Chapter 13 #2
I looked at the pool and then down at myself, wrapped in the fur like some kind of prehistoric burrito.
The water looked cold but inviting, sunlight catching the surface in little diamonds of light.
I could see the bottom. Smooth stones in shades of grey and brown, the water maybe knee-deep at most in the shallower parts near the edge.
Right. Baby steps. I could do baby steps.
I loosened the fur and let it fall around my waist, keeping it bunched in my lap while I tested the water with my fingers. Cool but not biting—whatever geothermal quirk warmed those stones took the worst of the chill off. I could work with this.
Getting undressed was harder than I'd expected.
Every movement pulled at the wound on my thigh, and my muscles had that wobbly, overcooked-noodle quality that came from days of fever and inactivity.
I managed to unwrap the fur completely and set it on the rock behind me, folded so it wouldn't get wet.
The morning air hit my bare skin and I shivered violently, goosebumps racing across every inch of exposed flesh.
Don't think about it. Just get in.
I eased myself off the rock and into the shallows, gasping at the temperature but once I was in, once the initial shock passed, it felt good. Invigorating, and more importantly, clean. The grime lifting away, the stickiness dissolving.
I scrubbed at my skin with my hands, wishing I had soap, wishing I had a washcloth, wishing for any of the thousand modern conveniences I'd taken for granted, hot water most of all.
But even without them, the simple act of getting clean felt like reclaiming something.
Like washing away the worst of the fear and pain and leaving room for something else.
There was a slight sound behind me and I looked over my shoulder.
Daska had returned. I gasped, my hands flying up over my naked breasts, but his eyes were locked on mine and he was holding something out to me.
It was a small pouch made of woven plant fibre and a carved, smooth wooden bowl.
He mimed washing, and when I took it from him and squeezed, foam bubbled out.
Soap. Some kind of natural soap.
"Thank you," I breathed, and his mouth curved in the smallest smile.
He gestured to my hair, then to himself, making a washing motion. Offering.
He wants to wash my hair.
"Okay." He cocked his head, not understanding, so I nodded.
Daska moved behind me, settling at the edge of the pool. I stayed in the water, submerged to my waist and facing away from him, while he knelt on the rock. His hands touched my hair gently, gathering it, testing its weight.
Then he poured water over it with the bowl, shielding my eyes with his hand, and began to work the soap through.
Oh.
His fingers were careful and methodical, massaging my scalp in slow circles, working the foam through the tangled mess. I closed my eyes without meaning to, my whole body going loose under his touch.
Nobody had touched my hair like this since I was a child.
Since my mum used to wash it in the kitchen sink on Sunday evenings, humming off-key while she worked the conditioner through the tangles with infinite patience.
The memory surfaced with a sharpness that stole my breath, and I had to press my lips together hard to keep from making a sound.
This however, did not feel like it did when my mum did it.
Daska's fingers moved from my scalp down through the lengths, separating the worst of the knots with a gentleness that seemed impossible for hands that size.
He didn't pull. Didn't rush. Just worked through each tangle with the same steady patience he brought to everything, easing the strands apart rather than forcing them.
When he hit a particularly stubborn knot near the nape of my neck, he paused, supporting the hair above it with one hand so the tugging wouldn't reach my scalp, and teased it free with the other.
I swallowed hard. My throat felt thick.
He poured more water over my hair, rinsing the soap away in a slow cascade that ran warm down my back.
His fingers followed the water, combing through the wet strands, checking for tangles he might have missed.
The touch was light but thorough, and every pass of his fingertips against my scalp sent little shivers down my spine that pooled somewhere low in my belly.
Get it together. He's just washing your hair. This doesn't mean...
His thumbs traced the line behind my ears, pressing gently into the tight muscles at the base of my skull, and a sound escaped me that was dangerously close to a moan.
I bit my lip, mortified, but Daska didn't pause.
Just kept working, his fingers moving in slow, deliberate circles now rubbing my scalp that felt obscenely good.
He gathered my hair into one hand, lifting it off my neck, and poured another bowl of water over the length of it.
The cascade ran warm where it had sat in the sun, trailing down my bare back in rivulets that made me shiver for reasons that had nothing to do with temperature.
Then he squeezed out the excess water and began to comb through it with something.
I twisted to look and saw he'd pulled out a wide-toothed comb made of bone or antler, worn smooth with use.
He made a sound and gestured for me to turn back around as he kept combing.
Daska's free hand rested lightly on my shoulder, steadying me as he worked, and the warmth of his palm against my bare, wet skin was doing things to my nervous system that I absolutely did not have permission to feel.
Each stroke of the comb sent a cascade of sensation from my scalp down through my entire body.
Not pain, not quite pleasure, but something in between that left me breathless and slightly dizzy.
The kind of touch that made you realise how long you'd gone without being touched at all.
Two years. Two years since anyone had put their hands on me. Two years since I'd let anyone close enough to try.
The silence between us was thick. It wasn’t uncomfortable, I was never uncomfortable with Daska, but it was weighted with something I didn't have a name for.
An awareness that hummed beneath my skin, electric and terrifying and completely inappropriate given that I was naked in a river being groomed by a man I'd known for less than a week.
His knuckles grazed the back of my neck as he lifted a section of hair, and I felt the touch everywhere. In the hollow of my throat. In the palms of my hands. In the tight, warm place behind my ribs that I'd thought was dead.
I'd been so numb for so long. Two years of feeling nothing, of going through the motions of a life that had stopped making sense the moment Nathan had looked at me with those flat, empty eyes and told me he didn't want me anymore.
The bond severing had been like having a limb amputated without anaesthetic—a white-hot agony that faded into a permanent, dull absence.
I'd learned to live around it. But Daska's hands in my hair were waking something up, and I didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified.
I was acutely aware of every point where his body was close to mine.
The warmth radiating from his chest behind me.
His knees bracketing my shoulders where he knelt on the rock.
The occasional brush of his forearm against my upper back as he reached for another section of hair.
The water lapped gently at my waist, and the morning sun was warm on my face, and his hands were in my hair, and I felt more present in my own body than I had in two years.
It was almost painful, that returning sensation. Like blood flowing back into a limb that had been numb for too long, pins and needles of feeling, sharp and overwhelming after so much nothing.
His thumb traced along my hairline at the nape of my neck, slow and deliberate, following the curve of it down toward my shoulder.
The touch was feather-light, barely there, but it sent a wave of heat through me and I sighed.
He paused for a moment, and then lay my hair gently down my back, and moved away.
I immediately missed his touch, and looked back over my shoulder.
He stood behind me, holding a large deerskin. I managed to stand myself, without turning around, and he wrapped the skin around me. It was slightly warmed from the sun. He'd laid it out on the rocks while I wasn't looking, preparing for this exact moment.
He thinks of everything.
I pulled it around myself.
“Thank you,” I said. He cocked his head slightly again, then nodded.
“Tek,” he said. I frowned.
“Tek?”
He nodded, and seeing I was still confused, he reached forward and gently tapped my lips. “Tek.”
My eyes widened. “Oh! Thank you. Tek.”
Daska smiled. “Tank oo. Tek.”
He gestured slightly up the bank to where the rocks lay in smooth flattish layers. I could see he’d spread another thicker fur out on the ground, and let him carry me up and set me down on it.
“Ula,” he said. I ran my hand over the soft fur.
“Ula?” He thought for a moment, then reached down and rubbed his hands up and down my arms over the deer skin, causing my skin to warm underneath with the friction.
“Ula?”
Warm, he was asking if I was warm enough. I smiled up at him and nodded. “Ula. Tek.”
He grinned at me, then started back down towards the river. I leaned over to watch him, until I saw him pull his leather tunic over his head. He….
Oh. He's going to...
Suddenly, as though he sensed me looking, Daska glanced back up catching me watching him. I jerked back quickly out of sight, my face flaming red.
He's just bathing. It's normal. People bathed together all the time in prehistory. This isn't weird. Stop making it weird.
Then I caught the deep rich sound of his laughter floating up from below and my face went even redder, if that was even possible. I heard him moving, heard soft footsteps on the loose stones by the river, and then the rush of water as he entered.
I snuck a glance. Just one.
Oh God.
Daska stood at the water's edge, completely naked, his back to me.
Broad shoulders tapering to a lean waist, powerful legs braced against the stones.
His thick, chestnut brown hair had been released from whatever normally kept it tied back, and it flowed in soft waves to just below his shoulders.
Without meaning to, my eye drifted further down and noticed a rather nicely rounded rear end.
I forced my eyes away again, clutching the furs tighter, but my heart was hammering, and heat prickled across my skin that had nothing to do with the sun or the furs.
Stop it. You barely know him. You literally just recovered from a life-threatening injury. This is not the time to be noticing very sexy men.
But I was noticing. How could I not? He was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with modern standards, raw and powerful and utterly male. Built for this world, for survival, for living in a way Nathan had never been.
Nathan, who'd left me for someone prettier. Someone clever, braver. Who'd made me feel like I wasn't enough.
The bitterness rose automatically, but it felt... distant. Smaller than it had before.
Because Daska had seen me at my absolute worst, and he'd stayed. He'd cared. He'd washed my hair like it mattered. Like I mattered.
I snuck another glance. He'd come out of the water and was standing on the rocks, water streaming down his body, his hair dripping.
He shook his head like an animal, scattering droplets, then reached for his clothes.
My eyes moved downwards of their own accord and I snapped my gaze away, my face burning.
Get it together. You're acting like a teenager.
But God, it had been so long since I'd felt anything like this. Nathan's betrayal had carved out something inside me, left me numb and hollow. I'd thought maybe that part of me was just... gone.
Apparently not.