Page 137 of Bound

She blinked, as if coming back from somewhere far away. “Oh. Hair, I suppose. That jar there. Half a palm full. At the scalp first, then the rest smoothed downward.”

He could do that. Felling a tree was hard work. Smoothing a potion through his mate’s hair was...

Somehow harder.

Not the act itself—although he watched her intently for any sign he was pulling too hard or treating her too roughly. He wanted to be thorough, as he was more than aware she could rescind her consent to this intimacy and make do with unwashed hair for the duration of her convalescence.

It was the way she relaxed into his hands that was hardest. The way she gave a little sigh when he found a particular spot that pleased her. That hinted at just how compatible they would be.

Not today.

Not for the foreseeable.

But... someday.

Rinsing was not as challenging as he feared. Not when she allowed his hand to settle at the back of her neck, holding her suspended so her wing was not crushed along the bottom, and he could swirl her hair until slick foam was added to the water.

Then her back. To the reddened skin that was so clearly in want of attention. That he used the usual soap, then spent longer with something creamy from the cupboard. She directed him to it with a small voice, and he wondered if this was the first time it had been attended to since her mother died.

He could have asked.

But he didn’t.

Her feathers took longer still. She curled forward into a ball as he worked, her head propped on her arms as she looked occasionally over her shoulder at him. “Do you think I don’t take care of myself?”

Always so worried about his opinion of her, his Wren. Even from the start.

“I think I was made to take care of you,” Braum deflected. Leaned forward. Placed a kiss between her shoulder blades. Perhaps it would encourage her skin to calm, or maybe...

Maybe he simply wanted her to know what it felt like. Just as he wished to know how the soft skin of her back felt against his lips. “You’ll have to teach me how to do it properly.”

The bath was growing cooler, the steam settling and leaving a heavy air that was in want of an open window for relief. That might be another day. Another project. One he might barter for with kisses and biscuits rather than the coins she insisted on gifting him.

But she’s promised to stop with that, hadn’t she? Because she knew that anything he owned was hers.

He was hers.

He brought out a large towel and, though her cheeks pinked anew when he helped her stand, he tried his best not to look. To watch the water sluice over her skin, her every curve.

He swallowed. Wrapped the cloth about her instead and watched her huddle into it, her glances at him shy and a little nervous.

“It isn’t fair, you know,” she groused, taking the ends of her hair and squeezing gently into yet another cloth. “I should have got to go as slow as I wanted. Not had to show you a bit of me without clothes on for ages and ages.”

He hummed, absolutely certain that she would have done just that if necessity had not changed things. “Stay off the roof, then,” he countered, touching the end of her nose and smiling at her.

Only to be rewarded with her scowl as she made to push at him. “I...” she began, full of indignation and outrage, and his smile broadened.

“And keep out of the pond as well. Might have broken your wing just as easily in there.”

She ducked her head, her hand curled about the cloth covering her. “I thought you would not order me about.”

What had begun as harmless teasing had trespassed somewhere else, no matter how unintentionally.

“So I did,” Braum agreed, tipping up her chin so she might look at him. “Then do as you please, Wren. I’ll be here to patch you up afterward.”

She huffed. But she smiled afterwards and...

He thought his heart might burst from his chest when she leaned into him. Her head against him, her body too.