Chapter 182 | Taming The Dragon

Chapter 182: 182 | Taming The Dragon

After he was done with the meal, Dexter went to get Mira.

He walked to the bedroom and found her in her wheelchair with her eyes closed, cultivating.

"Mira. Bath time."

She opened one eye. Looked at him. Closed it.

"Give me a moment."

"Nop."

He ignored her glare as he wheeled her to the bathroom, carefully undressed her, and carried her to the shower.

He turned on the warm water, adjusted the temperature, and placed her on the shower bench.

Then he began bathing her, starting with her shoulders, using the same routine.

He usually kept his mind occupied with Cultivation techniques, recipe combinations, dungeon strategies and breathing patterns. Anything that could fill his thoughts and keep his mind detached from what he was currently doing.

Today, it didn’t work.

The mental firewall he had rebuilt overnight had been damaged by Selene’s touch and Lyra’s kiss that morning, and the residual cracks were letting things through.

He was washing Mira when he noticed her skin.

He had always noticed it, of course. You couldn’t bathe another human being daily without being aware of their physical form. But there was a difference between awareness and noticing things that made your heart pound and your breathing trembling.

Mira’s skin was pale, not pale like Selene’s skin but pale with tiny cute barely seen freckles on her skin.

As he touched her skin, he realized it was incredibly soft beneath his fingers as the soft sponge moved across her shoulders, softer than anything he had ever touched.

He noticed the way the warm water traced paths down her back. The way it followed the subtle curves of her spine, pooling briefly in the hollow above her hip before continuing downward.

He noticed her wet crimson hair as it darkened to the color of blood, clinging to her neck and shoulders. The color was so vivid and red that it didn’t look real. It looked like something painted by an artist who had been given access to colors that didn’t exist in nature.

He started to take notice of even the tiniest things.

The tiny mole just above her upper lip, no larger than the head of a pin. It made her beauty stand out to perfection.

The faint barely visible dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Her slender and graceful hands. The neat and unpolished nails, her long collarbones that had faint blue traces of veins beneath the surface.

Her full lips which was strangely red as it parted as she breathed. The lower lip was slightly fuller than the upper, giving her mouth a natural pout that she probably wasn’t aware of.

Everything about her was extraordinary.

And he couldn’t stop noticing.

’Dammit! What am I thinking? Think about literally anything other than the cute freckles on her nose, the mole above her lip and the way her hair looks when it’s wet.’

Shocker, it didn’t work.

The observations kept coming, unbidden, relentless, each one more detailed than the last.

Mira seemed entirely oblivious to his internal crisis. She passively closed her eyes, her expression holding its usual mask of calm indifference. If she noticed that his hands were moving faster than normal, or that his breathing was slightly more controlled than usual.

Dexter finished washing her as quickly as he could without being obvious about the haste.

He dried her, dressed her, pulled a fresh blouse over her head and began buttoning it.

His fingers fumbled and in his rush, he missed a button.

The second buttonhole went into the third button. The third into the fourth. The entire alignment was off by one, creating a subtle but noticeable asymmetry in the blouse’s fit.

Dexter didn’t notice.

He placed Mira in her wheelchair, wheeled her to the dining room, parked her at the table, and left.

Lyra and Selene were already there but Dexter did not put food on anyone’s plate.

He immediately left the dining room and walked directly to his bedroom, closed the door behind him, and stood in the center of the room with his hands pressed against his face.

’Calm...’

He activated his breathing technique and tried to calm himself. Then burning heat inside of him seemed to reduce slightly.

Then he walked to the bathroom, turned the cold water tap on full blast, and splashed his face about six times before the rising dragon was successfully tamed.

He looked at his reflection. ’Pervert,’

He sighed, dried his face, straightened his shirt, and walked back to the dining room.

The three girls were seated at the table. All three were looking at him with variations of the same expression.

Mira’s brow was furrowed. She had already noticed the missed button and her Spectral Arms were already correcting it.

Selene’s head was tilted slightly, her pale eyes aimed in his direction. Through her Echolocation, she had likely detected the elevated heart rate, the irregular breathing, and the hurried movements that were so unlike his usual calm demeanor.

Lyra blinked her eyes as she stared wide eyes at Dexter while eating her chips at the same time.

Dexter let out an awkward smile.

"Sorry about that, something urgent came up."

He didn’t explain further as he walked to the kitchen, ladled the Celestial Dawn Nectar Bowl into four serving bowls, and placed them on the table.

The moment the bowls touched the table, the aroma filled the room.

All three girls looked down at their bowls.

Mira’s Spectral Arms paused mid-button-correction. Her nostrils flared as her crimson eyes widened by a fraction.

Selene tilted her head further, her pale lips parting slightly as the scent reached her.

Lyra set down her chips.

For Lyra to voluntarily set down chips in the presence of food was, by itself, a miracle of biblical proportions.

Everyday that Dexter cooked for them, he always seems to stun them with his astonishing cooking skill.

Day by day, his skill kept on increasing rapidly as though he had no limit and right now, today’s food seemed to be even better than yesterday’s food.

Even in their homes, while they ate Arcane meals everyday, Dexter food beats everything they had tsted back at their family homes.