A modest amount, at least: he wore trousers and nothing more, as he'd done the first time I'd seen him. Then, though, he had been full of lashing anger, streamlined and dangerous, and now he was distinctly…fuzzy. His mane, though clean, was a tangle from having been shaken, and toweling had rendered the heavy fur on his shoulders and chest fluffy, without enough time having passed for it to lie down again. I went around the tub to run my hands over his shoulders, smoothing the fur, and he lifted his great paws to just barely capture my wrists as he gazed down at me.
My heart lurched so hard spots danced in front of my eyes and desire stung all the way through me. The Beast was not, perhaps, human, but he was very male, and very close, and wearing the scent I had made for him. Confused, I took a short breath and stepped back. He let me go with such grace that he might not have been holding me at all.
He seemed more like a man to me, somehow, than he had before, although I couldn't convince myself that his form had in any way changed. I whispered, "I should comb your mane before it dries," and he gave the most acquiescent of nods before going to the barber's chair.
My hands, cold with barely acknowledged anticipation, trembled for a long time as I worked a comb through the thick fur. More of it came away, creating shaggy tangles on the floor, and when I noticed a pair of scissors that hadn't been there earlier, I trimmed the ends until they were no longer split and raw. A leather tie came to hand just as I thought I might want one, and I combed his mane back to tie the upper bulk of it in a tail that revealed those unexpectedly elegant ears. All that was left were the eyebrows, which I couldn't reach without tilting the chair back so he would lie beneath me. I worked out how to—a handled gear did the trick—and cautiously tipped the Beast back toward me. He looked up at me a little cross-eyed, murmuring, "I confess I find the idea of scissors near my eyes slightly alarming."
"So do I. I'll be careful." I couldn't, though: my hands shook too much each time I came near his over-growing brows, and I finally tucked the scissors into my bodice and breathed deeply. "I can't. I can't do it upside-down. I'm not sure enough of myself."
"You could," the Beast began in a tone that suggested he was about to say something amusing. He stopped so quickly, though, and looked so distressed, that I was all too easily able to follow his thought, and why the humor in it had gone suddenly flat.
Without giving myself time to think, I said, "I could," and came around the chair to climb onto it, too. To climb onto the Beast, though once I set myself in motion it was less a climb than a lift: he caught me with one tremendous hand and scooped me into the chair with him as if I weighed as little as a pillow. Heat flushed through me, coloring my cheeks and speeding my heartbeat until I could hardly breathe, and even so, I couldn't help but be aware that our shared thought had been predicated on the Beast being a man.
He was not. Had I been lifted so easily into a man's lap, I would have been in his lap, even if the nominal goal was to trim his eyebrows. The Beast was too much larger than I for that, and to make things more difficult, he was lying back thanks to the barber's chair. In order to put our faces near to one another, I ended up more across the sharp angle of his ribs than his hips. I doubted my weight bothered him at all, but I felt uncomfortable and absurd.
He dropped his hand and released the chair's catch, sitting up to let the chair move beneath him, and then I was in his lap, with his warmth and bulk and the spicy depth of his scent surrounding me. He had a beast's ability to smell. I was quite certain of what my own scent told him, and wondered if my too-fast heartbeat gave me away as well. I felt wild, as if madness had overtaken me, and as if I had no wish to be brought back to sanity.
His mouth was not made for kissing. Nothing either of us could do would change that, but our foreheads touched and I closed my eyes, listening to the tandem harshness of our breath and searching for just a little more bravery. He whispered, "Amber," precursor to a familiar question.
Somehow it gave me the courage I sought. I whispered, "Beast," in return, swiftly curving in on myself to find his jaw, so I could kiss that, at least.
The scissors I'd put in my bodice jabbed my belly, and I flinched back from the Beast with a bellowed, "Ow! Stars and stones and by the dying mother sun, fuck, that hurt!"
The poor Beast elevated from the chair, setting me on my feet and backing away with the haste of a creature who thought he'd damaged me. I withdrew the bloodied scissors, still cursing, and pulled my bodice out so I could see how badly I'd hurt myself. Badly enough: blood oozed from a hole beneath my breastbone, and I pushed the bodice against it again, both to staunch the small wound and for the pain-easing relief of pressure. By then the Beast had retreated halfway across the room, and I snarled—unfairly, but pain brought out the worst in me— "It wasn't you. I put the sun-blasted scissors in my bodice so I could trim your eyebrows and then forgot they were there. I jabbed myself."
Halfway through the explanation its absurdity began to strike me, and although it still hurt like the moon's broken heart, I concluded with a reluctant laugh. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. It wasn't your fault."
The Beast passed a hand over his eyes in the most human gesture I'd seen from him yet, then threw the motion away. "The servants had better take a look, then. Clean it, heal it if they can. I'll leave you to it."
"Beast," I said in a smaller voice, as he left the room, "will you—will you be at dinner?" It wasn't the question I meant to ask, but I lacked the boldness for the other, though only a minute earlier, the other's answer had been at hand.
He stopped at the door, looking at me. Studying me, as if he'd heard the question I hadn't asked, the one he asked every night, before shaking his great head once. "No, I don't think so. Not tonight. Good night, Amber."
I waited until he was gone, then let out a bereft little laugh, and let the servants tend to my injury.