Bearclaw Valley gardenia and king protea

He couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him like this, and it was strangely grounding.
There's no flinching. There's no sharp intake of breath. But for a few moments, all that's in his mind is Evien's presence, the small circle of warmth where their hands touched. He looks down. Evien's hands are pretty, he thinks, with long fingers and large knuckles and dewclaws that stuck out boyishly.
The rosehip poultice's smell fills his lungs. Taylor raises his head, but his eyes don't quite reach Evien's. It's like he assumed that I could kill, or had killed, or something. Maybe it was the fact that he had been so haggard and his mind so frayed, that Merrick only'd had to take a single look at his insomniac's face and bloody mouth to come to the conclusion that all the homes he had ever had in his life did not deserve to be called homes. He said something about marching. I don't know.
My lips are sealed, he grins, and it is then when he can really look at Evien's face again. The sunlight was lighting his eyelashes. His pupils constricted and widened imperceptibly in the green irises.