I found Caelan on his hands and knees in the main hall, scrubbing the floor with a brush and a bucket of soapy water.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning.”
“It’s five in the morning.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” He sat back on his heels, pushing sweat-damp hair from his forehead. “And the floors were dusty.”
I looked around. The floors sparkled. The entire cabin, actually, sparkled. Every surface gleamed. Not a speck of dust in sight. The windows were so clean they were practically invisible.
“Did you... clean everything?”
“I started at three.” He said it with a completely straight face. “The windows were streaky.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I settled for making him breakfast, turning his own cooking skills against him, and forcing him to take a nap. He protested. I threatened to sit on him until he slept. He slept.
The big bad wolf, defeated by a five-foot-six human with bedhead. I was clearly terrifying.
But the groveling didn’t stop.
Every time I sat on the couch, Caelan materialized beside me.
“Can I rub your feet?”
“I’m fine-”
He was already reaching for my ankle. His thumbs pressed into my arch, and my protest died in a groan. Okay. Fine. He could rub my feet. I wasn’t made of stone.
“Your shoulders seem tense,” he observed an hour later. “Let me.”
I let him. I was weak. Sue me.
“Are you hungry? I brought snacks.”
He’d brought an entire basket. Fruits, cheeses, chocolates, small pastries that melted on my tongue. I ate until I couldn’t move, and then he covered me with a blanket and offered to read to me.
That’s when things got interesting.
“I found these in your bag,” he said, holding up one of my smutty romance novels. “Do you want me to-”
“Oh god, no. You don’t have to-”
“‘His hands burned a trail down her skin,’”Caelan read, his deep voice wrapping around the words with dramatic intensity,“‘leaving fire in their wake. She arched into his touch, desperate, needy-’”
My face went scarlet.
“‘I’m going to make you scream my name,’”Caelan continued, completely straight-faced,“‘until the entire kingdom knows who you belong to.’”
“You can stop now.”
“But I’m at the good part.”
He was not stopping. He was, in fact, reading with increasing enthusiasm, adding dramatic pauses at all the right moments, occasionally glancing up at me with eyes that said he knew exactly what he was doing.
“‘His-’”
“OKAY.” I grabbed the book from his hands. “That’s enough.”
