My eyes drift to the corner. “There’s only one bed.”
“I know, Rosalina.”
I sink deeper into the water. The movement slides my spine against his. The thought of him so close, his lean body bare… Is his cock hard?Do you want me as much as I want you?
My hand dips between my legs. I brush the sensitive bundle of nerves, and a sharp gasp escapes me.
Farron stiffens, and I immediately remove my hands from the water. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
He laughs lightly. “Would you like me to get the knots out of your hair?”
Gingerly, I touch the rat’s nest on my head. “Okay.”
“I’m going to turn around. Stay where you are.”
The water splashes over the edge, and then his hands are on my shoulders. He tips my head into the water. I clasp my arms over my stomach as Farron delicately untangles my hair.
I squint up at him, his face soft, cheeks red from the warm water, the brown freckles like constellations across his nose. Even the thin collar of thorns around his neck looks enchanting.
“You’re really beautiful, Fare,” I whisper.
His fingers still, but there’s the quirk of a smile at the edge of his lips. “Sit up.” His elegant hands stroke through my hair and he begins to weave it into a braid.
“Wow, you’re really good at this,” I say.
“In Autumn, the idea of weaving or binding things together is very important,” he says, hands dancing through my hair.
“This idea is celebrated many places in the human world, too,” I say. “Where I’m from in the Pacific Northwest, the Coast Salish Peoples create beautiful textiles by weaving wool. And my father once told me of an ancient Celtic ritual called handfasting. Two people have their hands tied together to symbolize the binding of their lives.”
“Your world is beautiful,” Farron says. He lowers his head and whispers something too low for me to hear.
“Hmm?” I ask.
“Here, it’s customary when you braid someone’s hair or offer a bracelet or other woven item to imbue the braid with well wishes and good thoughts for the person.”
“What were you saying about me?” I whisper.
He places the braid over my shoulder. “That’s a secret.”
I turn in the tub, water sloshing over the side, until we’re looking at each other. “You braid Dayton’s hair all the time. What do you imbue then?”
He smirks. “Lots of things. Sometimes I wish for him to stop being such a dumbass. But most of the time, I speak of the love I feel for him, and a wish that he could feel the same.”
The breath catches in my throat. The way Farron’s looking at me, it’s as if he’s telling me the same. “Farron…”
“Why are you holding your arms that way?”
“Oh,” I say. “Not exactly the most attractive position. My stomach’s all scrunched up.”
Anger flashes across Farron’s face, and he reaches under the water to pull my hands away. “Stand up.”
“I—”
“Do it, Rosalina,” he says, command rippling in his words. I bite my lip and slowly stand up before him in the bath, the warm water sliding down the curves of my body.
“You are absolutely perfect,” he says.
There’s not only lust, but something reverent in his gaze. Like he wants to devour me down to my very essence—body, mind, and soul.
