Free Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) by Cal Matthews

stilled on me. “No. I mean, your other work.”
    “Oh,” I said, and closed my eyes again. She waited half a second, and then her hands began to move again, working the shampoo into a rich lather. It smelled so good, like flowers, and the water was just this side of too hot. The towels sat heavy around my neck, a pleasant weight snuggled up around my jaw. With the spray of the faucet and the gentle whir of the nearby space heater, everything felt safe. Insulated, like a den, like a haven. Dahlia's hands moved in gentle circles across my skin and she just waited, letting my secrets be something that I wanted to tell, not something she was forcing out of me.
    But that's the thing about secrets, I've learned. Keeping them is an awful lot of work and in the end the truth would probably just be easier.
    “Yeah,” I said, opening my eyes and looking up into the tin plated ceiling. “Yeah, they do, actually.”
    “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked carefully, reaching for a thick towel and wrapping it around my head like a turban. She urged me to sit up, one hand on my shoulder.
    I studied her face, her small sharp features. I loved the way she moved with slow and graceful movements, dragging a comb through my hair. Her eyes soft, her hands always trailing over my shoulders or resting on my arm. She said nothing, but her body very clearly offered acceptance, offered love.
    “Things are really out of control,” I admitted quietly. She pulled a lock of my wet hair between two fingers. The scissors went snick snick .
    “Things went really wrong last night. And last week... things went very, very wrong.”
    “Are you in trouble?” she asked, her tone soft. She took my head in her hands, angling me about while she studied my hair with laser intensity. She tilted my head to one side and made a few more snips.
    “I don't know,” I admitted. “Not yet. But there have been accidents. Mistakes. I feel like I'm just waiting to get arrested.”
    “Maybe you should stop for a while. Let things cool down.”
    “I can't stop,” I said instantly. “Not if I can help people. What if there's—I mean, people might—ugh. People need me, Dahl.”
    She nodded, but didn't look at me. She took out a little electric razor and made it burr up the back of my neck, around my ears.
    “And Leo's just—”I broke off, shaking my head. Dahlia paused, then gently unwrapped the hot towels from around my neck. The cold air rushed against my skin, making me shiver into goose bumps.
    “Are you keeping the beard?” she asked as she began to lather me with shaving cream.
    “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I kinda like it.”
    “Me too,” she replied and gave me a faint smile. “It suits you.”
    I went still as she put the straight razor to my throat, and her dark eyes flickered up to mine. I gave her a weak smile, feeling the foam sitting on my skin. She smoothed a stray fleck of shaving cream off my nose.
    “I worry about you,” she said quietly. The razor scraped against my cheeks. She adjusted me with her fingertips, moving my jaw to this side, to that.
    “I don't know what to do,” I whispered back.
    “Did you... have anything to do with that girl? The one they found in the dumpster? The body that was stolen?”
    I wanted to keep looking at her, to keep my eyes from sliding guiltily away, but I couldn't stop and I didn't have to say anything for her to know.
    “I didn't,” I lied, so easily it disgusted me. “But I know who did.”
    “And what about that cop? Is that's why the cop is interested in you?”
    “Who, Chad? No. He's interested in me for a whole 'nother thing.”
    She paused, frowning. “Ebron. Is he blackmailing you?”
    “No! I mean, I don't think so. He hasn't said that.”
    “But he wants something from you?”
    “Yes.”
    She tilted my head back, running the razor around the bottom of my chin. She drew it around my throat. When she was done, she wiped my face down with a towel, combed back the stray hairs