Chapter 10: Steam

"I'm cold," Riko said, "and you're sad, and this is a hot spring."

Kagiro blinked at her.

"I do not follow."

"Get in the water."

She stood up and took off her jacket, her undershirt and her trousers.

She folded each piece into a neat pile on the rock, because seven years of kitchens had made her tidy.

The snow fell on her bare shoulders and melted.

She stepped into the milk-blue pool, up to her waist, then up to her ribs.

The heat of it rolled over her.

She groaned out loud.

"Riko," said Kagiro, behind her, in a strangled voice.

"Come in. It's wonderful."

She heard the rustle of his robe falling on the stone.

Then the water moved, and warm arms circled her from behind, and a mouth pressed to the side of her neck.

"You are going to ruin me," he said into her skin.

"That's the idea."

She turned in his arms.

The steam curled around them both, and the lamps of the nine peaks glimmered through it, very far away.

He had snowflakes on his lashes and water running down his chest, and the fine black scales on his shoulders shone.

Riko put her hands on either side of his face.

"I brought something," she said.

"You brought something? To a bath?"

"I always bring something."

She waded to the rock and pulled a cloth bundle out of her jacket.

Inside, still faintly warm, were six small steamed buns, stuffed with pork and ginger.

She had wrapped them in the kitchen before the flight.

"You are impossible," said Kagiro.

"I'm a cook. We bring food to funerals and fistfights."

She tore a bun in half, and steam poured out.

She held a piece to his mouth between her finger and thumb.

He took it from her fingers.

His lips closed over the tips of them, and he held them there a long moment, and his eyes closed.

When she drew her hand back, he caught her wrist and kissed the inside of it.

"More?" she said, breathless.

"Your hand," said Kagiro, with a slow, wicked smile. "The bun is only a side effect."

She laughed until the steam caught in her throat.

Then she fed him the rest, piece by piece, between kisses.

She fed him from her fingers and from her mouth, and the water lapped at their ribs.

Each time he took a morsel, his hands slid a little further around her waist.

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