Page 135 of Bound
Her cheeks were pink with colour. He did think her so fetching when she blushed. He’d thought it reserved for her cheeks alone, but he could see now that it crept down her neck and kissed over her collarbones. Did it go farther still? She still wore her shift, and it made him wonder.
He’d know soon. If... if she stepped out of that shift. If he allowed himself to look as she made her way into the bath.
He should look. Should help her over the side so she did not slip and fall.
It wasn’t wrong. Not if she didn’t mind.
He could see her mouth twitching in that peculiar way of hers. “Well,” Wren breathed once. Twice. “Well,” she repeated. Then dropped her shift. And took his arm.
And yes, her lush went lower still. Down to the breasts he wasn’t certain he should be looking at, but once he’d glimpsed...
It felt even more wrong not to.
Not to appreciate his mate in all her beauties. To help her down slowly, one arm steady for her to hold, the other about her waist to make sure she did not tumble in.
The water was still warm—perhaps even a little too hot, but she sank into it with a sigh. Only to remember herself with a grimace as she kept her wing from pressing against the hard side of the tub.
“Here,” Braum offered, fetching one of the cloths from the cupboard and rolling it. It would soak, but cushioned her wing enough that she could lie back some, and she smiled at him gratefully.
Her smiles had no business affecting him as they did. It made him want to do anything at all for her, if only she’d give him another one.
He’d hoard them like some did coins. Tucking them away inside his person, a promise that she was pleased by him and with him.
What other ways might he please her? Coax others from her lips he’d yet to experience?
He knelt beside the tub, thinking how nice it might be if she allowed him to wash her all over. But his mate wasn’t like that. She’d think him insulting her in some way, as if she wasn’t capable of washing herself.
Foolish mate.
When he merely wanted the pleasure of touching her skin. Of knowing how it felt when it was wet. When it was slicked with soap.
How it compared when he wiped her dry and she was soft and warm all over. He swallowed thickly.
And handed her a wedge of soap and a cloth.
Kept one for himself, to tend her back.
“Rushing me from my bath, are you?” she asked, eyes closed.
He reached out and touched a tendril of hair floating in the water. Curled it about his forefinger and marvelled at the feel of it. “Never.” And he meant it.
He’d fill this tub with hot water every day if it meant he might sit here and watch her in it.
“You say that now. Just wait until the chores are piling up because I’m lounging away.” She said it so dryly, as if there was any part of her that would actually consider doing that. She was dedicated to her home, to its care—then there were the animals themselves. He could not even imagine a world in which his Wren did not put them first.
Perhaps he should feel jealous of them. They held her heart first, helped keep her going after so much wrong had been done, and he would not begrudge her that for anything. It meant only he would have to earn their affection in turn, so their tasks might be joint ones.
Whatever was in that concoction of herbs seemed to relax her tongue as well as soothe her pains, and he wondered if he should object to that. Protect her in some way from things she did not mean to say to him.
But in truth, he found himself enjoying it. For her to simply talk to him rather than torturing herself in the process.
Or maybe it wasn’t the herbs at all. Maybe necessity had made her finally decide that trusting him was a worthwhile risk. That he loved her enough she might allow herself to be vulnerable.
He prayed it was so.
“Will you attend to your hair, or should I?”
His mouth was dry. He hadn’t thought to bring a cup for water, but he regretted it now.