Page 43 of Thief of Roses
He waded into the water upright.
When Rivani glanced over, she received a glorious rear view of him from horn to knees before he had time to slip beneath the dark surface and hide all the feral power of his body.She could understand how he hated his new tail, but she appreciated it as a finishing touch to the glorious line of fur down his back.With a sleek layer of fur down the length and a more riotous bristle at the end, nothing about it put her off.She longed to touch it, but such a suggestion might make him more self-conscious or reticent.The view also afforded her another glance of his hips, wide and round, almost womanly from the back, at such a contrast to the expected tapered ratio from his shoulders and waist.He was magnificent.
Rivani contemplated, for his sake, going into the water clothed and chided herself for the absurdity of doing such a thing.Granted, if Baró had been any other man, she would not have bathed with him, but his well-meaning propriety assured her of her safety.And besides, Baró never looked at her the way she looked at him.She braced herself for kissing so many times and yet he only displayed platonic propriety and courtly courtesy.On the rare occasions she had noticed that he had cause to feel confined by his pants, she understood that it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with self-denial.Perhaps it was from fear regarding his perceived capabilities in cruelty and his adamant desire not to be touched due to the abuse he himself suffered.Still, she could wish, even as she respected his clear disinterest.
She stripped and unbraided her hair, feeling tempted to call out to Baró and have him see her state of undress, but she did not, thinking it may be cruel as he was so determined to be proper.She waded out, cold and still regretful that she would have so few opportunities to enjoy this before the snow fell.She called to him when the water reached her belly, not feeling like there was anything scandalous above that mark.
Baró betrayed no horrified sensibilities when he turned around.His ears swiveled, at some point having changed to be long enough to swivel now, even though he employed most of his attention in combing through his fur with his claws.
“Dost thou need aught?”
“Fish?”She used Rivanic to remind him to do the same and enacting the movements of a fish since she had not used the word before.“It would be easy to clean and cook.”
“Not tonight.I have not practiced catching of late,” he confessed, flexing his claws in front of him as if testing them and ensuring they still functioned the way he remembered.“I will hunt for you tonight.Fish another day.”
“Thank you.”
She submerged herself, drawing her hair back and twisting it in a rope over her shoulder after breaking the surface.She stretched out her foot and tested the ground with her toes.
“Baró, come here?I would come to you, but I will be up to my chin in a couple steps.Let me help you.”
He plunged beneath the water and broke the surface on his way to her.In the brilliant radiance of the setting sun through the forest trees, he glowed and glistened, droplets sparkling like diamonds in his fur.
Baró was a monster, a creature whose shape changed in degrading and disparaging ways.Although the world would see Baró as a grotesque aberration of nature, he was also, simultaneously and concurrently, the most beautiful and incomprehensibly divine being that could ever exist.This monster was one she trusted, and hated that she trusted.She wanted him with her, and hated that she wanted him with her.She stretched her hand out for him, burying the tips of her fingers in the curls of his mane on his chest when he came near enough.
He let her touch him as she wished, nodding his consent when her eyes asked and her fingers hesitated.He stared down at her and tilted his head to the side as she gazed at him.He blanched under her scrutiny and turned his face away.His embarrassment charmed her in moments like these.
“Thou shouldst not peer so closelie.My goode fortune relieth on thy blyndness and thy swete touch wouldst be withdrawn yf thou shouldst see me verrilie.”
“I do see you, Baró,”she spoke to his chest in the absence of his direct gaze.She smoothed over the fur there, tracing one of the long-healed scars by his clavicle.Then she laid her hands flat against him, feeling the steady, rapid beat of his heart through her palms.“I see you better than you see yourself.”
“That thy touch remayneth telleth me that such beeth not soothe.”He placed his hands over hers on his chest, firmly enough to indicate that her touch pleased him but lightly enough that she could withdraw.“Woldest that thou myght always thynk me worthie of thy affectionnes.”
The water may have been cold but Rivani burned.She shivered at his hopeful, longing tone.Her fingertips curled into him as she leaned towards him like a flower bending to the sun.She tilted her face upwards, meeting his gaze.When he looked at her, she felt seen in a way that scared her, that thrilled her, that matched the intensity of her own gazing.She could barely breathe, so captivated she found herself by his eyes, so hopeful and so uncertain.If she were of a mind to think of anything but him, she might have called herself a fool for thinking earlier that he gave off none of the heat that she had for him.
She extracted one of her hands and reached up to touch his cheek, letting the tips of her fingers trace the line of his jaw and brush over the velvet fur of his face.For a far too brief moment, peace and stability and contentment eased her restlessness.Although she never understood it, for that moment, she experienced what non-Rivani did when they chose to make a life for themselves in one place with one person.
Her mouth parted slightly, wishing he would take the initiative and kiss her.If he did, she would be lost in her own open floodgate of passion.She would terrify him with the vehemence of her lust even if she could now recognize a similar echo of desire in his eyes.
“Who are you, Baró?”she asked, trembling like a sapling in the breeze.
He must have been someone special once, when he wore a different face and a different body.When women who matched him in elegance and breeding and gentility held his arm and flattered him prettily.When a Rivan woman would have been beneath consideration unless to be the amusement of an hour.
“I am your servant, Rivani.Your beast.”His mouth twitched up, a wry expression save that it never reached his eyes.
“I like that you’re my beast,” she confessed, having warmed to the term, not as an insult, but as a simple descriptor for something Other and magnificent.“I never realized that I needed one before.They’re rare in this world, and the one that I am privileged to know is precious to me.”She bit her lip, though, her eyes flicking away before returning to meet his gaze.“Ah, but my servant...I would rather friend.Or partner.Or helpmeet.”She stroked his cheek once more with her thumb before letting her hand slide back down to his chest.“I know you weren’t just a servant before, Baró.”
“I should have been a servant,” he murmured.“The higher the office, the more I should have endeavored to serve.I have much for which to atone.”
“You work at it, Baró,” she told him, addressing her hand on his chest, uncertain if she could look at him again and behave herself.“You will never fix your past, of course.The tragedy of any deed is that it can never be undone.But of your future, I could not have more faith and confidence in you.”
She caught the hand that still covered hers and clasped it, pulling it away from his chest and using her free hand to hold the other side of it.He curled his fingers into his palm, attempting to hide his claws from her.She brought his knuckles to her mouth and kissed the center one before she released his hand.Her cheeks flared at her brazenness, but she kept her composure even though she fought to run away and go clean clothing lest she do something more, emboldened by her brief affectionate gesture.
Rivani met his gaze again and had to bite the inside of her mouth to prevent her saying or doing something stupid out of a hormone-fueled lust that had gone too long unsated.She could hardly imagine what his presence during her ovulation, and her greatest time of need, would have inspired her to do.She hated that he would be leaving soon again, but at this juncture, perhaps it was a great kindness and mercy to have him away from her when she could not take advantage as she wished.She should never have glanced at him again after kissing his hand, experiencing all the uncomfortable heat of her body even in the midst of what should have been a passion-quenching pond.His complexion darkened and Rivani wanted to touch his cheek again to see if Baró indeed blushed, but her hands had gone shy, clasping themselves together in front of her, more to prevent further foolishness on her part than because she had thought better of it.
“Thank you,” he said.The wry smile that hadn’t reached his eyes before reached them now, except now less wry and more embarrassed.A strange expression for such a massive, predatory creature.
She stepped away, afraid that the silence and little distance between them might spur her to cross the span and intensify their interaction if she acted in accordance with the hunger of her body and the desire of her skin to touch and be touched.
