rallies over the summer,” he said. “Good fun.”
I hugged him close and looked up into his bright blue eyes.
“Your idea of fun and my idea of fun are two very different things, then,” I said with a faint smile.
“I live for the thrill,” he said, pinching his nose and wiping the streaming water from it and his beard.
“I just want peace,” I said quietly, the first misgivings beginning to stir.
He reached out and caressed my face, and I closed my eyes, turning into the touch.
“Then no worries,” he said. “I’ll protect you, do everything I can so your peace isn’t disturbed. I’m happy to take the heat.” He grinned as he said the last and winked at me, and I laughed slightly.
“I’m not sure that’s how it works,” I said.
“No?” he asked.
“No,” I said, drawing nearer and tipping my face up to his.
He brought his mouth to mine and murmured, “Well, I’ll figure it out.”
“Compromise, you mean?”
“Happy to, for you,” he whispered, and we kissed.
“Seems like I would be asking a lot,” I murmured when the kiss reached its natural conclusion.
He stroked my cheek, the barest whisper of a touch with his thumb and said, “I don’t give anything I’m not willing to give up,” he said. “I’m also not getting any younger, and if I’m going to keep up with this place, I’m going to need to slow down at some point.”
That I could buy into and I did, wrapping my arms around him and resting my forehead in the center of his chest. He held onto me, loosely, just letting me rest against him and soak up what I needed from him while the steam gently wafted around us.
When I shook myself as though waking from a dream, he smiled down at me and shut off the water.
“So, what do you want to show me today?” he asked.
“Show you?” I asked, taken a bit aback.
“Your life. You took the day off, it’s all you, baby.”
“And tomorrow?” I asked, and he gave me a wicked grin.
“Tomorrow, you learn about me.”
“Sounds exciting,” I said smiling.
“Should be,” he agreed. “Take a ride with me.”
“Are you asking or are you telling me that’s what we’re going to do?” I asked playfully.
The smile he gave me as he wrapped me in a towel and rubbed me down briskly through the material was playful, but his eyes were serious.
“It’ll be on very rare occasions that I tell you to do anything, usually regarding the club or club stuff. When it comes to that, no arguments. At least not until I get home, or it’s just you and me,” he said and his tone was serious.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“I mean it, Aspen,” he said, tipping my chin, making certain to capture my eyes with his. “It’s the only way I see this working.”
The seriousness in his eyes took my breath away. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know what to say.
“I made my peace with what kind of man I am years ago,” he said, and the sadness in his eyes told me to the contrary, he hadn’t. He’d just perhaps convinced himself that he had. I doubted that Fenris didn’t do anything without his own reasons, however.
This was a part of him that was complex, confusing, and one that would require patience.
“You do a lot of reckless and dangerous things for the club?” I asked softly.
He shook his head. “No more than the next brother,” he said.
“That didn’t answer my question,” I said softly.
“Sometimes that’s the best answer I can give you.”
I stepped out of the tub and held the towel around me, handing him his with the other. He took it and dried off and it was a treat to simply be allowed to watch.
“You do a lot of illegal things for the club?” I asked softly.
“There’s a difference between legality and what’s morally right,” he said pointedly, and I thought about that for a minute.
“You’re right,” I said after a while, nodding. “There is.”
“All I can do is promise to keep you out of it,” he said. “Hence, why, if there’s a time I tell you to do something, I’m going to need you to do it. To keep you out of it. To keep you safe from any blowback from your world.”
“My world?” I asked softly.
“For now, still, yeah,” he agreed.
“Are they really all that different?” I murmured softly and looked up at him.
“On the surface, it doesn’t always seem like it,” he said. “Underneath, we couldn’t be more different, if you