Page 96 of To Dance with Death

The washcloth dips down to my clavicle, then pauses, as if to give me the opportunity to object.

You need to feel safe tonight.

I do feel safe.

I take his wrist—guide it down. Allow him to continue his work, which he does, gently. Soft flashes of light filter in through my closed eyelids, the heat now sinking in like a cloud of fog—a reminder of why I need his help. That hadn’t been a lie.

“Too hot?” he breathes into my ear. He must feel the relentless pace of my heart.

“Maybe,” I whisper. “But please, don’t stop.”

I swear I feel his lips mutter a curse just over the curve of my shoulder.

His palm cups my calf.

Then he glides it up, moving the cloth along the length of my leg, my thigh, and he takes his time before switching to the other. When he is finished, I open my eyes and attempt to wriggle away despite the stars piling into my vision, if only to allow him space to wash. But his arms come around my waist.

“Wait,” he says. “Please.”

Please.

“For what?” I ask, my voice almost entirely caught in my throat.

“When I hold you, I feel like something I’ve lost has been returned,” he says.

I am frozen in the moment, his sentence floating back to me one word, one syllable, at a time.

Something lost.

Did I hallucinate that? But then I feel his hands cupping my hair, twisting it so that it’s off my neck before he nuzzles against it.

This is the most unbearable sort of torture.

“We are not friends,” I breathe, my heart a rabbiting thing. “So tell me, Anton. What are we?”

I need him to put voice to it, even as part of me wants to give in. To risk my heart, no matter how deeply I might sink. To take what he would give me and make peace with it.

But he kissed me under that bridge like I was the expanse of his world.

“What would you wish of me?” he asks. “Tell me you want the moon, and I will cast a reel and lure it forth. If being able to kiss you demands fidelity on my part, then Vasalie, you shall have it.”

Have it. Hisfidelity.“But you told me—”

“I said I didn’t believe in love,” he says. “I still don’t. But companionship—I suppose there are worse things.”

“Worse things,” I repeat under my breath. I twiddle my thumbs in my hands, then wring out my fingers.

How can I put into words that his companionship isn’t enough? That his devotion, even, isn’t enough? I want the whole of him, selfish as I am. But to say that aloud feels unfair, and so I bite my lip instead and finally turn to face him.

His eyes meet mine, his irises somehow managing to catch glints of moonlight, even as dim as it is. I reach for another cloth, this one clean. He puts a hand on mine to stop me, but I shake my head.

“My turn,” I tell him.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Now that the water has cooled, so too has my heat-induced flush.

I take my time, gliding along each plane and angle of his body—his shoulders, his chest, his arms one at a time. It’s difficult not to linger, to admire every sculpted inch of him, and the softness in between. I move behind him, finally, and rinse his hair, running my nails along his scalp.