Page 25

“Worth it,” I say.

Chapter Six

silas

My shower was designed for one man and a great deal of hot water. It was not designed for honey.

Nina stands under the rain head with her face tipped up and her eyes closed, and the water runs gold down her spine where the honey is dissolving. I have used this shower every day for decades and never once thought of it as anything but adequate plumbing. It is now the most important room in the house.

I work soap between my palms and begin at her shoulders.

Stop.

My hands pause.

Soap removes our scent.

That is the purpose of soap.

Counterproductive. Skip soap.

She has honey in her hair.

Lick it out.

I am not going to lick honey out of my mate’s hair.

Nina opens one eye. “You stopped moving. Is he talking to you again?”

“He has concerns about the soap.”

“What concerns could anyone possibly have about soap?”

“It is washing me off you.”

She laughs, a bright sound that bounces off the stone, and turns to face me with water streaming down her breasts. “So what does he want instead?”

“I would rather not repeat it.”

“Silas.”

“He suggested I lick the honey out of your hair.”

She considers this seriously, which is one of the things I am learning I adore about her. “Hard pass on the hair. But I’m not saying no to the general concept.”

Compromise, my dragon offers. Wash mate. Then lick mate.

That is not a compromise. That is your original proposal in a different order.

Better order.

I wash her anyway. Thoroughly. Her hair, which takes two rounds of shampoo and an argument with my dragon. Her shoulders. The small of her back, where the honey had gathered. Her breasts, slowly, because I am thorough and not because my dragon is pacing. By the time I rinse the last of the suds from her thighs, her breathing has changed and her scent is rising through the steam, warm ginger and want, and she smells only like herself.

Unacceptable, my dragon says.

For once, I agree with him.

I put my hands back on her. Palms flat, unhurried, from her collarbone down over her breasts and her stomach and her hips, pressing my skin to hers everywhere the soap touched. Replacing what I washed away. She watches me do it with her lips parted.