Page 60 of A Broody Mate for the Human

“It’s been a while since I shaved,” Raffy mutters. “I can’t remember the last time, obviously, but…”

“Goodness,” I sigh. “Do you need help?”

Raffy frowns. “No… I have wolf healing, it’s not necessary—”

“Alright, I’ll help,” I say, completely ignoring his grumbly dismissal. I reach out my hand, waiting for him to hand me the razor, which he only does begrudgingly. Then I sit down on the second stool there, scooting closer until I’m sitting between his knees. It’s a weirdly intimate position, and I decide not to think of how close we suddenly are. He smells nice now, though he didn’t really smell before either. It was just the scent of mud and moss surrounding him, and I can still catch the mossy fragrance. It’s a comforting scent. Weird. I shouldn’t smell that anymore after he took a shower for an hour.

I start with trimming the rest of his beard before carefully shaving it off. He looks good with a beard, maybe not with that lengthy Dumbledore beard, but still, a beard looks nice. Shaved, he looks good too. Now that he has brushed and tied his hair back and his beard is off, I can finally see his face. He has a prominent chin with a square jawline, a higher forehead, and bushy brown brows. He always looks like he is frowning.

He’s not the type of guy that typically floats my boat, but Raffy has something about him that pulls me in.

Raffy looks at me thoughtfully before his eyes wander downward, stopping at my neck and shoulder. He reaches out his hand to brush over the sleeves of my shirt, tugging at it a bit. I could swear I can feel my skin tingling slightly when he touches me, but I must be imagining things. The last time I felt any tingles was with Matthew. Maybe it’s some sort of phantom pain I still feel. “Where did you get these bruises from?” he asks, his voice dark all of a sudden. He sounds angry.

I contemplate telling him, but then I chicken out. I was almost killed by my ex-mate; it sounds pathetic.

“It’s okay,” he mutters. “I’m sorry for asking.”

“Raffy…” I pause. “Do you want me to help you remember your past?”

He looks at me thoughtfully. “Yes, although I’m scared of it.”

I nod with a smile. “Then how about we order our honeymoon menu and then go through a plan?”

He nods earnestly. “Alright.”

Raffy puts the toiletries aside and cleans the bathroom while I go to order our food, a full course of the honeymoon dinner. Once Raffy joins me, he throws a pillow on the floor and sits down there. “What are you doing?” I blink.

He looks confused. “Sitting.”

“I can see that, but why do you sit on the ground?” I have settled on the bed with my notebook.

“You said the bed is yours.”

“To sleep.” I grin. “But it’s huge. You can still sit with me here.”

Raffy furrows his bushy brows further and looks from the ground to the bed, grumbling and huffing a bit but eventually joining me. I can feel the bed dipping slightly. This man is huge, almost as tall as Annie’s mate.

“So, what do you remember?” I ask him.

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

Now that I know he frowns and grumbles all the time, I got kind of used to it. Maybe I can learn to read the differences between his frowns and grunts. When he looked at himself in the mirror after I shaved him, he looked content, yet he grunted… a happy grunt, maybe? He seems to have his very own language.

“You said you still know glimpses and pieces of your past?”

“It’s not much,” he rumbles. “But I remember… a witch with red hair called Stella.”

“Alright, a red-haired woman named Stella…” I frown. That’s not much. Well, at least we know she is a witch. “Do you remember anything else?”

“Someone was crying, a woman,” he admits.

“Stella?”

He shakes his head. “No, but I’m yelling at her. And she is just crying. It…” he pauses, flinching in pain. “I should remember, but I can’t. I feel it’s important, and it hurts.”

“It hurts to remember?” I ask carefully.

“No, it hurts not to be able to remember,” he shakes his head.