against his bicep while the other stretched higher with the cloth.

She didn’t realise how close the movement brought her until her nipples brushed against his back.

The contact was barely a touch. Just the lightest graze of stiffened peaks against warm, wet skin. But the sensation that shot through her was so sharp and sudden that Tera’s hand froze mid-stroke.

’Oh.’

The brief press of them against his heated skin had sent a bolt of electricity straight down through her stomach and between her legs, which grew wetter underneath the water.

She pulled back slightly, but the damage was done. Her body was buzzing from a contact that had lasted less than a second.

Tera forced herself to keep moving as if nothing had happened. The cloth continued its path across his shoulders, but her bare breasts stayed pressed lightly against the warm, wet plane of his back with every reach.

The light touches were so strangely addictive that she couldn’t stop.

Xavi’s breathing had changed.

The heat coming off his skin increased, as if the cool lake water no longer mattered. When she glanced sideways, she could see the tense line of his neck and back.

He was hard. She could sense it without even looking.

Tera smirked to herself, hidden behind him.

Did he really think she only wanted to wash him?

She wrung the cloth out again and continued, slower now. She wiped the powerful slope of his shoulders, the thick muscles of his upper arms, the sensitive place just beneath his shoulder blades.

Every time she reached up, her nipples dragged softly against him again. The repeated, accidental friction made her core clench hard. Slickness gathered between her thighs, warmer than the lake water.

’I’m not sure I can hold it in anymore...’

When she finally stepped around to his front, the cloth still in her hands, Xavi’s eyes widened, clearly not noticing how she had already come to stand in front of him until now.

His eyes had an intense, heavy look that was similar to that first time, but they were more aware, and it looked far hotter than before. He swallowed, taking her full figure in.

The water around his waist could not hide the thick, heavy shape of his cock rising beneath the surface.