“Are you alright?” he asks tightly, though still facing away.
“I-…” Sucking in a breath through my teeth, on my exhale I let out, “I need your help. Please.”
He turns immediately, and if I weren’t in so much pain, I might have lingered on the sight of him beautifully naked before me. His eyes don’t even wander my naked skin—they just find my gaze. Kneeling before me, he asks, “Can I touch you? Only to help you?”
“Yes,” I hiss out in a wince.
His gaze falls to my bandages. “Grab onto me if you need. Tell me to stop if it’s what you wish.”
Then he’s slowly peeling layer by layer off, winding it down until my wound is revealed. A soft gasp leaves his lips. Eyes hooked on the wide stitching from my abdomen to my knee. A small tremble sparks to life in his hand before he clenches it shut.
Naturally, I cringe, wanting to pull away from him. Out of sight. Into the shadows. “Hideous, isn’t it? You’re appalled? Disgusted?”
His eyebrows draw tight as he looks at me. Shaking his head furiously, his voice remains calm. “How could you say that? I’m neither disgusted nor appalled. I’m…” he pulls in a shaky, uncontrollable inhale, “I’m utterly adrift in anger. Drowning in wrath that hurts me to breathe. That some pissrat of a man thought he could…”
He blows out a long breath, not wanting to look me in the eyes. It’s a moment before he continues in a shaking voice, “I lost control. I hurt you.”
I rest a gentle hand on his. “But you didn’t mean to, did you? It was an accident, Cyrus.”
When he flicks his kind eyes to me, hedoesn’t need to clarify. “I’ve never lost myself like that before. It doesn’t matter if I didn’t mean to.” He shakes his head and drops his gaze from mine. “After you told me of his threat to you, I should have ended him sooner.”
Squeezing his hand, I whisper, “You didn’t know if he’d be bluffing or not. And I told you not to reprimand him—that I had it under control.”
“Are you scared of me?” he breathes.
“No.”
His eyes are back to mine, squinting in disbelief. “Even after what you saw?”
The claws, teeth, and ease of which he slaughtered them would be a thing of nightmares. Yet, one thing is true. “Even after what I saw in you, yes. I knew your intentions weren’t to hurt me.”
His head drops, muttering, “Can I do one thing, to try and make amends? One thing that might alleviate your pain?”
Removing my hand atop his, I cup his cheek and tilting his face to look at me. “You have no amends to make with me. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come.”
His eyes crinkle slightly as he smiles. “Regardless of what you say, I’ll still hold it in my heart that I’ve wronged you.”
With my free hand, I reach out, then draw back, before reaching again and pressing my palm to his chest. Right over the steady beat of his heart. As gentle as I can ever muster, I whisper, “Then I absolve you of it.”
His hand softly presses over mine, eyes lost in me as he holds my palm to his heart. We sit there, guided by the thrum of his heartbeat and the gurgling of the river behind him.
At a glacial speed, I move to him. Watching between his lips, where I wish to be, and checking his eyes for his reaction. Then back again, over and over. He’s frozen. Allowing me to take the space I’m comfortable with. Not moving a single muscle.
With my hand on his cheek, I draw him toward me. He bumps his forehead into mine, and as I angle my face to kiss his lips, he moves against me. Avoiding the kiss I’m so drawn to take.
I search his eyes. “You won’t kiss me?”
“I don’t want to kiss you like this.”
“Why is that?” I ask as I stroke his cheek. “I want you to. I’m asking you to.”
“It feels wrong to touch you in the ways I want to. Especially wheneverything has happened because of me. If I didn’t feel for you the way I do, I wouldn’t have listened to your wish of not reprimanding him. I would have expelled him immediately. And because of that—because of my feelings for you—that’s the reason everything happened the way it did.”
“The reason everything happened the way it did was becauseCrawfordwas a terrible man.” I slip my hand out from under his, away from his heart, and grab both sides of his face. “Listen to me, you foolish, self-condemned man. I don’t blame you for what happened. In fact, I thank you for saving my life, my—” I clear my throat. “My honor.”
Breaking the contact between our foreheads, I admire him. The softness in his gaze, the way his eyes follow me. Brushing a strand back from his temple, I tuck it behind his ear. “Now, I said I trust you. Show me the reason you brought me out here and asked me to strip bare.” I hold out a hand to him with a small grin.
A ghost of a smile lifts his lips, and he sweeps me into his arms again. Though, this time nothing separates us. Skin is pressed against skin. He steps into the water carefully, the light around us growing brighter as he gets deeper.
