His hand came up as he cupped my cheek. His eyes swirled with emotions I couldn’t decipher as he bent and kissed me. “It’s not that, Gem.”
I kissed him back. Tasting his tongue with mine, wishing I could erase all the horror from his soul.
Slowly, he pulled away and took the scissors from me. I tried to hold on to them, but he just added pressure and showed me just how powerful he was, how strong he was beneath the kindness he showed.
“It’s me they’ll be afraid of.” He shook his head, his hand fisting around the scissors, waving them at his reflection. “Those pictures online showed women in sparkly gowns and men in black tuxedos. Each one was clean-shaven, groomed, and polished.”
My heart squeezed as I understood instantly. “Just because you don’t look that way doesn’t mean you have to change.”
“I know.” He scowled at his reflection, studying his beard and tangled long hair. The way it cascaded over his shoulders and hung in sheets around his face looked like armor. A shield that’d been hacked and damaged, a barrier that kept him removed from the world, kept him part animal, granting him the strength of the bears he used to live with and the predators who stalked his valley.
“No one expects you to look like a guy who works in a boring office all day, Kas.” I touched his arm. “They’re going to the gala knowing that you have a tale to tell. Your appearance only corroborates that tale.”
He sighed again, his eyes dancing over his face. “But what if I don’t want to be that tale anymore?”
“Then you do whatever it is that you want to do.” I wedged myself between him and the vanity, making his chin drop to look at me. Cupping his cheeks, I whispered, “Long hair, short hair, beard or no beard, I will love you. The question is...what will make you love yourself?”
His head tipped down, his lips pressing to mine.
He inhaled as his tongue licked the seam of my mouth, slipping into me, enticing me into a deep, sensual kiss.
I sighed and puddled against him, looping my arms around his neck, willing to go wherever he led. Pulling away a little, he murmured, “I think...a part of me let my hair get this long and never shaved—even though there were scissors and razors at Fables—because I wanted to be as repulsive as I could.”
My heart broke all over again. “So no one would find you sexually attractive?”
He nodded and pressed the lightest kiss to my lips. “As slaves, we were forced to shower after every guest, to shave everywhere, to wear perfume and aftershave and present ourselves in whatever outfit the guests requested. By the end, we all despised hygiene because it meant we were desirable. We often joked in the dorm that we’d find a way to smear ourselves in animal shit so the guests wouldn’t want to touch us.”
I snuggled into him, pressing my cheek against his chest. His heart pounded beneath my ear. There was nothing I could say, so I just held him while he shared another piece of himself.
“When I lost my memory for those five years, I still shaved and trimmed my hair. I’d smashed the mirrors by that point, but I did it by feel, some part of me doing its best not to become completely wild. But when my memory came back...that was when a lot of my coping mechanisms came back to haunt me. I didn’t bathe for a full month. I was proud of my stench. Each month, as my hair grew longer and my cheeks itched with a thicker beard, I was fucking grateful because it was an armor against ever being used again.” He sucked in a breath and squeezed me tight. “Eventually, I returned to washing myself—mostly because I took to swimming in the river a lot. I found I wasn’t successful in hunting if I didn’t wash regularly. My prey could smell me coming.” He chuckled. “So, you’re lucky you found me with just long hair and not a body odor that could clear out the entire valley.”
I looked up and smiled. “You’ve always smelled delectable to me.”
His nose wrinkled. “I’ve always wondered about that.”
“About what?”
“I went out of my way to be unappealing. Yet you...you saw past all that. How...eh, why did you find me attractive when we first met?” He shrugged. “Not only was I your enemy but I wasn’t exactly the type of man you were used to—judging by the preppy guys on TV.” His voice thickened. “I know I forced you to pleasure me those first few days, but I...” He licked his lips as shyness filled his tone. “I wanted you so much, Gem, and I...I knew you wanted me back. I knew you were...interested.”