Page 30 of Tangwystle
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
I unscrewed the cap, my fingers digging into the white cream. It buzzed with the subtle hum of pricey magic. Gently, I began to apply it.
“Be still,” I told Gretel, who had nodded at Baz’s question. She stopped moving immediately, her chin resting on her arms, which were crossed under her head.
“I want you to know you’ll always have a place here,” Baz told her.
My fingers smoothed the balm along her skin. She sucked in a breath.
Baz heard it. “Ticklish?” he asked with a wolfish smile. She dipped her head, her eyes peeking up through her lashes.
“Thank you.” Her words came quietly.
Baz inclined his head to the side. “Of course,” he said, all serious. “It’s hardly like I’d throw you back to that man.”
I stopped myself from clearing my throat. From telling him not to bring up Rufus. He’d be a thorn in our side. I already knew we wouldn’t be able to escape him. But Baz didn’t need to bring the man up now.
Gretel didn’t cry. Or wiggle. She simply stared at him.
“Do you think I’ve been bad?” she asked. “Wystle thinks I’ve been bad.”
My fingers hovered over her back.
“Does she now?” Baz hummed under his breath like he was amused. Gretel’s question was a serious one, though. “No,Gretel. I don’t think you’ve been bad. I think that lies with Rufus. Do you think you’ve been bad?”
I wish I could’ve seen her face as she answered, but I was closer to her legs, forcing myself to apply the balm to her skin.
“If I was, I didn’t mean to be,” she murmured.
Baz brushed back a strand of her hair. “Rufus was terrible to you, but you won’t find his type of punishment in this household. At least not without a safe word.”
I’m not sure what was hotter, Gretel’s inflamed skin or my cheeks.
Safe words belonged to the dirty books I read. I’d certainly never encountered them before. At least not until Baz.
Gretel let out a breath of air. Not quite a titter, but something close enough. They smiled at one another, sharing some insider knowledge while I sat on the edge of the bed, applying ointment to Gretel’s back.
I forced my gaze away, applying a glob of the stuff and rubbing it in. My hands lowered, tracing the line where her lower back met with her ass. Lower and lower I wanted to go, not that there were any more scars to cover.
I’d never come face to face with a naked woman until I met Gretel. Twice now I’d played her nursemaid, and this was the thanks I got? Her, flirting with Baz. My Baz.
The urge to slide my hand across her round ass and pinch her hard slammed into me.
I didn’t look away from the ointment in my hands. A deep breath left me as I tried to steady on.
Baz would flirt with a tree if it let him. And what man in this town hadn’t commented on Gretel’s looks?
I finished applying the cream to her back. She’d be perfect in a few days. No physical reminders of Rufus’s brutality.
But the thing about Gretel, the thing that truly got under my skin, was that scars or not, she’d have been perfect anyway.
And it wouldn’t be long before Baz knew it too.
ten
One day later,Gretel appeared at my bedroom door.
“What are you doing?” My heart hammered. Partly because she’d scared me and partly because why in the stars was Gretel in my doorway?
