Feeling weirdly shy all of a sudden, I nod. I’ve always suspected those particular stories were on the naughtier side. The fact that Benny doesn’t even have a passing knowledge of such relationships only confirms it. “D-do you like when I call you that?”
“Yes,” he rasps, steering us into the bathroom. “Although, you could call me shithead and I would love it, Fawn.”
I’m still laughing when Benny settles me onto my feet on the cold marble of the bathroom floor. I salivate over the dramatic flex of his back muscles as he kneels down at the side of the bathtub and turns on the faucet. He plugs the drain and fills the humongous tub with steaming water. Then he stands back up, hesitates in front of me for long moments, before pinching the hem of my dress between his fingers and dragging it up, up and over my head. He drops the garment to the floor and his breath starts to race in and out, a bulge the size of a butternut squash rising swiftly behind his zipper.
“You are so delicate,” Benny says gruffly, tracing my collarbone with his index finger. “I want to slaughter your father for chaining you up.”
I lean down to kiss his wrist. “No killing anymore, remember?”
“How about one more? He really deserves it.”
“No. Not even one more.” I reach up and stroke the bristles on the sides of his face. “Besides, we’re free of him now.”
A flash of something troubling dances across Benny’s features, amplifying my worry about the fallout with Frank, but I don’t want to think about that now. It has been so long since I had a bath and especially in a tub so big and clean and comfortable looking. This morning I was locked in a basement with the cockroaches and now I’m in the care of my giant. I just want to bask in the glow of my new reality for a while.
Leaving a kiss in the center of Benny’s chest, I walk past him to the tub, sling my leg over the side and sink my nude body into the blessed warmth, my eyes tearing at the perfection. I go boneless, my head lolling on the lip of the tub. I’m so overcome with bliss, I’m caught off-guard when Benny begins to clean me. Using his king-sized paws, he scoops water over my hair and lathers the strands with shampoo that smells like him. Burning wood and spice. After he rinses it away, he picks up the bar of basic soap and rubs it between his palms, all the while perusing my body through the water.
When he doesn’t touch me with his sudsy hands, I open my eyes to find him frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
He grunts, setting the bar of soap down with a little too much force. “Those notebooks are important to you. We should have taken them with us.”
“Actually.” I’m definitely flushing to the roots of my hairline. “I was thinking I could try and write my own stories.”
A male eyebrow goes up. “Stories about sex?” Watching closely for his reaction, I nod, my pulse picking up happily when his lips twitch. “Not just sex. Relationships. Suspense. Maybe some humor. But I would be lying if I said I’m not the most excited about writing the intimate parts.”
“Then that’s what you’re going to do.” Benny’s hands move over me, top to bottom, cleaning the layer of dirt from my skin, giving extra attention to my neck, my toes, my inner thighs. His touch is no-nonsense, but there is no hiding his lust from me. Even from my position in the bottom of the tub, I can see the sweat beginning to seep through his shirt, the top button of his pants in a terrible strain, the veins in his neck growing more pronounced. “So not only do I have the most beautiful girl in the world living in my house, she’s also going to write books.” He pauses, looks down. “I want you to do great things, Fawn. I’ll do anything I can to help make them happen. But I worry that over time, you’ll realize…”
Sensing the importance of what he’s telling me, I turn and sit up in the tub. “What?”
“You’ll realize you settled on an ogre.” He clears his throat hurt. “You must have gone to school if you can read and write so well, right?”
“Only until I was sixteen and my mother left. After that, well…my father was convinced I would run off, too, so he pulled me out of school.” I shake my head, a pang catching me in the breastbone. “Worst part of it is…he didn’t keep me home to be protective. He was just worried about having his reputation damaged twice over. A man who can’t keep his women from running off. It wasn’t that he loved me or anything.”
“He smeared his own reputation, baby. And a man who isn’t capable of loving an angel like you isn’t capable of loving anything at all. Except for maybe himself.”
My heart is fluttering with such gratitude by the time he’s done that all I can do is blink and sniffle. Does he realize how impactful his words are? Does he realize no one has ever said anything so kind to me…and truly meant it? As I got older, boys around the bayou would compliment me on my way to the tackle shop or to buy bread. They would say I’m pretty and smart and sweet, but they didn’t mean any of it. They only wanted my body.
With Benny, this man who hides nothing, his sincerity is so obvious.
I will treasure him until the day I die.
“I didn’t finish school, either. But hell, I didn’t even pay attention while I was there. I was too busy fending off attacks from other boys. They wanted to prove their strength. No better way to do that than picking a fight with the biggest kid.” He reaches for a washcloth and dips it into the water, slowly dragging it over my cheeks, behind my ears. “After a while, my mother got tired of being called to the school over fights. No one believed me that I wasn’t the instigator. All they had to do was look at me to see I was built for bullying.” One of his big shoulders rolls back. “Eventually my mother kicked me out. Told me to use what I had to fend for myself. What I have, Fawn, is muscle. And this scary-ass face. You’re going to get sick to death of looking at it and I can’t blame you.”
My heart pumps wildly in my throat.
The tips of his ears are red and he can’t look at me.
“I have to tell you something,” I blurt.
His eyes lift to mine warily. Full of dread. “It’s already happening, isn’t it?”
“What? No!” My body moves on its own, climbing out of the tub drenched and naked, straddling my giant’s lap and clasping his face in my hands. “I need to tell you that…I’ve seen you before. Many times.”
A line forms between his brows. “When?”
“In the forest.” I’m a little embarrassed by the fact that I’m admitting out loud to light stalking, so I duck my head and begin unfastening the buttons of his shirt. “On the days where my dad was in a decent mood, or the nights when he would pass out without chaining me up, I’d go out for walks. Long ones. And I would see you collecting injured animals. Or releasing the healed ones back into the wild. A-and….and…”
“What is it, baby?”
“I fell in love with you. I’ve loved you from afar for a while now and I should have told you, but I was afraid you would be freaked out knowing I spied on you. I couldn’t believe it when you just w-walked into my basement—”
Benny stops me from talking by placing a finger across my lips, his face a mask of disbelief. “Let me get this straight. You’ve been watching me.”