The Alpha Hunts the Exiles, So I Let Him Catch Me novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Tub

The copper tub in the tower kitchen held water hot enough to turn my skin pink.

It stood in front of the hearth with a folded sheet on the stool beside it.

Pinned to the sheet was a note in the cook's square hand.

It said: I saw nothing, I heard nothing, the water is still hot, and the Alpha has not eaten a hot meal since Easter.

I read it aloud, and Unai laughed until he had to sit on the floor.

"She's sixty-eight," he said, wiping his eyes. "She taught me to walk."

"She likes me."

"She's decided you're a stray, which is worse."

I took off my boots.

The kitchen was warm, the shutters were barred, and no one was coming down for hours.

I had spent three days thinking about nothing but hands.

I undid my shirt, button by button, and watched him watch me.

"Wash me," I said.

"Yes."

"Slowly."

He swallowed.

"Yes."

I stepped into the water and sank to my chin, and the heat closed over my shoulders.

My scar stung once, hard, and then eased.

Unai took off his coat and his shirt and rolled his sleeves higher.

He knelt at the side of the tub and took a cake of soap from the stool.

He lathered his palms first.

He washed my shoulders in long strokes, and my arms, and the backs of my hands.

"Is this what you do when someone's hurt?" I said.

"It's what I do when someone's mine."

I let my head tip back against the copper rim.

He washed the scar last.

He did it with two fingers and a cloth, from my cheekbone down the side of my neck.

He followed it over my collarbone to the top of my breast.

He did not hurry.

He did not look away from it once.

"It doesn't hurt now," I said.

"It does," he said.

"Not when you do it," I said.

He leaned in and put his mouth where the cloth had been.

I shut my eyes.

His lips were soft and wet along the burned skin, and then his tongue.

A sound came out of me that I had not meant to make.

"Get in," I said.

"What?" he said.

"Get in the tub, Unai."

"There isn't room."

"There's room," I said.

He stood, and undressed with a shepherd's economy, and I watched every inch he uncovered.

He was lean and scarred across one shoulder and brown to the elbows, white above.

He was hard already.

He stepped over the rim and the water rose.

He lowered himself in facing me, his knees up on either side of mine.

"Come here," he said.

"No. You come here."

He pulled me across the water onto his lap.

I straddled his thighs with my knees against the copper, and my breasts at the level of his mouth.

He groaned as the heat of me settled against him.

"Look at you," he said.

"You keep saying that."

"Because I keep needing to."

I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He tasted of cider and soap.

← Chapter 5 · All chapters · Chapter 7 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend