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The scent of lavender bath salts wafting on the steam from her tub washed over Kagome and immediately triggered her muscles to relax.
She was exhausted.
Stretching her arms over her head, she slipped off her blue terry robe, rolling her shoulders a bit to loosen some lingering tension, and dipped a toe into the bathwater.
She smiled. It was perfect.
“Finishing touches,” she said happily, shaking her toe dry. Snagging her wand lighter, she lit a few candles and watched them blaze to life. Then, she flicked off the bathroom light, letting the warm glow take over, and sighed.
Every minute toiling in her garden earlier had been worth it.
The new house was coming along well. There were big projects and side projects and more than a few messes to clean. But today, after weeks of existing as a useless, gutted mess, the master bathroom was finished. And after hours planting a new vegetable garden in their backyard while waiting on the contractor to finish, Kagome was thrilled to finally have a moment to enjoy the oversized tub she had insisted be put in.
Even if it was after midnight and sans a husband to enjoy it with.
“You snooze you lose.” Snickering to herself, Kagome set down the lighter and raised her leg to step into the tub.
They could never agree on a water temperature anyway.
“Miko like it hot, but youkai do not.”
She laughed again, probably a little too happy with herself over her ridiculous rhyming skills, and went to lift her other leg into the tub.
It never crossed her mind that eight scrabbly little legs would go scurrying across her bare foot.
Twice.
Kagome froze. Oh, my gods.
Then, it happened again.
Her eyes widened. No. No, no, no, no, no. NOPE.
The realization that there was more than one of them hit her like a ton of bricks, and she did the only thing any self-respecting woman would do.
She scrambled, completely naked, on top of the toilet.
“Sesshoumaru!”
If the sheer volume of her voice didn’t wake him, the obscene decibel it registered at would.
Sure enough, Sesshoumaru came barreling into the bathroom only seconds later, a sleep-blind blur of silver hair and black boxers groping for the light switch.
Unsuccessfully.
Kagome would have laughed if it weren’t for the eight-legged murder beasts currently roaming around her new bathroom floor.
Sesshoumaru finally managed to find the switch and winced as the incandescent bulbs suddenly flooded the bathroom with one hundred watts of light.
“Why are you screaming?” he murmured, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“There!” Kagome shouted, pointing near his foot. “There’s at least three”—another went scuttling across the floor—“Four! There’s four of them!”
Slightly more awake, Sesshoumaru furrowed his brows. “Four what, Kagome?”
“Spiders!”
He was fully awake then, and the flat look he gave her didn’t bode well. “I must wake in two hours, and you, Miko, dragged me out of bed over spiders?”
“Four spiders!”
Sesshoumaru glared. “I am returning to bed.”
Kagome gave him and incredulous look. “Without me?”
“Goodnight, Kagome.”
“What do you mean ‘goodnight?’ I need”—oh gods, that one has fur—“you to kill these things!”
“You have killed larger spiders in the past,” he said, using a blast of youki to snuff out the candles. No need to risk her panic burning the house down.
“That was centuries ago!” She moved back further on the toilet as two of the spiders moved toward the porcelain base. “And I had help! Yours included.”
“Then you are familiar with what to do.”
Frustration and irritation rising and fusing into hot, unadulterated anger, Kagome stamped her foot on the toilet seat. “Sesshoumaru!”
But he had already left the bathroom.
Growling in a very unladylike manner, she shook her fist at the door even though he couldn’t see it. “For better or worse, you grumpy, old jerk!”
“This is not worse!”
She saw red. “It will be when I get out of this bathroom!”
“Idle threats, Miko.”
“It’s not idle!” Kagome reached for a hand towel and bent to swat at the floor. “You left your wife stranded naked on top of a toilet!”
Naked and surrounded by spiders.
Kagome’s shoulder’s slumped, and fatigue started to catch up with her. Tipping her head back in defeat, she closed her eyes. “Sesshoumaru, please. I just want to go to bed now. The bath isn’t even worth it anymore.”
From the bedroom, she heard a sigh, and then a whip of green light came cracking through the bathroom door.
All four spiders found themselves caught in its path and were suddenly no more.
Kagome blinked. “How did he—”
“I am good.”
Good was back in the doorway, his eyes glued to her.
Still, she glowered.
Climbing down from the toilet, Kagome shot Sesshoumaru another dirty look before reaching over to drain the tub.
“Leave it.”
She craned her neck over her shoulder, her face suspicious. “Why?”
Sesshoumaru pinched the bridge of his nose before letting his hand fall away. “I was perhaps an ass, and as an apology, I would like to assure you get to enjoy your bath.”
Kagome’s lips twitched. Five hundred years ago, the first thing she had learned about Sesshoumaru after becoming his mate was that he got unreasonably cranky when he was tired.
But he could be sweet despite it.
Flashing him a quick grin, she stood and reached for the lighter again. “You saying you’ll join me?”
“Yes.” He stepped into the bathroom then and relit the candles for her. “If you do not mind that I sleep as I do.”
She gave a little happy wiggle. “Take off the boxers.”
Sesshoumaru arched a brow, but his thumbs hooked the waistband of said boxers, and he slid them off, knotting his hair up on top of his head as he stepped into the water behind her.
She laughed when he hissed at the temperature. “I can cool it down.”
“No,” he grumbled, lowering himself to sit. “It will be fine.”
Kagome sank down between his legs and leaned back against his chest, smiling contently when she felt him kiss the top of her head as he wrapped his arms around her.
She tipped her head back over his collar bone and pressed her lips to the underside of his jaw. “Sleep well.”
“Mm.”
He lightly nosed at her cheek, but his breathing slowed after that. His weight suddenly settled, and she knew he was already falling back toward sleep. And really, she couldn’t blame him there. It was late.
So, she closed her eyes and let her weight relax into him, enjoying the peaceful moment. And between the comfort of Sesshoumaru’s embrace and the warm water, she found herself growing drowsy.
“I’m glad we went with the heated tub,” she mumbled sleepily. “And something oversized.”
Sesshoumaru just splashed his non-cramped foot to acknowledge her.
Neither of them spoke after that, letting the night blanket them in calm and quiet. And soon, Kagome felt the edges of sleep creep into her consciousness.
I should put out the candles.
Opening her eyes, she went to do just that.
And then froze.
Suspended by a string of web only inches from her face was another spider.
Her fatigue evaporated on the spot, eyes snapping wider as she tucked her chin and pressed further back into Sesshoumaru, not once looking away from the invader.
Eight beady eyes stared straight at her.
She tried to blow it away, but it only swung closer, and she felt her panic start to rise again.
Nervously licking her lips, she tapped his leg. “Sesshoumaru.”
“What is it?” he murmured.
He wouldn’t get a coherent answer. The spider chose that moment to drop down—right on Kagome’s chest.
There was screaming. A little crying. A very, very confused, half-asleep demon lord whose backside slipped out from under him and sent him careening underwater as his mate dove out of the tub, too quick in her desperation to be stopped.
The bathroom may have been flooded.
But in the end, Kagome ended up back in the safety of his arms. Only this time, it was his arms and several protective layers of blanket in their bed.
“I’m calling an exterminator tomorrow,” she said, voice shaking. She could still feel little legs crawling over her skin. See the black eyes.
Sesshoumaru chuckled. “I will call for you.” Behind her, he stretched and yawned before settling back into the mattress. “For now, sleep.”
“Sleep sounds good.”
And it did. The peace and quiet they had been experiencing just before their unwelcome visitor showed up surrounded them once again, and Kagome felt herself slowly drifting off to sleep, the steady rise and fall of Sesshoumaru’s chest against her back lulling her.
She snuggled deeper into him. “Love you.”
Some incoherent version of the affection mumbled back at her, and she smiled.
Life really was good—even though Sesshoumaru’s alarm sounded seconds later.
“Damnable, wretched eight-legged vermin,” he cursed, smacking the snooze button.
She laughed.
