Her lids were heavy, and she forced herself to wash simply to stay awake.
Her hands went to her hair, scrubbing lightly to free any oils and grimaced.
She really did need to find that comb.
And at some point, they would have to release one another long enough to gather up their supplies and tuck them away in their pack of belongings. Unless it would be too much for Grimult to carry? She nibbled at her lip, considering that. The journey back would be a far shorter one if they kept to the skies, but it would still take days to accomplish. If they had to do it without the benefit of anything more than a few water skins, it was possible, but time would be wasted on hunting and foraging for even the semblance of a meal, and Grimult would be so exhausted by the end of a full day’s flight, especially with her weighing him down...
She yelped when a knock startled her, hard followed by a muffled voice.
“Penryn?” Grimult called, and she stupidly found that her hands had immediately gone to cover herself, though he had not made any attempt at the door.
Nor was it anything he had not spent a great deal of time with already.
She forced herself to breathe, to calm her racing heart before she answered him. “You may come in, Grim,” she called back, wondering if she should have made a quick retreat from the bath and answered it herself, already wrapped in a towel.
He opened the door, his eyes averted, before he seemed to catch himself, shaking his head lightly before looking. She smiled at him softly, not unhappy that things had so changed between them that her nudity was a welcome thing, but not minding the glimpse at the way he was before. Protective of her in all things, even from himself and an impression of impropriety.
“You were missing,” Grimult answered, his fingers still tight as they held open the door. “I waited, in case you simply had to relieve yourself, but then you did not come back and I was worried.”
Penryn held out her hand and he was quick to come to her. “I did not mean to wake you,” she apologised. “Or to make you worry.” She gave him a rueful look, shrugging her shoulders and realising she had been foolish to think she could keep this from him. “I was a little sore and thought a bath might help.”
His dismay was quick and blatant, although she could tell he tried to shutter it away just as rapidly. But she had seen, and she gripped his hand more tightly with hers before he could escape to any foolish self-recriminations. “I do not regret a thing,” she told him firmly. “But I am rather new to this and it is possible that I tend to forget that when we are... busy.” She tried to give him a grin that perhaps was just a little mischievous, and Grim blinked back at her, obviously trying to judge the truthfulness of her lack of care.
“Busy,” he repeated, tasting the word and by the face he made, not entirely liking it as a description for their pairing. “An odd description.”
She wanted to be bold, but she could feel the heat creeping into her cheeks, not only brought there by the warmth of her bath. “Coupling?” Not the worst word, but he still had a strange look about him. “Copulating?”
He frowned deeply at that, and she could not blame him. It felt stiff and formal, lacking all the intimacy that was shared, as well as the smiles and the laughter when things did not go quite right as they learned of one another.
“Loving,” Grimult declared, looking to her with something that absurdly looked like doubt.
“Love, then,” she agreed. An action, just between the two of them. The culmination of what they already felt, an expression as natural as the words at her lips when she simply had to tell him one more time how she felt for him.
He glanced down at her, and for once his eyes did not heat. Perhaps he was tired and worn too, and she had to keep from asking if any of his muscles ached too or if that sensation was reserved only for her.
“Have you soaked long enough?” he enquired. “Will you come back to bed?”
She prepared herself to rebuff his attentions, to tamp down any mortification and tell him that while she had soaked long enough, that perhaps she should allow her more delicate places to rest. But when she looked at him, she did not see the passionate teasing she had expected, but a vulnerability that made her simply nod her head instead.
He wanted her close, wanted her there when he slept and when he woke again, and she could deny him nothing.
Least of all that.
And dried by careful ministration by her husband and her shift once more covering her, he carried her back to where she belonged.
◆◆◆
She liked watching him sleep. She did not make the same mistake as earlier, slipping away without his knowledge and thinking he would remain untroubled by her departure. Sleep had left her a while ago, and while she thought she would grow bored of lying there with no one to talk to and nothing to occupy her mind, that was not the case. He slept on his stomach, one gripped beneath the pillow, the other reaching outward in her direction. His wings rose and fell with each breath, tucked close to his body, obscuring most of him from view.
She remembered his hands skimming down her back, and for one brief, self-conscious moment, she thought that he was focused on the scars settled there. And it had almost been enough to break through the impassioned depths of her mind, but not quite. Not when he admitted, his voice thick and rasping, that he liked how
