Page 96 of The Beast's Heart

He crowds in close. “I might be.”

Then his arms are around me again and he’s bending to kiss me. Just like that, in the foyer, where anyone might see. My mind fills with music as my fists tighten in the fabric of his shirt. I don’t know why I expected him to be ashamed of me, to want to hide us.

He tucks my hair behind my ears as he pulls away, brushing his warm hands over my cold cheeks. “You could bring a book?” he suggests.

There’s a big, claw-footed tub in Adam’s en suite that I noticed when I showered there the other night. Unlike the bedroom,the bathroom has been finished (for what I can only imagine are practical reasons). It’s stark and white, like the children’s bathroom. But today, when I find Adam there running our bath, it seems like a completely different room.

Diffused light pours in from the tall, frosted windows, catching swirling steam, and a multitude of candles line the tub. The steam smells like rosewater and something woodsy—cedar, perhaps.

He turns when I enter and smiles. “Hope you like the bath oil. It’s the only one I have.”

“I’m surprised you have bath oil at all.”

He closes the distance between us, resting his hands on my shoulders. “Helps me sleep. Well, it’s supposed to. I’ve had limited success.” He kisses my cheek, my ear, my neck. His hands slide down to start at the buttons of my shirt. I push down my self-consciousness as he undresses me. This is the first time he’ll see me completely naked and I’m fully aware of my knobby knees and skinny frame.

He’s seen my legs before,I remind myself.After the storm.And I had my shirt off on our date and he didn’t seem put off. He’s seen my cock. He’s seen every part of me, this is just the first time he’s seeing it all together.

I’ve never shared a bath with anyone before, and I’m not sure how we’ll possibly fit into the tub together. But I fit perfectly between his legs. The heat of the water is divine after the cold walk and I lean back against him with a happy sigh. He holds me to him and kisses the top of my head, before reaching for the soap.

“Lean forward,” he murmurs and I do.

He lathers soap across my shoulders and my back, then carefully rinses. My toes curl with pleasure at this attention. When he’s done, I turn in his arms to soap his chest and kisshim. He wraps his legs around me as my arms lock around his neck.

“If you turn around, I’ll do your back too.”

He pulls his knees up to his chest and manages to rotate, although some water sloshes over the side. I wash his back, but the muscles are tense and I find myself kneading them too. He drops his head back against my shoulder, groaning in pleasure. I kiss his neck. “May I wash your hair?”

“Sure. Shampoo’s on the shelf above you.”

I free his hair from the messy bun he had it in for our walk and slip back in the tub so he can rest against me while I pour warm water over it. I breathe in deeply as I lather in the shampoo that smells so strongly of him.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says, relaxed and boneless against me. “For not saying I was crazy earlier.”

“You didn’t say anything crazy.”

“I know he’s not here. I know… but sometimes I talk to him.” His eyes open and he looks up at me. “How’s that for crazy?”

How’s that for crazy? How’s the fact that I, a complete stranger, speak to him too.

“Sorry,” Adam says, before I can decide what to say. “We’re having this… amazing romantic moment and I’m talking about another guy. Fuck. Sorry.”

“I told you, you don’t need to apologize for that. You never have to.” I trail my fingers through his soapy hair and gently massage his scalp.

His eyes drop closed again.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I know it hurts. But… I’m here. If you want to talk about it.”

He opens his eyes again to look up at me. “You know that book you gave me? There’s this one poem about words… uh, shit, how does it go? Something about it feeling like a sin to put in words how it feels. Because words are so… inadequate.”

“I know it. ‘For words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.’”

“Yeah. I never spoke about it back then. Not to anyone. I didn’t know how. All I knew was that he wanted to be remembered a certain way. And in the end, I never had to say anything. People made up their minds what the truth was and I let them believe it. And, well, maybe you get so accustomed to kayfabe that the truth stops being important, only the narrative.”

My fingers pause in their work. “And the narrative was that you were a beast?” I guess.

He nods.

He let people think that it was his fault, that he drove his husband to it. He falls silent and I continue to stroke my fingers through his hair.

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