Page 148 of Wild Sanctuary

She reaches for me then, tugging at the bottom of my shirt.

“Off.” She pulls it up the length of me, and when it clears my head, her breath stops short.

“Wyatt.”

I look down to find a bruise blooming across the bottom three ribs, dark in the middle and fanning out yellow at the edges. I don’t remember when he got me there.

She lays her palm flat over the dark of it, light enough that she isn’t pressing. I cover her hand with mine.

“I’m here. I’m fine.”

She nods slowly, but doesn’t move her hand for a long beat. Then she goes to the button on my jeans and the rest of my clothes come off where I stand.

I crouch back down to work her jeans off her, careful at the cuts on her feet, then take her by the elbow and the small of her back and walk her the three steps to the tub.

“I’m right behind you.”

I keep her steady while she steps in and lowers herself, and a long breath leaves her before I get in behind her. The water comes up around my chest as she slides back between my legs. Her back fits to my chest while her head finds my shoulder, and I press my mouth to her temple.

Neither of us move for a long time until she holds up her hand.

“Cloth.”

I hand it over her shoulder. She wets it and I take it back.

“You first.” She starts to protest, but I rest my mouth at the edge of her ear. “Please, baby. Let me have this.”

She tips her head back against my shoulder and gives me a small nod.

I’m thorough, gently washing her shoulders and both arms, taking extra care around the bruise on her bicep before moving to her collarbone. Then I work down her back, finding a graze across her ribs, probably from the bales, and she hisses through her teeth when I drag the cloth over it.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

I do her hair next, taking my time to lather twice with my shampoo. The worst of the hay, dust, and grime gets dumped over the side of the tub, then I rinse her with the plastic cup from the side, using slow pours, my free hand cupped at her hairline.

When her hair is done, I ease her forward. “Turn to face me.” She does, slowly, and the water sloshes against the rim. She comes around onto her knees between mine, the water at her waist, steam rising around both of us.

Her feet I do last as she settles her back against the other end of the tub. I lift her left foot up out of the water and lay it gently against my thigh under the surface so I can see what I’m working with.

The cuts are worst along her heel and the inside of her ankle. I work around them, not over, as gentle as I’ve ever been with anything in my life, and when I’m done, I press my mouth to the inside of her ankle. Just once. Then I lower her foot back into the water.

“Okay, baby. Your turn.”

She is already facing me. Her hair is wet and combed back off her face, her eyes very awake.

“Give it here.”

She takes the cut on my cheekbone first, her thumb on my jaw to steady her hand, the cloth slow over the cut.

“You’re going to have a black eye.”

“Probably.”

She works the dried blood off carefully, moving from my temple to my mouth, where there’s a split at the corner of my lip I hadn’t registered. She moves down my jaw, my throat, my collarbones, my chest, palm flat over the cloth, more pressure than she used on her own face. Making sure of me.

When she gets to my left side, she stops to rinse the cloth. Then she brings it out warm and folded, laying it flat against the bruise across my ribs before covering it with her other hand and just holding it there, letting the heat sit on the bruise.