Page 35 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

“Before the pillow fight and s’mores, yes. Let’s go.”

It took them longer to figure out the “how” than it would take to actually wash her hair, but eventually Quinn found herself propped on a padded bench pushed up against the edge of a claw-foot tub.

Rolled towels softened the curved lip of the cast iron so she was as comfortable as it was possible to be with her head hanging back into the tub and a shirtless Micah leaning over her, hairy chest inches from her face.

“Is that too hot?” He used the handheld spray nozzle to wet her hairline.

“It’s fine.” She closed her eyes, but she could smell traces of aftershave emanating from his jaw and discerned the heat of his skin radiating toward her.

He took his time dampening her hair, picking up the length and squeezing the water through it before he squirted some lime-and-sea-breeze-scented shampoo onto his palm.

What on earth was he doing? He smoothed the shampoo across her wet hair in little dabs, then gently began rubbing it into the tresses before piling it all together while he slowly worked up a lather. She was never this fussy. Soak, scrub, go. She used whatever was on sale when it was time to buy shampoo, combed it out and let it air-dry.

“Oh,” she murmured as he began a swirling massage with his fingertips against her scalp.

“Did that hurt?Didyou bump your head yesterday?”

“No, it feels really good,” she murmured. “How do you know how to do this?”

“It’s what they do when I get my hair cut.” His thumbs worked against her temples.

“Your barber does this?”

“I’ve started seeing a woman in Berlin.”

She snapped her eyes open.

“She gets in here...” His strong fingers dug into the tension at the base of her skull while she stared at his Adam’s apple.

As tension released, she groaned, “Oh my God,” and let her eyes flutter closed again.

“You’re a train wreck, aren’t you?” He tenderly attacked the muscles in the back of her neck, using the soap like oil to lubricate the long strokes of his fingers against the tendons before he edged back toward her scalp and turned her whole body into melted wax.

She wallowed blissfully, finally compelled to tell him, “This is better than sex.”

“You’re making the same sounds.”

“Don’t make this weird.”

“You started it.”

She kept her eyes closed, but smiled. She liked when they were like this, when his hands were on her and their jabs at each other were playful and teasing.

When he began to rinse out the shampoo, he asked quietly, “Will you tell me something?”

She opened her eye, suspicious. “Is this still a pajama party? You’re supposed to say ‘truth or dare’ first.”

“I dare you to tell me the truth.”

“Cheater. What?”

“How many homes were you in?”

She clamped her eyes closed. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know.” He began to work a tingling, brightly scented conditioner into her hair. “I’ve been thinking about how angry I was with Remy. I did blame him when I thought I was finally going to live with my mother and sister only to wind up back at boarding school, but the reality is, I didn’t hate boarding school. At least I wasn’t living with my father or my grandparents. I was in the same boat as the rest of the boys. They were mostly the same boys, year after year, so I knew what I was going back to. I imagine it’s harder to walk into someone’s home and be the only new person, to have to figure out what the rules and dynamics are. I’ve been wondering how many times you were put through that.”

“It’s not that hard once you’re used to it. Use your manners, do your chores, finish your homework. Probably all the same rules you had to abide by.” She kept her eyes firmly closed to hide that it had been a hellscape of anxiety, every single time.

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