Page 60 of Apex of the Curve

“Your life. You took the day off, it’s all you, baby.”

“And tomorrow?” I asked, and he gave me a wicked grin.

“Tomorrow, you learn about me.”

“Sounds exciting,” I said smiling.

“Should be,” he agreed. “Take a ride with me.”

“Are you asking or are you telling me that’s what we’re going to do?” I asked playfully.

The smile he gave me as he wrapped me in a towel and rubbed me down briskly through the material was playful, but his eyes were serious.

“It’ll be on very rare occasions that I tell you to do anything, usually regarding the club or club stuff. When it comes to that, no arguments. At least not until I get home, or it’s just you and me,” he said and his tone was serious.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I mean it, Aspen,” he said, tipping my chin, making certain to capture my eyes with his. “It’s the only way I see this working.”

The seriousness in his eyes took my breath away. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know what to say.

“I made my peace with what kind of man I am years ago,” he said, and the sadness in his eyes told me to the contrary, he hadn’t. He’d just perhaps convinced himself that he had. I doubted that Fenris didn’t do anything without his own reasons, however.

This was a part of him that was complex, confusing, and one that would require patience.

“You do a lot of reckless and dangerous things for the club?” I asked softly.

He shook his head. “No more than the next brother,” he said.

“That didn’t answer my question,” I said softly.

“Sometimes that’s the best answer I can give you.”

I stepped out of the tub and held the towel around me, handing him his with the other. He took it and dried off and it was a treat to simply be allowed to watch.

“You do a lot of illegal things for the club?” I asked softly.

“There’s a difference between legality and what’s morally right,” he said pointedly, and I thought about that for a minute.

“You’re right,” I said after a while, nodding. “There is.”

“All I can do is promise to keep you out of it,” he said. “Hence, why, if there’s a time I tell you to do something, I’m going to need you to do it. To keep you out of it. To keep you safe from any blowback from your world.”

“My world?” I asked softly.

“For now, still, yeah,” he agreed.

“Are they really all that different?” I murmured softly and looked up at him.

“On the surface, it doesn’t always seem like it,” he said. “Underneath, we couldn’t be more different, if you know what I mean.”

I shook my head. “I think you lost me, because I don’t quite follow, no.”

He smiled and hooked the back of my head with one big hand, dragging my forehead to his lips and kissing it soundly, pausing to soak in the gesture as much as I, myself, relished it. My muscles going loose beneath it as I soaked in his love and care – a pathetic, starving thing for love and affection that Fenris was proving to be ultimately patient with on that front.

Then again, perhaps he was just as starved in a way, as desperate to give it as I was to soak it in.

It didn’t seem like something to discuss, just something to enjoy while we each had the ability to enjoy it from one another.

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