Chapter Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ben laughed as he collapsed into bed. He’d gotten a bit too drunk at the barbecue, so Eleonore had driven them home. She’d required little instruction, having studied his driving, and though they’d gotten off to a bit of a lurching start, she was soon handling the vehicle like a pro.
“Cornhole victors,” he proclaimed when Eleonore appeared in the doorway in a large T-shirt and his rolled-up pajama pants. “May our names echo through eternity.”
They had kicked Astaroth and Calladia’s asses five times in a row, mostly due to Eleonore’s excellent aim and ability to distract her opponents by hissing. Even Ben had gotten a few good shots in, the alcohol and his delight at her militant approach giving him confidence.
“We deserve laurel wreaths,” Eleonore said. “Chisel our names in marble.”
She crawled into bed, leaning against the headboard and propping herself up with pillows. She’d brought her tablet and a small notebook with her, and Ben watched with interest as she opened a browser search tab.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the notebook, which held a handwritten bulleted list.
“My list of things to look up.” Eleonore tapped the screen as she inputted a search query. “There’s so much to learn about the modern day that I’ll lose track if I don’t write it down.”
He leaned over to look at the list. Several items had been crossed off already.
Sesame Street
giant slalom
wine aerator
cum quoi it (correction: kumquat)
the Wright brothers
unsinkable Molly Brown
Henry VIII codpiece armor
multitool
REI
co-op
poutine
dry cleaning
where to buy sword cane
It was an…interesting combination of topics. “When did you start making this list?” he asked, charmed by her eccentric, insatiable curiosity.
“Yesterday,” Eleonore said absently as she scrolled through images of poutine. “I was trying to keep it all organized in my head before then.”
His brows rose. “You researched all of this in one day?” He’d never even heard of Henry VIII’s codpiece armor, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“More than that,” she said, clicking on a recipe. “These are just the things I was curious about while away from the PADD.” She shook her head. “Tablet, I mean.”
“You can call it a pad if you like,” he said. It wasn’t an iPad, but it was functionally the same.
“ Tablet does sound unpleasantly biblical,” Eleonore mused. “Personal Access Display Device is better.”
“Ah,” Ben said, understanding the origin and spelling of her preferred terminology at last. “That sounds like something from Star Trek .”
She smiled, and his heart, clichéd organ that it was, skipped a beat. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what had changed about her over the past weeks. Her face was still as devastatingly beautiful, but it struck him as softer somehow. She smiled more easily every day.
Eleonore returned her attention to the tablet—or the PADD, he supposed he ought to call it. His eyes traced affectionately over her full lips, her auburn lashes, and the opinionated divot in her chin. She wound a strand of long hair around her finger as she read, mouth moving soundlessly. A few tangles had snarled the wavy strands, whether from the wind or too much cornhole celebration, who could say.
“Can I braid your hair?” he asked.
She blinked and returned her attention to him. “What?”
“Your hair,” he said, motioning to the gorgeous red fall of it. “My mom taught me to braid, but I never get to practice.” When she still hesitated, he tried to make the motivation sound less desperate than I want my hands on you however I can get them. “It’s important to practice core skills, right?”
Her eyes might have twinkled at that. “Of course,” she said, shifting on the bed to present her back to him. She shook her hair over her shoulders until it fell in a curtain to her waist. “An unpracticed swordsman has already lost the battle.”
“Stay there,” Ben said, scrambling to get a comb from his bathroom. He was nearly out the door when he realized with a jolt that he’d issued a command without meaning to. “Only if you want to, that is,” he said hastily. “Sorry. It was a wish, not an order.”
Eleonore had tensed up, but now she relaxed and nodded at him, a smile brushing her lips again. He had gotten much better at catching commands before they left his mouth—adding please or what if or other qualifiers—but mistakes still happened. He was just grateful Eleonore was giving him grace when he did slip up.
Gigi had left a pack of hair ties for Eleonore on one of her visits after she’d realized Eleonore was using rubber bands—and what a reaming Ben had received over that oversight—so he grabbed one of those from the bathroom as well. When he returned, Eleonore was just as he’d left her, sitting cross-legged while she researched. Not because she’d been ordered to stay, but because she wanted to.
Ben settled in behind her, a lump of gratitude and something more in his throat. He’d touched her hair before—had shampooed it and sunk his fingers into it to angle her head back for kisses—but as he gently ran the comb through the long strands, it felt different. Like meditation in a way. The same calm came over him that he felt while knitting, and his breathing slowed.
He hadn’t braided a woman’s hair in…how long? His last girlfriend had had short hair, so it must have been the one before. He was still on good if distant terms with all his exes; there had been no high drama, just mutual realizations that they didn’t suit.
It used to trouble him that he didn’t seem able to feel the raw passion for a partner that his werewolf friends spoke about in the same glowing terms they spoke of the moonshift. He’d felt stuck and inadequate, remaining largely single as the people around him fell in love, got married, and started families.
Maybe he hadn’t been stuck, though. Maybe he’d been waiting for the right person.
It was a big, scary thought. He’d known Eleonore for little more than a month, and already she felt like an essential part of his life. Not the quiet, gentle woman he’d long imagined he’d end up with, but a vibrant, complicated, hissing goddess.
And oh, how he wanted to worship her. On his knees and with his mouth and with his hands in her hair, gently braiding the silky strands.
Eleonore made a humming sound and wiggled. “That feels nice.”
“Good,” he said, voice gone rough from the intensity of his thoughts. He secured the hairband around the end of the braid. It wasn’t totally even, but it would do for now, and he would practice every night until he got it perfect.
So long as she was here. So long as she let him.
She grabbed the braid and inspected it, then twisted to give him a bright grin. “You’re a man of many talents.”
And you’re the woman I want to use those talents to serve , he thought. But Eleonore was new to this time and new to him, and he didn’t want to frighten her with the intensity of his feelings, especially with the curse still hanging over them.
So he grabbed her in a hug from behind and kissed the top of her head. “Will you tell me the most interesting facts you’ve learned?” he asked, careful to word it as a request and not an order. He rocked her back and forth slightly, and she melted into his arms.
“Of course,” she said, yawning. “But there are quite a few of them.”
Good , he thought. “Then how about you tell me one new fact a day, if you like?”
She nodded. “Let’s start with the mating practices of praying mantises.”
As she launched into a disturbing tale involving beheading and insect necrophilia, Ben settled his cheek on her hair and reflected that he’d never been so happy to be horrified in his life.