by AM Hartnett
He’d stripped down to nothing but a pair of filthy running shoes and some soccer shorts. He was carrying two buckets – one full of suds and the other of clean water – from the garden hose to the bike that had been left parked alongside the house, and the strain of the weight made his shoulders roll delectably.
‘Well, hello there,’ she said, then gave a catcall. ‘I might need to run up and get a vibrator if I’m going to watch this.’
He laughed, his smile shy as he set the water down by the bottles and sponges he had assembled next to the bike. ‘It’s getting pretty grimy.’
‘I’d offer to help, but I know you’d rather set your baby on fire than let me do anything more than sit on it. I’ll just enjoy the view.’
She ducked back into the kitchen and grabbed her soda, then took the Adirondack chair next to the door. She expected that Taureau was a little annoyed that she had intruded, but she couldn’t help herself. These moments when she could just sit back and watch him be normal were so few and far between that she leapt on them when she could.
What a day it was. Taureau’s mood had changed from surly to laidback when she and Reeve returned from the Dairy Bar with a mountain of food. She was able to see the rapport between them bouncing back and forth as they stuffed their faces, two men becoming boys as they reminisced about the summers they had spent in this place.
She’d been a little jealous. She’d thought that Taureau was starting to get truly comfortable, but seeing him with his oldest and apparently only friend led her to believe otherwise. With Simon present, Taureau seemed to shed some of his instinctive mistrust.
Now that Reeve had gone to check into a hotel in Moncton, the walls were back up. She recognised that they weren’t as thick as when she had arrived, but they were there nonetheless.
‘Who cuts your hair?’ she asked him as he rubbed the curls off the back of his neck.
‘I shave it when it gets too long. I guess I’ll have to do it again soon.’
‘You could do with just a trim,’ she said, and leaned forward. She liked how wild it was getting, liked twisting her fingers in it while he was on top of her, but with the hot summer sun coming down on him it clearly bothered him. ‘I could cut it.’
He glanced back at her, brows twisted with doubt. ‘Do you know how?’
‘Of course I do. Didn’t I tell you that my mom was a hairdresser? She used to cut hair at the kitchen table and showed me how to do it. Nothing major, but I can make it neat and clean so you don’t have to look like a Russian serial killer for the summer.’
Taureau laughed, but said nothing as he resumed sponging the chrome.
Grace let out a groan from the back of her throat. ‘You don’t think I can cut your hair.’
‘I never said that.’
‘But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’
He twisted around, the gravel scraping under his sneakers, and squinted against the sun over her head. ‘I don’t like it when you’re in my bathroom. What makes you think I want you cutting my hair?’
For a moment she could only splutter affronted sounds. Sometimes his frankness amused her and even charmed her, but today it pierced her like a pin.
‘Because I’ve been here all summer. Because we’ve been sleeping next to one another, eating with one another, and working alongside one another –’
‘Except when you kick me out.’
‘That’s because you’re too much of an asshole to work with,’ she grumbled, trying desperately to remain impervious to his half-smile. He was speaking seriously but he did so with a smirk.
She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I wash your shorts. I cook your meals. I had Mike drive me a half an hour into the city so I could get waxed.’
‘Not that I don’t appreciate how silky and smooth your pussy is when I go down on you, but you’re not cutting my hair.’
His tone was so sincere it was impossible for Grace to maintain her scowl. She burst out laughing, and now that he’d turned his back on her she saw that his shoulders were shaking a little.
Resting her head against the back of the chair and her arms over her laugh-sore stomach, Grace let out the last of her giggles.
‘Come on. Please. You were planning to shave it all off anyway, so why not?’
He sprang to his feet with an irritated growl, sloshed the sponge back into the bucket and threw out his hands.
‘Why is it so important to you?’
‘Because you’re so adamant about it. You’d think I’d offered to cut your pubic hair with a paring knife. You’re just getting huffy because for a half an hour you would be at my mercy, and you hate not having complete control at all times.’ She shook out the last drops from her soda can, then got to her feet. ‘Consider it a trust exercise. You might even get off on it. I read somewhere that men love going to the salon because they get a scalp massage while looking at a nice pair of tits.’
She left him to his soapsuds and his bike and returned to the house. She wasn’t pissed off with him like she’d been before he revealed his secret, but she was nonetheless annoyed that even now he scrambled to keep her at arm’s length. She was getting tired of the scraps he threw her. Big or small, they were still just scraps.
About a half an hour later, Taureau stopped in the doorway of the bedroom where she had camped out to read. He was stubbornness personified, hands on hips, an angry line bisecting his forehead.
‘All right, let’s do this.’
A snorting laugh escaped her. She clapped her hand over her mouth but it was too late and she had to apologise.
‘Now?’
‘Before I change my mind.’
‘All right then.’ She bounced from the bed and grinned at him. ‘Bring me your clippers and a towel. I’ll get the scissors.’
She wet his hair at the kitchen sink and found it a challenge to keep her hands busy with her task. He hadn’t been out long but the sun had left a blush across those sloping shoulders and muscled back. She longed to skim her hands up and down his back and his ass, but she knew he’d seize the opportunity to get out of the haircut and she’d let him, and when her temperature cooled and she caught her breath she’d be furious at herself, not him.
With Taureau face-down, she couldn’t gauge whether he was relaxing. His body never let its guard down, even when they were in bed. Only after he’d rubbed his head and tossed the towel aside did she get a look at his face.
He was not happy. Surly had transformed into downright mean, and she thought about relenting, but said nothing as he dragged the stool from the counter and sat down.
Grace turned on the clock radio she’d installed on the windowsill and draped an old bath towel over his shoulders. As she collected comb and scissors, Taureau reached out from beneath the towel and picked up the paddle mirror he’d brought from his bathroom. She went behind him and he raised the mirror, and, before she could make some quip about him worrying that she’d give him a fauxhawk, she saw the reason for his concern staring back at her.
Oh. Shit.
Whether he trusted her or not didn’t matter much at that moment. In her insistence, she’d probably turned herself into his worst nightmare: a woman standing over him with a blade in her hand.
Now that she’d put herself in this position, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. As he stared at her reflection in that mirror, she ran the comb through his hair and smoothed it down. When she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and moved slightly out of view, the mirror followed.
The urge to cry came over her. It was just a haircut and she posed no threat to him, but he was visibly stressed. Teasing him was one thing: what if the feel of cool metal on his hot neck gave him some sort of panic attack? What if he retreated to the cottage and just never came out?
‘You going to give me a haircut, or what?’ he asked.
She wiped the damp comb on her dress. ‘If you really don’t want to do it, I won’t make you. I shouldn’t have been so bitchy about it.’
> In the mirror she could see only part of him. It was like a snapshot of the past, when for almost two months this had been all he allowed her, and she moved just slightly so her arm touched his and she was sure this was real.
Either because the connection she needed had affected him, or for some other reason she wasn’t privy to, Taureau shook his head.
‘No, cut it,’ he said, and shifted the mirror from one hand to the other. ‘Just don’t take my ear off.’
‘Wise-ass,’ she said, but still felt a tremor as she tucked the comb in her pocket.
The tension remained as she snipped along his neckline and began to work. She’d done this hundreds of times, having made some easy money in university doing the same job on friends and fellow students, but she’d never been so nervous. They didn’t speak as little flakes of hair fell onto the towel and the floor, and he didn’t lower the mirror. He watched her like a cat watches another cat that’s ventured a little too close, tilting the mirror up and down, side to side, but the real challenge came when she finished trimming and clipping the back and it was time to tackle the thickness on the top of his head. He became like stone as he tilted his head back and held up the mirror.
Yet, after a moment, he broke the silence. ‘I should have picked a lower chair.’
‘I’m good,’ she assured him, even though she had to stand on her toes.
‘I was thinking about what you said about lying back with a pair of tits hovering over me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a salon or one of those spas.’
‘If this goes well, later tonight you can have a soak in the tub and I’ll give you a full facial. Come back a little.’
He tipped his head back all the way, and to her great relief he lowered the mirror. ‘That stuff you put on your face that smells like cat litter?’
‘I haven’t worn it around you. Have you been snooping through my things?’
‘I don’t need to snoop when you leave your things in my bathroom.’
The silence resumed, a little lighter than before, and Grace noticed he had closed his eyes. She wouldn’t go so far as to say he was enjoying himself, but he’d given in a little.
Not to her, but to himself.
She finished up quickly with the scissors and evened things out with the clippers. He lifted his head as she came around to face him, and Grace took the mirror and held it up.
‘Well?’
He turned his head from one side to the other, and her spirits fell as a scowl appeared. She had thought she had done a good job, but he obviously felt otherwise, and she held back a sigh at the thought of buzzing that gorgeous hair off.
Taureau swiped his hand across his cheek. ‘I’m going to hop in the shower to get the itch off my neck. How do you feel about giving me a shave when I get out?’
Grace could have dropped the mirror. Not fifteen minutes earlier he had looked like he expected her to take his head off with those scissors, and now he was asking her to take a razor to his throat.
‘Yeah, sure.’
She passed him the mirror and watched as he touched the back of his head where most of the length had gone. After another few moments of scrutiny, he handed back the mirror, pulled the towel from his shoulders and got up from the stool.
‘I’ll help you clean up first.’
‘No, it’s good,’ she said quickly, and brushed a small chunk of hair off his shoulder with a smile. ‘You get your shower, and I’ll see you in a few minutes.’
The truth was that she needed a few minutes to herself. As soon as he was out of sight, she gave a wide smile and let out a long sigh.
She’d somehow managed to fall in pigshit and come out smelling like Chanel. She’d spent her time at The Convent House being deliberately careless, refusing to treat Taureau as fragile. If she discovered she’d pressed one of his buttons she never stopped right away. She’d tap and tap and tap, just like she’d done the night before the fire, until she knew she was in too far territory.
She couldn’t take any credit for it, she thought as she ran the vacuum across the kitchen floor. She hadn’t made him do anything. If he had really been adamant, he never would have sat down in that chair. This had been his hurdle, not hers, and he’d cleared it.
A fog of steam was billowing from the bathroom when she went upstairs. He stood naked before a full sink with the contents of his shaving kit laid out. The colour on his shoulders had lit up with the heat of the shower, and she noticed another pair of splotches further down his back.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without that fuzz,’ she said. ‘The insides of my thighs will probably thank me.’
‘It won’t last long. My mother used to joke that I was part werewolf, like Grand-Père.’
‘That’s actually kind of sexy.’
She reached for the can of shaving cream, but he caught her and dragged her between him and the sink. She gripped the edge and leaned back as he went to work unwrapping her from the dress. The bra followed the dress to the floor, but she kept her panties.
Grace ran her hands across his chest and finally tested the burn on his shoulders. The slightest touch made the crimson skin flash yellow.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘It’s not that bad,’ he said, and placed his hands on her hips. He ventured no further, and didn’t look at her body to see the damage such a simple touch did to her. Nipples hard and goose flesh lifting the hair on her arms, Grace leaned forward and rubbed her cheek against the bristle that in moments would be scraped away. She’d miss it when it was gone, though she was right when she said her inner thighs would enjoy the reprieve.
He turned his head and brushed his mouth against hers, and as his tongue slipped and twined around hers Grace had to chase away the urge to reach between them and bring his cock to its full potential. She gave him a little push to put some distance between them, and offered him a smile.
Though there was a mirror behind her, Taureau kept his eyes on her while she scrubbed his face and neck to loosen the hairs. He glanced away when she smeared a layer of shave gel across his beard, then looked back at her when she took the razor in her hand.
‘It’s thick,’ she said after the first nervous stroke. ‘How often do you do this?’
‘Once a month. Not since you’ve been here.’
‘Would you keep it clean if I asked you to?’
‘No.’
She sloshed the razor in the sink and laughed. ‘Good. I’d be disappointed if I suddenly discovered you were pussy-whipped, even if it was my pussy that whipped you.’
One stroke at a time, Taureau’s appearance changed. Without the shadow on his cheeks and chin, he started to resemble that lost young man of his youth. The reappearance of the scar across his neck brought back the man he had become, and deep down she was grateful for it. The way it had happened had been horrific, but, without it, Grace would never have had the many pleasures of knowing Taureau.
His blue-eyed stare returned to hers as she set the razor aside. ‘Well?’
‘Different. You don’t get much sun, so your face isn’t two-toned.’
Taureau emptied the sink and rinsed the facecloth, then wiped it over his face – all without letting Grace escape the wall of his body. When he’d finished, he tossed the cloth into the empty shower, then resumed his hold on her.
Her job done, Grace looped her arms around his neck and tilted her head back to get a good look at him. Taureau robbed her of it and kissed her again with the same hunger as before. She wrapped her legs around his waist and utterly gave in.
After a feverish moment, Taureau dragged his mouth across her cheek. His attention on the sensitive dune of her neck. Sharp teeth pinched, and hot tongue lathed where the sting had punctured her. She closed her eyes and became drunk with the hot shivers he induced. She moaned – only it wasn’t a moan that escaped, but words: ‘Thank you.’
Spell broken, Taureau lifted his head. ‘For what?’
‘For … bringing me here. For this.’
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but said nothing. His fresh new face dumbstruck, he struggled so much to get words out that Grace’s guts twisted with regret. Before she could try to take back what she’d said, he cupped the back of her head and leaned close.
‘I don’t know what to do with this. I feel like I don’t deserve it,’ he said, and their words clashed – hers to argue, his to silence her. He dominated her as always, butting his forehead against hers. ‘I needed to do something for you, just this once, just so you know that –’
He stopped, and she could feel the breath he took. As much as she longed for him to finish, she felt the time for words slipping away, and so she let it go and drew away the hand behind her head.
‘Will you do something else for me?’ she asked, her heart drumming in her throat and her head light as excitement and panic.
He curled his fingers around hers. ‘I don’t know what else I could possibly give you.’
The urge to laugh made her bite her lip. He could have given her anything with a price tag, but that’s not what she wanted and he knew it. From his apologetic tone it was clear that he thought himself an emotional pauper.
She kissed him lightly, softly, then spoke against his wet mouth. ‘Let me take you to bed. Let me tie you down like you tie me down. Let me reduce you to what you reduce me to.’
For a moment the atmosphere of the bathroom became stifling, a summer storm drawing power from both of them. Grace was suspended, waiting amidst the charge, while Taureau held her gaze and his breath.
He tilted his head just slightly and swiped his tongue into her mouth, then withdrew it as she sought to take more of him.
‘You’ll never do to me what I do to you,’ he told her with absolute confidence.
‘Let me try,’ she countered, and smiled against his mouth. ‘I’ll treat you so good, Jacques.’
A burst of laughter broke from him and vibrated against her lips. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’