Seraphina kept still as Rune shuffled around like a cat, on his tiptoes, barely breathing. She was barely breathing herself, her heart throbbing in her throat and in her core at the same time, her body trembling with the effort to not move, to not make a sudden gesture that might send him running.
He placed the bar of soap on the edge of the tub, by her elbow.
“There’s also a washcloth,” he said.
She exhaled, her lips touching the surface of the water from how she was bent over her knees.
“Can you wash my back?” she asked. “I can’t reach.”
She heard him swallow heavily. The relic showed him standing behind her, looming over her diminutive frame. It didn’t matter that her head was down; the bone aided her brain in always calculating distances and dimensions.
“All right,” he said, and he knelt by the tub.
He dipped the washcloth in the water and took the soap from where he’d put it. Seraphina held her breath when he ran the washcloth over her spine. She shuddered and flexed her fingers, gripping the backs of her knees tighter.
“You’re cold,” he said.
She gave a short laugh. “No. Keep going.”
He ran the soapy cloth up and down her spine, then she felt his hand hover over her shoulder blade for a few seconds before he slipped it underneath her curtain of hair and pulled it out of the way to expose her nape.
Seraphina sucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit hard. She remembered when Matteo used to do this. It would be late at night, and she would be hunched over her work, cutting and filing bone shards, and he’d bend over her shoulder to assessher work. He’d gather her hair in his fist and push it over her other shoulder, so he could see better, and she’d close her eyes and clench her jaw to suppress a moan. Once, she’d asked him to kiss her. Right there, below the ear. He’d breathed heavily against her skin and said he could never. A purist was never going to touch a woman that wasn’t his wife. Seraphina didn’t ask again.
Rune ran the washcloth from one shoulder to the other, then back down her spine. He kept his distance as he did it, his back straight and his body away from her, leaning no more than he had to.
“What are you afraid of?” she asked.
He froze, and she felt cool drops of water run down her back as he squeezed the cloth without meaning to.
“Afraid?” he echoed.
“It seems like you’re afraid of me,” she pushed, though she was aware she might be making a mistake.
“I’m not afraid of you.” He dipped the washcloth into the water and soaped it up again. When he ran it over her skin, she noticed his hand didn’t shake as much as before. “It’s just that I’ve never done this before.”
“Given someone a bath?”
“Been with a woman...”
Seraphina lifted her head a little. “You’ve never been with a woman, and you’ve never seen a woman naked?”
“No, never.”
She hummed deep in her throat, considering her next move. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Nothing in particular, since she hadn’t planned this conversation. It didn’t surprise her, since he’d told her he’d been sheltered, and then he’d suggested he’d been locked up before, but what about his life up to the point when it all went wrong? Had he not experienced anything at all?
“How does it make you feel?” she asked. “If not afraid.”
“I don’t know. It feels...”
He didn’t finish the sentence, and instead focused on scrubbing her back thoroughly, a little too hard, if she was being honest. She could feel her skin turn pink from the hot water, the coarse soap, and his attention.
“Well?” she prompted him after a minute. “How does it feel, Rune?”
“It feels like it shouldn’t happen to me.”
That was an answer she hadn’t expected.
“Why not?”
