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I would have had a solid argument against any of those explanations. But this? I was utterly defenseless against.
“What if I don’t like being taken care of?” I asked. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Of course,” Sal replied. “Although, I would be curious as to the reason why something that makes you smile and sigh as you did earlier is so abhorrent to you.”
Barefoot, she padded over to her bag and pulled out a small leather sack. She took an apple, a log of cured meat, and a wedge of hard cheese from it and began slicing them, laying them out on a wooden board that had also emerged from the bag’s depths.
My salivary glands contracted painfully as the scent hit my nostrils.
Of all the times for me to argue that I did not enjoy having another creature see to my basic needs…
I hugged the towel tighter around myself and considered my options.
In sneaking away from my brother, I’d had to leave my luggage. The thought of slipping back into my sweat-soiled night shift made my skin crawl over my bones.
“Try these.” Sal lobbed a ball of linen in my direction.
I caught them with one hand and identified the same kind of braies Sal wore, but with a matching top meant to go over my breasts.
I snorted at the small strip of cloth. “These might work for you, but there’s no way under heaven my bosom will fit in here.”
The corner of her mouth jerked upward in a pirate’s grin. “Aye. I know.”
With my back turned to her, I stepped into the bottoms and knotted the drawstring at the waist before shrugging the boneless stays over my head and shoulders. As predicted, it failed to cover the entirety of my breasts. Still, if the bottoms peeked out, it was at least better than hanging about topless or in a soiled shift.
My dissatisfaction with this situation lessened considerably when I saw the hungry look flicker into Sal’s eyes as I approached and helped myself to an apple slice.
Since they were already cut up either way…
The bite was crisp and delicious, the cheese a perfect compliment.
While we ate, I talked. About Mark’s search for the heir. My plans to visit the colonies. My profound lack of excitement for a ship journey. My desire to buy land and then farm it by myself until the end of my days, blissfully unbothered by the politics of the werewolf world.
“But then, even with the money Mark has saved back for me, there’s no guarantee it’ll last. A girl’s got to keep a roof over her head at least,” I said, gesturing to the trusses in the ceiling. “It’s that or—”
Sal’s hand flashed out to grab mine and pin it to the table. “You’re driving me mad, Kat.”
“Well, if you’d actually try to be a decent conversational partner, I’d not have to do all the talking,” I fired back in frustration.
She shoved herself up from the chair and began to pace. “It’s not your talking that’s the problem.”
“Then what?”
“I’ve been paid to see you safely to your destination. Already, you’ve been harmed on my watch—”
“I doona know about harmed,” I said, running a hand through hair that had dried silkier than I’d ever felt it. “It was a pain in the arse, to be sure, but just look at it now.”
“I have,” she practically growled. “I can’t stop looking at it. At you, Kat. And I can’t afford to look at you because every time I do, all I can think about is how much I want to touch you.”
The air between us vibrated with an elemental connection that, until this very moment, had remained unspoken. But now the words were out there, they couldn’t be called back.
The breath evaporated from my lungs and was replaced with my heartbeat. Every single part of my body had been filled with it. That deep drumming below reason and thought.
“Then what are you doing all the way over there?” I asked.
Three purposeful strides saw Sal across the room. She didn’t grab my face. Didn’t attack my mouth with hers or crush me to her body, though any of those things I would have gladly submitted to.
Sal made love to me with her eyes first. Beginning at my hair, they drank me in with such intensity I would have believed that she’d memorized every strand she had spent so long freeing from the mess of confectionery. They moved next to my face. My forehead, cheekbones, nose, lips, and chin. They trailed down my neck to my collarbone, chest, stomach, hips, thighs, knees, and feet.
