Page 126 of Revenant

“Pryce.”

“I heard you.”

“And yet?”

“And yet. Non se ne parla.”

He’s laughing when he sets me down on the black countertop. Turning toward the clawfoot tub, he twists the hot water on full blast, then pulls a small glass jar from the ledge and tips something into the stream. Within seconds, the whole room erupts in the scent of vanilla.

“Arms up,” he commands, turning back to me.

I oblige, lifting both arms over my head with a smirk.

He draws his shirt off me in one unhurried motion, his eyes tracking from my chest to my stomach and back again.

“In.”

“Someone’s bossy this morning.”

“Ma dai, heaven forbid I try to take care of you while you’re on your period.”

“And what makes you the authority on how to take care of a woman on her period?”

“Tesoro, I’ve been around for nearly a millennium. I know a great deal about a woman’s menstrual cycle.”

My face screws together. “Ew, never say menstrual cycle again.”

He chuckles, holding his hand out for mine, his thumb finding the soft place at the inside of my wrist on the way to the tub.

Dipping my foot in first, I watch the bubbles crawl up my ankle before I lower myself the rest of the way, easing down until the hot water closes around my lower ribs.

Pryce, now wearing a grin that belongs to the Cheshire cat, slips out into the bedroom and returns a second later with the tray he’d set down—which I now notice is adorned with some kind of strawberry brioche bun and coffee. He places it on the vanity, pulls a wooden bath caddy from where it leans against the wall, and settles it across the edge of the tub with precision before transferring the plate onto it.

“What’s this?”

“Strawberry Maritozzi.” Without missing a beat, he places the coffee cup on the corner closest to my hand. “Eat.”

“Pryce, you really don’t have to keep doing this for me.”

“Every morning you’ve woken up in my bed, there’s been breakfast, tesoro. I’ve waited this long to get you here; at what point does this stop surprising you?”

The tray smells like cream and warm bread, and I am, frankly, a weak-willed woman on her period. I begrudgingly pick up the fork and take a bite that probably should’ve been smaller, and because Pryce made it…it’s perfect. “I just mean, the kitchenette exists in the common room. I can fend for myself sometimes.”

“If ‘fend for yourself’ is code for those radioactive Pop-Tarts you like, absolutely not. I refuse to be complicit.”

I give him a pointed look, which is probably moot considering I’m already moving another bite toward my mouth. “Don’t start with my Pop-Tarts.”

“They haunt me, tesoro.” His shoulders slump, as if my taste in breakfast delicacies in some way directly affects him.

“They’re fine,” I insist, putting my foot down against his Pop-Tart treason.

“They are an insult to the very concept of breakfast. Mia nonna piange in paradiso.”

I laugh around a mouthful of whipped cream, which has to be deeply unattractive, and his eyes go soft in a way that curls my toes under the water. “Well, like you said, you’re edging on a millennium, Pryce, pick a new hill.”

“This will forever be the hill.”

He sits on the edge of the bathtub and watches me take a sip of the latte he made—a caramel breve, extra hot, with cinnamon on top—just the way I like it. The espresso warms my veins—that and knowing the morning after the bonfire when he knew my order wasn’t a fluke.