Chapter 7 #2
Zax pulled back from the window. Then he went around the treehouse, pulling the curtains down on every window except one, which he climbed onto.
“I will pour you a bath,” Zax said, grabbing the hanging water pots off the nails he had hammered into the wall.
Fawn pushed herself up, leaning on the wall to stand up. Her foot throbbed but held fast.
“I thought you said it was dangerous outside,” she said, heart racing. Was he going to go out there and… what? Kill her husband’s family so no one would come looking for her?
“The river is safe,” Zax said. Even as he said it, it sounded flimsy. But he ducked out of the window before she could say anything more, and Fawn was left straining to hear a distant scream or a cry for help.
Nothing came.
Fawn let out a shaky breath as Zax emerged through the window with the first boiling pot of water, the rest of them surely waiting below. He looked more relaxed, and there was no blood on him or excess water that suggested he had needed to wash any gore off.
Errol and Chastity were most likely safe. And they were still searching for her. Fawn tried to be relieved, but mostly she just felt stressed.
Zax filled the bathtub with a narrow-mindedness that she wasn’t used to. Then he reached for her, presumably to carry her to the bath.
“I can walk,” she told him.
Zax faltered. But he dropped his arms.
Fawn walked carefully over to the bath. If she went slowly and put barely any pressure on her injured foot, it was fine. Painful, and surely damaging if she did it often, but doable.
“Call for me when you are done,” Zax said quietly.
He walked to the window. He was distressed, Fawn realized. He thought his captive wife would be taken from him.
Strangely, Fawn was not particularly angry that he had taken her away when he heard them.
What enraged her was the fact that he hadn’t told her.
Granted, she had never mentioned them to him.
But if he knew what they were to her, he should have mentioned it.
He would have if he truly cared about her.
Not that it mattered. She was always going to leave. But before that happened, she needed him to think she would never leave him, even if she could.
“Wait,” she said.
Zax turned around. His tail was swishing worriedly, and for once, his focus was not entirely on her. He was looking around the house, lost in thought. What was in that skull-crusted head of his, Fawn wondered. Was he thinking about tracking Errol and Chastity down while she was in the bathtub?
Fawn forced those thoughts away and toyed with the neckline of her dress. This, finally, dragged Zax’s attention back to her.
“You keep asking if you can bathe me,” Fawn said. “What do you mean?”
“I—” Zax frowned. “I want to wash you. To touch you.”
Anticipation pooled in Fawn’s stomach. She told herself it was fear, but she knew the truth. And so did Zax, his remaining eye flaring with light as she pulled her dress over her head and dropped it at her feet.
“You can touch me,” she said.
Then she turned and climbed into the bathtub, her back to him. She lay her head against the lip of the tub, waiting, heart pounding as she settled into the warm water.
Sure enough, Zax came up behind her and sat down beside the bath. He was holding a bar of soap, which shouldn’t have surprised her. She had been expecting him to go right for the goods. But of course, he meant it when he said he wanted to wash her. Her strange, vicious, gentle monster.
Zax plucked her arm from the water and slid the soap over her skin.
He seemed uncertain about how much pressure to apply, but soon settled into a pressure which was almost too soft.
He ran the soap over her hands, rubbing the suds on the webbing between her fingers.
Then he smoothed the bar of soap over her face, brushing through her brows.
He washed her hair next. Rubbing soap through the strands and pouring water over her with cupped hands. He even held his hand over her forehead so that soapy water would not run into her eyes.
It was so tender that Fawn had to close her eyes and not think about it, or she would get angry again. If he were someone else… If he hadn’t killed Renly… Gods, the life this man could have given her.
She almost forgot she was meant to be seducing him. Then he ran the soap over her breasts, and she remembered, desire sparking through her as her nipples peaked under his touch.
Zax’s movements slowed, the soap pausing over her chest. His eye shifted up to meet hers, and Fawn felt herself flush.
“You said you wanted to touch me,” she said. “So, touch me.”
She took his hand and guided it under the water. Zax groaned as he sank his claws through the coarse hair over her mound. His claws retracted, and Fawn let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
He found her clit easily, rubbing with that same lightness he always used. It was harder to get the right amount of slide in the water, but soon her clit was stiff and pink under his big fingers.
Fawn sighed, canting her hips. “Put one inside.”
Zax didn’t hesitate. He simply shifted one finger down to her opening and pressed inside. He started fast and shallow, like he used his tongue. Then he slowed, staring down at her with that gleaming purple eye.
“You are so tight,” he said wondrously. “Even more so around my finger than my tongue. I cannot wait until we travel to my Anderfel brother and you receive the spell which will allow you to take my cocks.”
Fawn knew she should be disgusted at the idea.
But the image of her stretched wide around him—both of him—made her hole clench in anticipation.
She hooked her injured leg over the side of the bath, telling herself she was doing it to elevate her ankle.
But they both knew the truth: she was giving him better access.
Zax pressed his finger deeper, curling it against the spot that made her gasp and writhe against him.
Then he added another. Then another. The stretch was not impossible, but Fawn couldn’t stop thinking about her body adjusting, giving way, making room for those cocks he had hidden behind his loincloth.
She gripped his arm and came, trembling. Water sloshed out of the bathtub, and even in her throes of ecstasy, she found herself thinking that she would have to clean that up before they went to bed.
Zax stood and reached for his loincloth, undoing the knot with lust-clumsy fingers. It fell to the floor, and Fawn’s mouth watered at the sight of those two big cocks bouncing up against each other.
He wrapped his hands around them and started pumping.
“Wait,” Fawn said. “Let me.”