Chapter 7
The moment I crossed the threshold, he crooned one of his soft noises at me and lifted an arm, beckoning me over.
Careful not to let the warm water slosh over the rim of the washing up bowl I’d filled at the kitchen sink, I sped up and set it down beside the bed. I laughed when his big hand curled around my neck as soon as I was within range and he drew me closer, staring at my mouth.
“All right, all right,” I said. “Here you go.” I pressed a quick kiss to his lips. He hummed and tightened his hold when I tried to move away. “Dave.” I reached up to wrap my fingers around his thick wrist. I tugged gently. “Let me take care of you first.”
When I tugged again, he heaved a sigh and released me.
His expression said he wasn’t happy about it, though.
“Stay there,” I said. “I’ll be back in a second.”
I slipped out of the room, smiling at the indignant noise that followed me. I grabbed some towels and a stack of facecloths from the airing cupboard and hurried back.
I dropped the lot at the bottom of the bed and stripped out of my damp, salt-stiff clothes. Dave gave a rumbling purr of appreciation as he stroked his cock, his gaze on me sharpening and turning hot.
But still pained.
“Think again,” I told him. “Open wounds are not sexy. And let’s not forget, ten minutes ago, you passed out. This isn’t the time.”
He didn’t respond, busy smouldering at my plaid boxers.
I put my hands on my hips and contemplated him from across the room.
I was no stranger to bed baths, having been on the receiving end on more than a few occasions.
They tended to be a part of the extended-stay-in-intensive-care experience, which I had endured twice.
I couldn’t say I was a fan, either of the stays in intensive care or the bed baths, although when it came to the latter, I’d always appreciated being clean.
Dave, I rather suspected, was going to be a big fan.
He reached for me as soon as I came close enough. I caught his hand, squeezed it quickly, and set it down on the bed with a shake of my head. I removed the hand he had wrapped around his cock, gave him a stern look, and set that one on the mattress, too.
He didn’t fight it. To be honest, he seemed relieved more than anything.
“I’m going to need you to work with me here,” I said. “All right?”
Dave watched my face.
“I’m going to take care of you. Will you let me do that?”
He grunted.
My plan was to get the clutter of pillows and covers that he’d bunched up around him off the bed, tuck the towels around him in their place, and then sponge him down. Once I’d done that, I’d assess the wound situation.
There was no chance in hell I’d be able to sew him up without dire repercussions—pain and scarring for Dave, explosive loss of Hobnobs and tea for me—but I could gag my way through holding the edges together and applying the Steri-Strips. And if I ran out of strips, there was the plaster tape.
I went about stripping the covers off the bed.
It took some doing; he’d bunched most of the duvet under him, and the fitted sheet had popped off all four corners.
He groaned and winced and gasped but helped by rolling a little one way and then the other as I directed, until I’d managed to drag the duvet off completely and onto the floor.
The pillows followed. I left the sheet where it was. I’d change that once the bath was done.
He didn’t quite know what was going on with the towels but he obligingly moved whenever I touched a hip or a shoulder, and I got them tucked under him snugly enough that any splashes wouldn’t soak through to the mattress.
As soon as I dropped a cloth in the water, wrung it out, and dragged it gently over his chest, he understood the plan. His eyes had been half-lidded with exhaustion and pain. At the warm, wet touch, he gave up completely and let them close all the way with a rumbling moan.
It was a happy moan, not pained.
Mostly happy, anyway.
I’d take it.
He lay there and had the time of his life as I slowly wiped him down from head to toe, cleaning away the sand, splashes of mud, and road grit that had stuck to his naked body as Jerry and I had dragged him up to the house.
I carried the tub of dirty water into the en-suite bathroom, dumped it into the bath and refilled it, adding more antibacterial soap and switching to a clean facecloth. When I returned, he hadn’t even opened his eyes.
“Are you awake?” I whispered as I perched beside him on the other side and started the whole process over again.
He made a soft sound at the back of his throat, but kept his eyes closed.
I worked quickly, trying not to feel too desperate. Once he was clean, I used the last facecloth to pat the skin around his cuts dry, and applied the antibiotic ointment I’d dug out from my first-aid kit.
My efforts with the Steri-Strips were unsuccessful, as the fiddly little bastards wouldn’t stick to his skin.
I’d been overenthusiastic with the ointment, perhaps.
While I really wanted to close the wounds up, I decided that if I had to choose, it was better to zap the bacteria with the ointment and leave the wounds exposed for a while than to skip the ointment in favour of taping him up, which would seal the bacteria in and let it chow down.
I finished up, carried the tub with dirty water and cloths back into the bathroom, and washed my hands at the sink. I stared into the mirror.
I looked like shit.
My face was drained of colour, my jaw was knotted with tension, and the harsh red of my salt-inflamed eyelids made my grey eyes really pop.
“He is fine,” I said to my reflection. Firm and no-nonsense. I pointed at myself. “He’s here and he’s fine. This is a hiccup. He’s—”
He gasped, something thunked, and I shot into the bedroom in time to see him shifting again, his huge tail thudding off the end of the bed.
“Dave,” I growled. “Why?”
He panted at me and flexed the end of his tail, curling one side of his fluke around my waist. I caught it and held it. When he passed out, I scrabbled to keep holding the heavy weight. I was not successful. It hit the floor with a wallop.
Something creaked alarmingly at the foot of the bed.
I’d had the super kingsize frame custom-made by a local carpenter out of solid oak, and he’d guaranteed it up to five hundred pounds. Before I’d done the research, I hadn’t even known you could get beds that sturdy. There were even some that could bear a tonne.
It had withstood Dave’s weight and his athleticism up to now, but that had been in his human form. I was resigning myself to downgrading to a mattress on the floor for the foreseeable future when Dave shifted back.
I rushed over and crawled onto the mattress beside him. He blinked his eyes open, barely, and gave me a smug smile.
“What’s that for?” I snapped before running an assessing gaze down his body. “Oh. Oh.”
I skimmed my fingers down to the tightly muscled waist, where the worst bruise had surrounded the worst and most ragged of the cuts, which looked as if something had bitten down and wrenched back, hard.
He hadn’t lost control of his form, had he? He’d done it on purpose, just like getting into the house when Jerry and I couldn’t manage it for him.
Like getting up the stairs when we couldn’t manage it.
I hadn’t noticed then, being so focused on getting him somewhere safe where he could rest. Now that I looked properly, it seemed as if each time he shifted, the wounds got a little better.
Not a lot. But a little.
“Oh, thank god.” I slumped forward and pressed my forehead to his shoulder.
His stomach groaned. Loudly.
I straightened and he gave me a pointed look.
“Yeah,” I said, and patted his chest. “You probably need to fuel all that shifting, don’t you? I’ll get you some food. And some ice for those bruises.”
I’d seen Dave eat before. Perhaps unsurprisingly considering he was a merman who lived in the wild, it was a feral sight.
One with a blast zone.
I wasn’t the world’s greatest fisherman—that was Jerry, according to Jerry—and it was a while since I’d given up pretending to do it professionally, but I could catch things when the occasion called for it.
The last few weeks before Dave was due back, I usually spiffed up my boat, the Rosy Dawn, and took her out. Whatever I caught, I dropped off with Patrick Barnes, who took care of it for me.
The only reason I asked Patrick to do it rather than Jerry was because Patrick was sensible enough to take payment for his labour and Jerry refused.
By the time Dave arrived, I had the fridge and the freezer fully stocked.
He didn’t often eat with me. I liked to be able to offer it, anyway.
Thanks to Patrick, what I offered was big solid chunks of fish which had been neatly descaled and expertly filleted.
That way, even if it did go everywhere, ‘it’ did not involve things like spines and livers flying around my kitchen.
Leaning down, I popped a quick kiss on his mouth, lips curving against his when his stomach howled. He caught the back of my head and deepened the kiss briefly before letting me go and pushing me gently at the door.