I know something you don't know

[reyce]

Reyce and Issa steal a final moment to themselves on the night before the wedding. Curled up together in a private tub, they talk and reminisce.

Day 5:

By mutual agreement, after an exhausting evening inspired by Issa's new lingerie the night before, the venture to the private baths was reserved for tonight, their last evening before the wedding party. Privacy comes at a trade in Benden: for the locked door comes cramped quarters, room enough for a towel rack and the hook for a robe (only one robe is expected, of course) before one runs into the bath. Fortunately the same space-saving techniques haven't been applied to the bath, a deep basin carved into the stone outcropping of the far wall. It has room enough for two, but is designed for one, with armrests set under the water and even a (largely decorative) pair of flat stone slabs that could be supposed to support one's seat. Reyce has no choice but to sit on those slabs, but he foregoes one of the rests in favor of wrapping his arm around Issa's chest to hold her close. He's been dormant for a while, resting, but he slowly stirs himself to move and lean his nose against her ear, murmuring, "Water okay?" It's a moderate temperature, right now; warm, but not as much so as the Reachian baths often become.

Water-coiled curls rub at his skin as Issa moves her head against the shoulder she's using as her pillow, a faint nod that brings more elaboration a lazy second or two later. "It's fine," she tells him, her voice smooth and content. Her hand creeps up from the water to let him know he wouldn't be going anywhere even if it weren't, splayed fingers wrapping around his forearm as she firmly enforces his hold, travelling up until her arm lays almost fully on top of his and her thumb sweeps the side of his wrist. Her other arm neglects the stone-carved armrests as well, preferring to use his thigh for that purpose. Her knees are bent but, slowly, one unkinks to break the surface with only the point of her big toe, the gentle sound of swirling water marking the movement. Lazy eyes open just a slit to watch the ripples her bobbing toe sends out and then the thing disappears under the water again, stretched out of sight. "I like this," she comments needlessly, a small hitch dragging up the comfortable curve of her smile.

Reyce lets his nose linger by her ear even after he has his answer, his eyes starting to slip closed in the silence that follows. The faint sound of her toe breaking the water wakes him, though only enough to crack one eye open and watch the movement it creates. "Yeah," he answers, equally needlessly. Since the water temperature proves acceptable, and he proves unable to move anytime soon, he draws his other arm from its rest with the faint swoosh of moving water and sneaks it over the front of her hips, his hand finding purchase on her side. He brings her with him, then, as he leans back, letting his shoulders fall against the edge of the tub as he eases himself into a slight angle. "Having you here," he elaborates once he's resettled, breathing his words over a slow sigh. "Mean it." The hand that has latched onto her shoulders sweeps up and down in a slow, absent rub.

Issa melts, so easily, back as he pulls her with him; for all that the heat has slowly seeped out of their private little pool, she's still about as relaxed as she gets. As slow as it came, her hand traces back down his forearm and drops listlessly back into the water with a slipping swish, her arm sinking to drape over his submerged hand instead. His comment sparks a broad, heady grin, but he's allowed to glimpse only the edge of it, if that. By the time she turns it to him, it's been forced down, hidden away only to be replaced by a more normal version. "I know," she murmurs calmly, dragging her curls again as she angles her face in. She has energy enough for one glance, darted up at that sharp angle toward his face, but then her eyelids lower sleepily again. The fingers on his leg press a lightly massaging touch down above his knee. There's another couple of beats for it to linger, that's it, before a deeper breath lifts her chest beneath his arm and she adds casually, "I shouldn't let you get so complacent, really. You holders are no good when you get soft." Punctuation comes in the form of her thumb pressing pointedly into the softer inside of his thigh.

The tease opens his eyes, his gaze turning down to her to watch from an angle. The lazy muscles of his leg wake up for that pointed poke, exerting themselves just enough that his thigh doesn't just swing away from her pressured touch; once woken, they remain tense under her lingering grip. "Sure," he answers, dragging up a sigh and tilting his head to the side so when he exhales it, in a quick but settled puff, he doesn't wind up huffing it into her hair. The crook of his knee unbends slightly, the small motion enough to relax his tensed up muscles, and swings in to her side so a part of his thigh leans on her.

A sharp breath from Issa follows on the heels of his short puff, too quick and silent to be called a sigh of her own. Done with mini massages, her fingertips swing around the outside of his leg and curl into the back of his knee, drawing it into a tighter lean against her leg. The muffled movement of the water is the only sound that breaks the quiet she's let fall, swirling up with their faintest stirrings. It stretches on into minutes, those murmured swishes, but then suddenly, her voice rises to cover them up again. "A bit different from our first bath, hm?" she asks, a slow breath of amusement leaking out of her. Her head drops sideways to rest against his neck as she stares vacantly down at the water's surface.

"Hm," Reyce responds, but the note of amusement in his voice is much less than that in Issa's. There's another moment of water stirring as his hands readjust on her body, turning her slightly sideways as he leans in the opposite direction. His expression arched with contemplation, he looks at her for a little while before deciding to kiss her, his head tilted at an angle so he can find her mouth. "Been hearing about that lately," he remarks, dropping his eyes to the side so that - given the way his head is positioned - he's staring at the water and her body beneath it.

After settling her shoulder into this new positioning, Issa rises to meet the kiss, lips soft and lazy like the rest of her. "Oh," is all she utters in response to his remark, idle mischief and sheepishness warring in her tone. Mischief slowly but surely wins out and stakes its minor claim in the curve of her smile. Using his leg for leverage, she gives herself another bobbing little scoot to adjust, but this one seems more for aesthetics than anything else as she's tracking the movement of his eyes down into the bath. "I thought that might," she stresses lightly, her thumb running a line down his leg where it lays, "get back to you."

Reyce's arm shifts around her again, dragging back to the middle of her chest so his view of her won't be impeded, save where his arm gets to touch her. His fingers clench inwards over her breastbone, and lie in a pressed fist against her. "Got back to me," he confirms for her, without bothering to lift his gaze from the water. His leg falls into her side again now that she's adjusted, bringing the thigh she teased into contact with her hip. A soft breath puffs into the silence after his confirmation, and his chin tugs sidways till the center of his cheek finds the tip of his nose. "Were talking to him?" he wonders softly, absently sweeping his knuckles over her chest to create ripples in the water while he stares.

Issa nuzzles softly against his cheek, her nose pressing sideways with tiny back and forths through his stubble, while her eyes drift closed once again. "Him?" she asks in a puzzled murmur, her nosing pulling to a halt near his ear. "Him who?" Meanwhile her stretched out leg pulls in again, brought up and pulled up under the awning of his other leg-- the one that doesn't still have her arms wrapped over it.

Reyce leans into the nuzzling, his own eyes beginning to slant closed despite the underwater show they've found. When she stops, though, he pulls his head away from her nose, freeing the hand that's been on her chest to reach up and scratch at the stubble on his own, palm turned into while he considers it and frowns. "Coren," he answers while he's doing this. "Have to shave. Don't let me forget." He tightens a slow squeeze around her waist, silently suggesting a reason or two why her presence could be enough of a distraction to make him forget.

Issa's free hand splashes up out of the water to loop over to the other side of his face, testing the stubble for herself with a much gentler run of her fingers before she uses the touch to press him back to her, cheek to (roughly) cheek this time. "Mmhmm," she assures him lazily, letting her knuckles trail down his neck as her hand returns to the water. "I didn't tell Coren. I gossiped with Cenzia a bit, so she must have. Or Calla, or Cance. They were there, too." A beat lapses and then her silent laugh sends ripples over the surface of the water. "Dacey and Caira might have, but I doubt they were listening." Such a name-dropper, this greenrider he's got.

A troublesome habit to be sure. Reyce yields to the press of her fingers that puts his cheek against hers, yet a frown has formed upon his features, through the contact of their skin only just perceptible as a crinkled tension around his eyes. "Cenzia," he guesses instantly, blowing a faintly displeased breath out of his nose. "Talking to her's same as talking to Coren. Should have told you." The other names in her list merit flickers of increased tension when she speaks them, though - for all her name-dropping - go otherwise ignored. He shifts his cheek beside hers, sweeping it up so the grain of his stubble falls into place.

While her face leans into his, Issa's hand drops from behind his knee to lay a broad, slow stroke down the outside of his thigh and back again, smoothing away the tension she senses. When it returns, her hand curls around the top of his knee instead, little drips sliding from her fingertips while the rest of her arm listlessly draped from there. "Sorry," she apologizes idly. "No harm, though. Yeah? Now they just know you weren't always such an excellent," she praises, emphasizing from there by dropping into a whisper as if it were secret, whuffing against his cheek, "bathing partner." The angle of her face turns in slightly, the edge of her dreamy little smile traced against his cheek.

To reach her face with his own, Reyce has been arching his back and shoulders over them, and the curvature is beginning to get to him. Stubborn, he continues to lean his cheek into hers, but his shoulders pull back, rolling the physical tension out and releasing some of the mental stress with it. He blows a heavy sigh, but the tightness around his eyes seems to be fading. "It's fine," he assures her, his voice still thin for lack of air after that sigh. "Wasn't expecting it. Didn't know what he was talking about, just -" He stops himself sharply, some of that tension returning while his lips twist quickly side to side. "Doesn't matter," he concludes, letting his eyelids drop closed.

"Good." And with that murmured word, Issa nudges in against his cheek, stubble scratching at her skin when she presses up then smoothing back again as she lowers, not only down but away. Then she too stretches, dragging out his different grips as she leans forward, her whole back bared as her hands are thrown high to tug her straight. It's sudden, the slouch that brings her back down, and she plants her arms on his upraised knees with a wet slap. Twisting back, she takes her look, eyes roaming past the ripples she's spread in her wake before dragging up to find his gaze. "You're not even curious what gossip I got in return?" she asks, a faint smirk forming as she asks.

Reyce grunts a protest when she moves away and he's forced to loosen his grip on her, his leg swung easily out of the way but his arm releasing more gradually. It winds up on her hip, settling for a contact there since her slouching prevents him from getting a good wrap around her waist anymore. The other one reclaims its armrest, elbow braced out on the jutting stone while (his back still curving in the wake of her departure) he scratches a hand through his hair. Catching her look back, he pauses the motion to blink at her, a flick of his eyes taking in that forming smirk. "No," he answers slowly, warily, dragging the word with him into silence.

That small hint of a smirk blossoms, spreading slowly across her lips. But all Issa answers is a light and indifferent, "Okay," before, briefly, twisting the other way to stretch neglected muscles. Then she rolls back down, knotting her fingers through his from behind and bringing it around her waist while she takes up the old headrest of his shoulder. Both legs strech out into the water this time, and she's kept from drifting afloat only by his grip and the elbow planted against his own leg. A single snorted breath of laughter is all that lingers of whatever gossip she's got locked behing those mirthful lips and then she changes the subject. "I think I'm going to do my hair up with flowers for the wedding," she muses, still strangely amused by this thought. Not content for his hand to just lie dormant, she flattens his palm to her side and then begins to guide it with the press of hers, creating a haphazard path across her stomach, drooping eyes following it.

Reyce's hand takes over willingly, switching from his palm to the tips of his fingers as he traces paths across her stomach, alternately bringing his fingers together or splaying them out as his hand moves through the water, stirring up tiny ripples that lap against the edge of the bath. The possibilities of her body distract him for a while, so he doesn't immediately respond to her comment about the flowers and when he does, he does so distractly. "If you want." His hand comes near her crotch but stops just above it, flattening the palm while he pulls up a tiny smirk of his own and turns a look down to where she lies on his shoulder. "Haven't actually washed yet," he reminds her softly, sliding his pinky down bothersomely low. The other arm just lies indolent, its hand allowed to drop away from his curls some time ago so that it now just hangs off the edge of the armrest, occasionally swirling up the increasingly cool water.

A faint squirm, maybe subtle normally but amplified by their close contact, ripples up through the muscles of Issa's back when that daring pinky makes its way down. But while her body may be showing signs of succumbing, her voice hasn't fallen out of her control yet. "Mmm," she hums steadily, a idle and casual acknowledgement of the fact he's so helpfully pointed out for her. "And?" she asks with a leading tone, the puzzling tint too overt to be anything but a tease. Eyes still closed, there's just a hint of that smirk left now to play across her lips amd give him any further hint.

The other hand only gets to rest for a short while. Reyce brings it back, cupping her breast under the water and holding her still while his head moves down, nosing her hair out of the way so he can plant a few light kisses on the arch of her neck. "And," he answers, "could help with that." His mouth meanders further up, not kissing but just lipping her neck incidentally on the slow path to her earlobe. Once he has it, the rest of his hand moves where the pinky has already gone, but as yet he only gives her a little push to nudge her hips back, towards him. "You wanted." He has to leave her ear alone when he speaks again, though his breath still warms over her skin; after a brief pause, he deals a tiny nip to the arch of her ear and leans away.

Issa angles her head away, clearing the way for him to get to her earlobe, her eyes fluttering open to stare at the side of the bath while he progresses. And when he gets there, a muted groan parts her lips. "Yeah," she sighs, the teasing leaked out of her like the heat's leaked out of their bath. "I want," she reiterates. Her hand slides up his thigh and she follows it when it pushes over his stomach, twisting around to him, her gaze leading her fingers but only just. "But is there," she begins, suddenly looking to his face, "a way to heat the water up first?" Planting her chin against his chest she shoots a bright, charming smile up at him, eyelashes batting over her blue eyes. Please?

A tiny smirk curls onto Reyce's features when he gets that agreement out of her, and it's still waiting for her when she turns to look at him. He has to release her breast when she turns around, water sloshing from his hand as he lifts it up to cup the back of her head. "Yeah," he answers, scratching his fingers through his curls. "I'll get it." Then his hands are peeling her off his chest, holding her back while he swings out of the bath and goes padding around the edge of the tub where, for whatever reason, the spigot has been installed over the foot of the bath. "Pull your feet up," he advises her, throwing a glance over his shoulder. "And tell me, it gets hot enough." Taking hold of the tug-chain that controls the water, he crouches down with it, and almost immediately steam begins to rise from the surface of the bath as the new water floods in. It takes a while, however, before any of that heat begins to circulate.

Issa finally makes use of those stone arm rests, propping herself back while he picks himself up out of the bath. Her eyes track him all the way over to the spigot, shamelessly ogling as she scoots and settles back into the curve of stone, a lingering corner of a smirk held at the ready should he notice. Moving her feet obediently out of the way, she slings them up to rest on the edge of the pool, her legs lifted out of the water while she waits for the new heat to reach her. Slowly the water level rises, slowly the heat increases and slowly her eyelids begin to droop again while she watches him. "There," she says finally, decisively, when the water's almost met High Reaches' steaming standards. But she doesn't move from the section of his spot she's taken over, instead rolling her head back to the stone and lazily smiling up at the ceiling while she waits for him to return.

Reyce does not return, though. The flow of hot water trickles to a close, but the Bendenite remains crouched on the edge of the bath, eyeing her from this new vantage point. Twisting around, he finds a small tub filled with soapsand and sets it on the side of the bath near her legs, clicking it down carefully lest he chip it. Water sloshes and there's a faint hiss of suppressed reaction as he steps into the hot end of the tub, allowing her plenty more time to ogle since he refuses to get any nearer to that heat. Instead, swishing more of the water towards her end with a few kicks from his feet, he leans down to pick up her nearest foot and swipe his palm through the soapsand. He gives a glance downward, watching her reaction as he pulls the leg in against his waist and fixes it there over the loop of his forearm. "Comfortable?" he wonders with a smirk of his own, as his palm moves in to starting soaping her leg.

Issa tilts her head up just enough to catch sight of him when the splash-hiss combination announces he's back in the water. Her toes wriggle in his grip all the way to his side, but settle into stillness again when he pins it to his side. "I don't think it's right to be this comfortable," she answers, lifting her head so it's her full face he gets rather than just that upturned and angled view. Slowly her eyes drift down his arm to her leg and the suds beginning to coat it. "Don't miss anything," she commands, her smile growing slyer.

Given the studious care with which he cleans his own body, and the meticulous attention he's already giving her leg, it's unlikely that Reyce will miss anything, but he crooks a smirk - no less sly than her own - all the same. "Be careful," he promises, pulling her leg higher so he can get at the underside of her knee. It's a ticklish place, and since he won't rush over it, he has to tighten his grip on her ankle lest she tug it away. To distract her, perhaps, he orders, "Tell me something." Giving the ankle a tug in his own direction, keeping her leg straight, he lets his gaze trail down it and then up the rest of her body to find her face. Meeting her eye, he shrugs, then turns back to her leg. "Your game, yeah? Anything." Scrub scrub.

Issa's leg tightens suddenly when his fingers sweep past the back of her knee, but she doesn't jerk away any further than that tension takes her. Slowly it relaxes again as all that slight tickle results in is more scrubbing. Her smile doubles while she studies him from her vantage point-- not only is he attending to her so carefully but he's also starting games now? And if her delight weren't already evident, her happy, "Okay," would have given it all away. Her head rolls back again to let her smile simmer and her thoughts to surface. "Hmm," she mulls, foot shifting while her thoughts stir restlessly. "I don't remember what you don't know," she admits as her hand begins to trail through the water playfully. "Did I ever tell you that I wanted to go to Harper when I was younger?"

Reyce's scrubbing pauses for a moment, a small smile crooking on his features. "Yeah," he answers, punctuating the word with a resumed scrub from his hand. He's mostly finished with her leg - what he can reach of it - by this point, so he leans out to grab the other one. "Couldn't play an instrument," he adds, supplying details to prove his knowledge. While he looks up at her face, waiting for her to confirm and find another topic, he begins tilting his knee into the water, testing whether the heat has dimmed down sufficiently. Deciding it has, he lowers himself the rest of the way till he's kneeling in front of her. He leans her leg over his shoulder, now, and having it so close decides to turn his head aside and press his lips to it, a kiss forming while he watches her.

"Ah," Issa utters, only vaguely disappointed that her chosen fact proves far more known than she'd anticipated. She follows him down int othe water with her gaze and soapy leg both, but only the latter dips into the water with him. A minor frown forms as she fumbles for another tidbit to fulfill her part of this new game, watching his face as if it would tell her all that he knows. But the wrinkle between her brows melts away with the touch of his kiss, her eyes dropping to find him with a little laugh. "I know something you don't know," she says after a moment has lapsed with her simply staring down at him. "That time, in the bath, when we first talked," she sets the scene. Meanwhile her leg creeps up next to him under the water, knee bending so she can curl her foot around behind him. "I bet myself I could make you want to fuck me." There's just an extra curl to the corner of her mouth, but it's joined with an impish dancing of her eyes over his reaction.

The eyes widen, the kiss stops. His lips remain pressed to her leg because that's where he left them, but for a moment he can only stare at her, and blink. "You did," he whispers to her leg when he recovers himself, drawing his mouth away. The backs of his fingernails take up where his lips left off, then trace a tinglingly light path down the inside of her leg, following it all the way underwater where a clouds of rinsed soapsand covers the sight of his hand reaching all the way to her very inner thigh. There it rests while he hauls back on her leg, repositioning it over his shoulder so it'll stay put while he looks at her. The surprise worn off, his gaze has grown considering now, his eyes slightly squinted, and soon he huffs a breath of laughter through his nose. "Did you want me to fuck you, or just to want to?" Lifting his hand from her thigh with a sudden sloosh of water, he tilts his cheek into the leg he holds to keep it pinned to his shoulder as he leans over, stretching towards the sand tub to re-soap after his recent rinsing.

Issa's eyes chase after his hand as it sinks deeper, peering into the cloudy water while she tracks it from there by touch alone. "Just to want to," Issa answers easily, though the devilish mischief remains, lingering there in her slightly tilted smile when she looks back up at him. "I wasn't going to do it. Not then." A shrug radiates ripples out toward him and then it's her turn to transition into a second of quiet consideration. "When did you?" she asks, "First."

Laughter ripples out of Reyce, just quiet breaths that tug his palm around as he swipes it down her leg. "Issa, first time I saw you, you were naked, got an eyeful of your breasts." A sight he has seen many times since, a small tweak on her knee admits. He does not take advantage of the opportunity just now, however, his eyes still turned down to her leg. "Thought about it, more than I liked, there in the baths." He's silent for a while, staring at her knee while he scrubs it, but his frown and the hanging air of concentration suggests there are more words to come. And so they do. "Didn't mean anything, wouldn't think you wanted to. Don't know when that changed, be honest with you. Remember, though, next time it was just you and me, was right after Igen. Realized I'd been counting how many times I saw you, wasn't much, but I don't do that. Think, then, knew I wanted to fuck you, but - I don't know. Didn't want ... to want to." His frown this time is all confusion and frustration, drawn up from over a full turn ago, and promises no further words. He gives her thigh a few sharp rubs, but by now he's really finished washing her legs, and after a moment more he sets this one back down in the water where he can stare at the soap clouds it makes.

The soap clouds drift up and out to form little swirls as Issa's leg sinks down next to him, aligning with his underwater. Gently, her toes trace back in her direction, following the line of his tucked calf until her knee just peeks out above the surface. She's been grinning all along as he reveals the upperhand she unknowingly possessed and how soon she won that bet with herself, but now she pulls it back into a pressed little curve. "Because I was such a tease?" she prompts, mostly joking. Her arm sloshes up out of the water in one swift motion, shedding drips as she stretches out her hand to him with her fingers flicked once. Next item of business, it would seem, for after she's flipped her hand, wrist exposed while her hand flops down, it remains there for him to take and her leg slips aside so he can scoot up next to her.

Reyce takes the hint with an easy grunt, dragging the soapsand tub in close again to lather up his hands again. That done, he holds them up as he scoots closer, taking up the place her legs just vacated and leaning his waist comfortably against her. "Other things," he answers, shaking his head. He wraps his fingers around her wrist and pulls the arm out to him, holding it underside up so he can begin scrubbing. "Because you were such a tease, just thought you weren't interested. A game." Dismissing the thought with a shrug, he goes to work on her arm, his eyes still settled on his work while he concentrates on (as she ordered) not missing anything.

Though it may make his job harder, Issa doesn't lean up into the scrubbing, preferring to retain her lounging position in the newly heated water. "Mmm," she hums, through closed lips, eyes slitted open considering him from her leaning state. Slowly her head drops down to the upraised knuckles of her other hand, elbow braced against the armrest. "Does that count as your turn, then?" she asks after leaving him a moment to work in concentrating silence. Apparently, she doesn't get to dictate the rules of the games she doesn't start. Expectant, a single brow arches smoothly up.

"Yeah," Reyce responds, easily taking charge of the game now it's his. Since she won't lean for him, he must for her, his body arching over hers as he bends forward to reach up towards her shoulder. The course takes him so close to her face that he simply pushes it up the rest of the way, finding her expectant gaze at the end of the trail. Action delays speech, as he slings her hand up over his shoulder and suggests (with a firm press on her wrist) that she at least expend the effort to keep it there, so he can access her upper arm fully. Then, "Want to know when you did." Just a note, not so binding as a question. He snorts at this, and lowers his eyes to his work.

Listless, her hand remains flopped down where it lands for the duration of his non-questioning note; it stirs, however, when she sets in to thinking, eyes rolled up to the ceiling. Fingers sweep up the back of his neck and creep into his hair, falling still again only when she formulates her answer. "The night we first fucked," she states, face composed in all seriousness. She'll wait for a reaction, some sort of rise, no matter how slight, before recanting with an impish but comforting, "No. It was before that." Assurance made, it's another second of thought, finger twining with curls once again, before she restarts. "I don't know," comes first, more helpfully followed by, "probably first wanted to when you apologized that first time. I didn't let myself, though," she explains, eyes drifting across his features. "Not until later."

The rise she gets out of him may be a disappointing one, since that is not a tease he buys. Reyce spares her only a short glance, lifted from his work, and it's full of bland disbelief. He finishes her arm, but with her fingers wound through his hair he's not about to dispute its placement, so he leaves it all sudsed up as he reaches for the next one and winds up pulling it across her chest to bring it within his own range. While she speaks, he simply listens, but gradually he begins to lift small glances to her, and later his short glances become steady. His hands work up her arm unwatched, though no less meticulous for it. "Until when?" he prompts, not hedging around the issue with a gentle suggestion this time. He wants to know.

Issa's head lifts cooperatively up from her knuckles when he reaches to take her arm across to him, leaning it in the opposite direction though it now lacks a prop to hold it. Peering up at him, she answers simply, with a wider smile sneaking onto her lips. "When you kissed me."

Reyce brings both his hands to bear on her arm, so willingly given to him, and that makes his progress up it all the faster. Within a second he has soap down to her shoulder, and then progressing further, up her neck and into her hair as he, like her, winds his fingers into curls. "Hold-out," he tells her quietly, leaning his face in. The other hand goes around to trap hers to the back of his own head, keeping her in place while he pushes a kiss into her mouth, tongue forcing its way past her teeth to find hers. With both hands involved in holding her, he has nothing to prop up his weight except his knees, and the strange angle makes it difficult for him to maintain his balance for very long. His kiss along with his weight presses forward, his fingers digging down for grip into her hair. He pulls back at the last moment, just before he would have fallen on her, the hand that's been covering hers slapping down to the side of the tub not far from her head and pushing him back to a more comfortable position as he resituates his legs.

"Steadfast," Issa counters in a near whisper, coloring her replacement word with all the positive connotation it deserves, before applying pressure with that trapped hand and urging him into the kiss he offers. The pulling doesn't quite help his position, but she makes the slight adjustment of raising her head off the stone to balance somewhat that unhelpful hand. When he pulls back suddenly, releasing her mouth and her hand at once, her eyes fly open only to drift back into a contented squint. Low and quiet, her laugh begins, spanning only a few chuckles before it dies down again. "That counts as my turn," she logically concludes. Her freed hand slips from his curls and her fingertips flow like five individual water droplets down his neck and onto his chest. Then she shifts, finally, from her lazy lean against the stone, scooting out from the wall at her back while her knees bend up out of the water. Hands bracing her under the water, she tilts her head back and arches all the best parts of her torso out of the water to wet her hair. Such a tease, indeed, he only gets a few seconds until she lifts her dripping curls again and rearranges herself against his side, legs crossed underwater to account for the shorter width of the pool, hair ready to be washed.

Reyce watches those parts carefully, his hand at one point moving to touch her just below the chest, his fingers very light and yielding when she moves. He drops his legs out to accomodate her, sitting gracelessly with his knees flopped out to either side and the bottoms of his feet swung in to press against her legs. Leaning into her, his chest against her back, he reaches his arms around her and steals the water just in front of her, rinsing the old soapsand off his hands before pushing forward so he can reach the refill. He hasn't done anything to acknowledge his turn yet, and even now he just watches his hands distractedly while he lathers them together. And then digs into her hair, his touch strong a little pulling, more used to his own short curls than her longer ones. "Changing the rules," he announces suddenly, in time with one of his pulls which sweeps back from her forehead all the way down to the base of her neck. "You ask me something, my turn is answering it." His fingers pick through her curls, caught in unexpected tangles and working them out with a concentrated frown, as if their existence offended him in his cleaning efforts.

Issa's head moves in time with those little pulls, lessening their pinch by pliantly adjusting in their direction, though she gives no protest for them. Nor does she protest the sudden rule-changing he imposes, answering with only a quick, rolling laugh and a tease. "Not so easy, is it, coming up with new things?" Another chuckle lifts before the amusement sinks down again. Her hand finds his submerged thigh, its curling contact forewarning of the gentle lean soon to follow. "Why doesn't Cance like you?" she asks a beat later, nothing but curiosity held in the inflection of the question.

The fingers in her hair get hung up over a knot, creating little pinching tugs while he breaks through it. He's not in a rush to answer, but beneath her hand the muscles in his thigh have tensed. Satisfied with the unknotting he's done for her hair, he shoves his fingers through again, pulling soapsuds with him and scratching all the way to her scalp. "Should ask her," he growls, coming up with a large fleck of soap dripping from his hand and shaking it off into the water. His hand returns to touch her shoulder, putting more lather on it as his hand squeezes down, a staying touch. He holds onto her in still silence, letting his tensed muscles ease out. Then he goes back to her hair. "Used to fight a lot, we were kids. Most of it stupid stuff. Just never changed."

Issa is motionless in waiting on her explanation, even when that tension she must sense warns of it being a bad one. She waits for the span of a handful of seconds, making sure he's done before letting out a calm, "Okay." Here's where some sort of prompt for his turn, spoken or otherwise, should come; it doesn't. "You shouldn't tell me to ask her if you don't want me to," she tells him quietly, the section of hair he's currently working on inched further away as she turns her profile to him. "You know that I will."

"Don't want you to." He offers the negation almost immediately. His answer, again, not so immediately. Her hair has been well and thoroughly sudsed by this point, but he just moves down to her shoulders, refreshing his stock of soapsand and rubbing it into her skin. His hands dig in, an effort to massage, but it's made tense and hard by whatever thoughts he's mulling over in his silence. "So you hear it from me," he decides suddenly, his choice punctuated by a dig from his palms. "Tell you, but I - it's a lot of things. Can't get them all. But, we were kids, was me and Cance. Same age, made sense. Went on for a while but I got in a fight, hit Carlin. Punishment was I stay away from him, all of them, Tierna was pissed." He stews silently, catching his breath between bouts of storytelling. So much of that lately. His massage has grown lighter, but only because he's too distracted by the effort of catching the right words to really apply force. "Happened that way. Later my father ends it but, don't know, thought - my sister. Mad at her. Start to fight. Just goes out from there, can't track it, just that's the earliest I remember it."

Where Issa might grunt over the few too-forceful strokes he deals, she stays silent now, an ear tilted back from the very beginning of the unexpected explanation in order to catch everything. Stirring the water, her hand runs a soothing caress down the length of his thigh, coaxing the further words as well as smoothing over the ones already laid down. "Okay," she repeats, settling that subject as her hand sweeps back up much quicker, leaving eddies of current in its wake. "Sorry," she says with a rippling of her fingers once her hand has stopped, "I didn't mean to hit a nerve. I was just curious." Another ripple indicates she's done and his turn can begin; meanwhile she inches forward into a lean that gives him clearer access to her back for the time he takes to think.

Reyce receives her apology with a quiet breath huffed out through his nose, dropping his eyes to her back. It occurs to him that, between his massage and his story, he hasn't done much to lather up the soapsand, and his hand winds up going back over her body, rubbing up the bubbles and working in the grittier parts of the sand. It's an uncomfortable process, but he carries it out meticulously, and it does do its part to clean. He finishes without speaking another word, but when he starts laving water over her back and washing the suds drain away (to join the multitude of others floating around the tub by this point), he strikes dangerously near her own nerves. "Why don't you like your father?" he asks quietly. His hand follows the question, painting a a zig-zag up her back as he drags more water in to wash off soap.

Underwater, Issa's fingers are caught mid-ripple and only after a hanging beat do those final two fingers tap down. A snorted breath, and then she comments, "That came out of nowhere," clearly caught off guard by his chosen topic. With a drawn, "Um," she indicates her willingness to answer though, even if it has to come after an uncomfortable delay. Her hand retreats from his leg to find her own, knees brought up to her chest and held there while she imparts the requested information. "We were close when I was little. Closer, anyway. He'd come by and eat with us, play with me, bring me toys he made. But his wife found out and had a fit. She couldn't have kids on her own, so I think I... I don't know," she decides, lifting one hand to scratch at the suds that are leaking from her hair and onto her neck. Two fingers come away with clinging bubbles, but they're swept away as soon as their lowered into the water. "Then I didn't see him very much, save for the odd visit here and there. He didn't want me to stand when I did, much less Impress. He thought I was just going to waste my life that way. I saw him after I Impressed, but it wasn't the same. He looked at me differently. Not bad, just... not good either." Her voice is detached, as if relating someone else's story and not her own. "And he told me I couldn't ever be anything but just a greenrider," she continues with a twist of a smile, a deeper breath breaking into the sentence, "I still see him now. Rarely, but I do. It's always... forced, though," is the best she can come up with. She draws in a breath, but after a thoughtful moment, has nothing to use it on and expels it slowly, lifting her shoulders in a quick shrug.

All the suds have washed away by the time that silence draws to a close. Her breasts and stomach are next on the list, but he leaves them alone for now, instead slinging his forearm over the backs of her shoulders and using that as a rest for his chin. He breathes softly down her neck while he listens, but otherwise there's no sound from him, and when she's done he simply draws away with a light kiss left on her shoulder. He moves away before that shrug lifts from her, and watches the muscles moving in her back while he leans away. "Okay," he answers, setting his hands on her shoulders. One makes a brief detour to scratch up her hair, the suds in it, by way of a reminder. Then he's just silent, allowing her time to think, wash her hair, and choose her next question.

And she does them in that order. Despite the reminder of the soap in her hair, it's a few moments before she stirs to do anything about them, staring pensively into the frothy bubbles from the last rinsing that have drifted out in front of her. Then, rather suddenly, she uncurls and dips her head back in the same way as before, lingering longer this time to swish out the suds. When she pushes herself back into a sitting position, both hands run over the dripping curls, flattening them down and pushing the water out of them in the process. Returning to her position, she leans back against him, wet hair settling down over his collarbone. Her knees are brought up again, but not nearly so tight, and now there's room for her hands to rest lazily against the lower part of her stomach. It's a lighter note that she strikes when she takes her next turn, wondering idly, "Of all the gifts you've ever gotten, what's been your favorite?"

Reyce wraps an arm around her when she leans against him this time, holding her while his other hand reaches out to take twice its share of soap. Once it's been dipped, though, he holds the sand aside while his other hand dips into the tub and wets her chest and stomach. He makes no secret of the enjoyment he gets out of this, inching his chin further forward over her shoulder so he can tilt his gaze down and watch that lucky hand. Yet he's listening for her question, and when it comes he rumbles a low breath of laughter and stops his hand over her breast while he pulls back on her and squeezes. "The one you surprise me with in a few days," he murmurs into her ear. Droplets from her hair hit his nose and he quickly snorts them away, but doesn't give up holding it right next to her. "You're cheating," he informs her with another squeeze, before bringing in the soapsand and rubbing his hands together in preparation.

A wide grin springs suddenly to Issa's face when he catches her ulterior motive, a silent laugh rising up and making that hold he has on her breast even more interesting. She stares down at the water while her chuckling subsides then turns her face in to his, still thoroughly amused by being found out. "I didn't think you'd remember," she says, an excuse for her cheating but also part pleased confession, now that she's discovered how wrong she was in her assumption. Her blue eyes flick carefully over the close view she has of his face, but only for a few seconds before she turns back, head shaking sending her curls back into his face. "You're kind of hard to buy for, you know," she tells him, but there the excuses stop. Settling back for the washing he's preparing so eagerly for, her head tilts to the side, coming to a gentle rest against the side of his neck.

Reyce leans down towards the space her head just vacated, seizing his own opportunity to pursue her neck, though not as a rest spot. Tiny kisses come nuzzling with him into the spot, becoming gradually more gentle and slow until he just slips his tongue out and runs it along her skin, taking a taste of her before the sandy soap gets in the way. "Sorry," he says in response to her excuse, but he doesn't sound at all sorrowful - why would he be, when his mouth is resting right by her neck and his hands have just moved in to wash her breasts, with a perfect excuse to linger and touch every inch of them. A gently pressed kiss follows up the lick and serves as a parting gesture as he leans back to a more comfortable angle from which to stare straight down her chest. "Already have yours," he remarks idly, distracting her from the words (or using the words to distract her) when he tweaks her nipple.

A tiny shiver runs up under his hands on the heels of that lick, making the short grunt following his unapologetic apology even more ambiguous. "I," is all she manages to get out before his distraction takes effect and a pleased little hum interrupts her train of thought. She picks it back up a beat later, arching up into the touches of his so-called washing while her eyes slide nearly shut. "Have something," she finishes where she left off, ending her sentence by turning a lone kiss onto his neck. The hands across her stomach drift away through the water and clear the way down her stomach, ending up as a mirror of each other as they both find a new grip on the outside of his upper thigh. "Your question," she notes, nudging the line of her nose pointedly against him.

Reyce's hands follow the path cleared by her own, going as far down her stomach as the water will allow him before he has to stop and soap. He gives a low laugh when she tells him she already has something, and another when she turns the questioning back to him. "Later," he says softly, digging his fingertips into her waist. "Going to be distracted in a second." Those fingertips haul up, urging her to lift her body out of the water, and questions are forgotten for a while after she does.