Chapter 16 Nothing a Little Water Won’t Solve
Nothing a Little Water Won’t Solve
Brioni
By the fourth day in Ragnar’s care, Brioni was beginning to get a little fed up.
Not with him, of course, but with herself.
She’d made about a hundred papercrafts and had finally gotten the bones right on the veilhound model.
They were lined up all over every surface in the loft, but at least she could talk to them when Moar wasn’t there—not that he talked back either.
There were other things she wanted to do, though—chiefly, Ragnar.
But he was still treating her like an off-limits invalid when she wanted to be treated like anything else—chiefly, like an animal in heat.
The windows over the bed told her the moon was going down and Ragnar would be returning soon for the night.
She’d already sneakily washed the dishes, stoked the hearth, and swept the entire loft between his daily check-ins, all chores she swore mystical, invisible creatures did while she napped, and now all she had to do was wait. But boy, was it hot.
Brioni threw off the blankets as a flash of warmth took her body.
This one wasn’t nearly as bad as the others, so she knew the antidote was almost through wreaking its havoc in her veins.
In fact, the heat reminded her of the last time Ragnar had removed the bandage on her leg, his fingers glancing so softly over her skin as he took it away and then didn’t give her a new one because her thigh was fully healed.
That heat had been a mix of frustrations, dull but lingering.
She had other clothes delivered by Kat, but she didn’t want to put something clean on her unclean body, so she was still wearing the infirmary shift. She hitched the skirt to mid-thigh and tugged at its neckline, cooler air alleviating the dingy irritation. And then the door to the loft opened.
“Brioni,” Ragnar hissed, and she lifted her head just enough to see him covering his eyes on the threshold. “Moar, go back downstairs.”
She chuckled and dropped her head back onto the pillow. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure I look as disgusting as I feel.” She listened to the door shut as she rubbed her chest, convinced there was grime on every inch of her skin.
“Not at all,” Ragnar mused as his footsteps filled the loft, coming closer. “But you are sweating.”
“I feel so icky,” she moaned as he approached the bed. “I haven’t had a bath in days.”
His black eyes flicked to the tub that had gone unused since she arrived.
She knew Ragnar was bathing himself downstairs because she’d felt his wet hair each night, but he hadn’t extended that luxury to her.
The washtub sitting out in the open and not sequestered to its own chamber like at the infirmary or the post probably had something to do with that.
He likely never counted on having an unkempt human under his care for long enough that she needed to be scrubbed down.
But gods did she need to be scrubbed down.
“Please,” she cried, dragging out the word and not bothering to articulate exactly what she wanted because they both most definitely knew.
“I’ll fetch Balran to help you.”
“But I don’t want to wait,” she said, knowing the exact pitch her whine needed to reach to be irresistible. “And I don’t want anyone else to help. I want you.”
“Me?” Ragnar blurted, slapping a hand in the middle of his wide chest like he could knock himself out of the running.
“You’re already so good at everything else.” She lifted the hem of her shift and wiggled as she sat upright.
With fabric over her head, she couldn’t see what Ragnar was doing, but there was a ruckus in the loft, and when she finally freed herself, it was almost as dark as being blinded by the dress. Smoke swirled into the dim light of the hearth as Ragnar snuffed out as many candles as he could.
Brioni groaned, tossing aside the shift.
She didn’t have any of the lacy underclothes she would have much rather presented herself to Ragnar in for the first time, but he’d carried her to and from the water closet enough for that magic to be much less mysterious now.
She used a ribbon on the bedside table to bundle up her curls on top of her head—her hair would be washed and set later because that required meticulousness—and she stood from the bed, taking one big step.
Ragnar appeared at her side in the dark, growling her name as he swept her into his arms. She squealed as she was lifted, pleased to have gotten exactly what she expected, but this time it came with mumbled curses from a chest that rumbled against her bare flesh. Even better.
She wasn’t in his hands for long, though, cradled instead by the breadth of the washtub where Ragnar placed her before quickly shifting to fiddle with the faucet’s rune.
Warm water spilled out by her feet, taking a bit to actually reach her toes, but soon Brioni was relaxing into a rising pool, and her eyelids were feeling exceptionally heavy.
Ragnar paced away as the tub filled to stand facing the opposing wall, arms crossed and tail flicking with agitation.
The rest of him didn’t move, statuesque in his work tunic tucked into tight, belted pants.
She bit her lip as she rested her cheek on the edge of the tub, undressing him with her eyes and mentally willing him to join her.
“I need help,” she finally said, reaching a toe out of the water toward the rune, obviously unable to quell the magic in her position and conveniently forgetting she was now more than capable of bending forward and reaching the faucet.
Ragnar sucked in a breath and stalked over, switching off the rune with his eyes averted. He focused instead on gathering a bottle and a few small, folded linens from a nearby shelf then pulled over a stool with his tail to set everything up within her reach.
She pouted, eyes pinging from the gathered accessories to his face and back again.
“No.” His arms were folded with all the resolve of a demon whose mind had been made up for years and stared at the wall over her head so hard she thought he might carve out another window with the daggers in that glare.
“Puh-lease,” she said with an especially tooth-aching sweetness that she only used for dire emergencies. “I’m just so tired, and my limbs hurt so much, and I really, really need your help, Ragnar.”
The demon let out a long, low breath, chest sinking and eyes closing. “Fine.”
Brioni cheered and clapped until she remembered she was supposed to be sore and tired, reverting to her sickly state and sliding so far down that the water tickled at her nose. She let her pinched brow do all the apologizing.
With another sigh, Ragnar sat on the stool, knees spread so he could be close to the tub, and she took in all of him, or at least the part between his legs contained within tight pants.
The dark color and lack of light didn’t reveal much, but she imagined the middle seam bursting and really giving her something to ogle.
Ragnar cleared his throat, stealing her gaze, but he was pushing up both sleeves to reveal muscled forearms that had surely already done a hard day’s work, and by all the gods and the blazes too, that was somehow even lewder than what was hidden in his pants.
She almost felt bad that she wasn’t going to make any of this easy as she watched him dip a washcloth into the water and drizzle a thick liquid from the bottle onto it, soap by its fresh scent, but then he held out his hand and made the surliest of demands, “Arm.”
Brioni grinned, popping back up so that a few inches of cleavage crested the water, and she complied like she was an expert at following directions, proof that she could when she wanted to, which was almost never.
Ragnar hesitated when he finally let his gaze fall to her limb.
He examined the crook of her arm as he cradled her elbow, tipping his head as he dragged his thumb over the pliable, pale skin and the blue-green vein beneath, visible even in the dim firelight.
Chills ran all over her body as he brought the small linen to her wrist and began rubbing in careful circles.
“Well, you are dirty, aren’t you?”
Brioni snorted indignantly, and he chuckled, dipping into the water and continuing up her arm to her shoulder, working up a lather as he went.
She arched her back in encouragement, and he trailed the cloth over her collarbone, quickly switching to the other arm.
She deflated again, rocking her head back against the lip of the tub and exposing the length of her neck.
The washcloth pressed gently to her throat, drawing only a small gasp from her as Ragnar brushed up to her chin and then back down, hand wide enough to cover the whole of her neck in one easy sweep.
She remained unmoving this time when he reached the center of her chest, and she held her breath as he swiped down below the water between her breasts.
Hidden under the surface, he gently rubbed along her ribs beneath each breast, unfairly careful not to touch, as if they were so different than the rest of her.
Eyes closed because he seemed more generous when she wasn’t looking.
She still huffed, but then he was rubbing lower, and she wiggled gleefully against the bottom of the tub.
Ragnar made a noise of disapproval, but he didn’t stop, washing her ribs, her waist, her stomach. When he reached her hip, she could no longer help herself and let out a pleased sigh, peeking from beneath her lashes.
Stoic and almost pained, he was watching his own hand without blinking, and his fangs had slipped down over his bottom lip. Oh, I wanna lick those, she thought, longing to feel their sharpness against her tongue.
“You missed a spot. Well, two spots.”
Ragnar’s face twitched, carefully meeting her eyes.
“Like this,” she said lowly, taking his wrist beneath the water to guide it back up to where she wanted him to touch.