And I liked them, I knew they liked me, we’d had some good times, but we weren’t exactly BFFs (yet) so I wasn’t certain they’d wade in for me.
Not with these guys.
It was probably best that I got my arse over there.
I nodded to Drakkar and turned, putting down the cards.
“Thanks guys, see you all later,” I muttered, grabbed my little, satin, drawstring bag off the table, decided to let my winnings sit where they were and with some haste I stood, snatched my cloak off the back of my chair and moved quickly, trying to do it without appearing like I was moving quickly, through the silent pub, taking every step with every eye in the place on me.
I wasn’t certain what would happen once I got my arse to him because one could say I didn’t know my husband like, at all, but I would never have been prepared for what did happen.
The minute I was within reach, he reached. Then, with a small, surprised cry, I found myself, ass in the air, over his shoulder. Then I found myself out of the pub and into the cold night. Then I found my ass on my horse and my arms automatically came up quickly to catch the cloak I had lost and he had caught and was now throwing at me.
Then he growled two words, “Arse. Home.”
“But –” I started but didn’t finish.
He lifted a large hand and slapped my gray on the rump, barking, “Yah!” and my gray took off at a full gallop.
I didn’t even have the reins in my hand!
What a fucking dick!
I quickly hooked my leg around the saddle, leaned forward, holding onto the gray around her neck so I wouldn’t fall off, I grabbed the reins then sat back and, as best I could with purse and reins, I flung the fur lined cloak around my shoulders.
Then I rode home and I did this fast. This was because I was pissed way the fuck off and I knew if I didn’t go in that direction, I’d go back to the pub and probably do something that would get me murdered by a giant Viking-type, parallel universe Raider.
So I went home, straight to the stables where I unsaddled and stalled the gray, stomped to the house, stoked up the banked fires, dropped logs on them, lit candles and lamps, climbed up and built a fire in the loft and then I went down the ladder and paced.
What I did not do was calm down.
My husband and I had to get a few things straight.
First was that he didn’t do anything that threatened to break my neck, such as set a horse to full gallop when I was not seated properly and didn’t have hold of the reins.
Second was that he had to stop throwing me on or in some type of transport when I didn’t have anything to shield me from the freezing, arctic, fucking air.
Third was that he was going to hear how I felt about him humiliating me in front of people who were becoming my friends.
I knew there was probably a fourth through about a five hundredth but I was fucking well going to start with those.
I seethed and ranted in my brain while I paced for a long time. Then I realized I’d been pacing for a long time. Then I realized I’d been drinking ale, had a fabulous shepherd’s pie at the pub and I was getting tired. Then I realized this was happening because it was way late and I’d been home for what felt like hours and he wasn’t home.
Then I decided, fuck him.
I was going to bed.
So I went to the trunks, grabbed a nightgown, went to the bathroom type room, changed, came out, flung my clothes on a trunk, blew out the candles and lanterns, threw more logs on the fires and climbed up the ladder where Penelope was already curled and asleep.
I threw more logs on that fire too, slid the curtain shut then I climbed under the sheet, quilt and fluffy wool blanket and was out like a light within minutes.
* * * * *
My eyes drifted open as something light and lovely glided from the back of my knee up the skin of the back of my thigh.
I came to a sleepy, confused, definitely hazy semi-focus in the firelight, my eyes taking in a muscled, so dark brown it was nearly black, wool breeches covered knee and thigh resting on the bed.
I blinked.
“Waste,” I heard a low, male rumble and the finger kept going, pushing up my nightgown, drifting over my hip and then down toward my ass. “Waste,” it repeated.
The words registered, the touch registered and the direction it was heading registered.
Holy moly!
I shot up to sitting in bed, one hand in the bed, the covers tumbling off me, the finger moved from me and Penelope scrambled away on a bee-line to the rope of the pulley, deserting me as she used her claws on the rope to crawl down.
Oh shit. My husband was sitting on the bed facing me. I was half lounging in it. As usual, I’d kicked the covers off one leg and was straddling them; the ones that covered my torso were now at a bunch at my waist.
But I didn’t notice this. I was staring in his eyes which were staring at me.
Then his big hand lifted and I sat stock-still as it moved toward me, cupped my jaw gently, then it slid down to the side of my neck. There, it curled around to the back, his fingers tangled in my hair and kept moving downward.
“Uh –” I started but didn’t continue mainly because I was speechless with fear.
“Soft,” he muttered, his eyes on my neck, his fingers twisting in my hair. “Softer than I expected. As soft as it is beautiful. A miracle,” he kept muttering, his mind somewhere else at the same time it was on me.
My mind was totally on him and he wasn’t completely in my space but he wasn’t far enough away that I couldn’t smell the whisky.
Shit. Drunk guys probably didn’t care if you were a lesbian.
No, I knew by the look in his heated green-brown eyes they most definitely did not care.
Shit!
“Frey,” I whispered and when I did, his gaze snapped instantly to mine.
“Say that again,” he ordered.
I didn’t say it again. I asked what I thought was a very pertinent question.
“Uh, are you inebriated?”
At my words, his hand twisted and fisted in my hair. It didn’t hurt, a slight pull at my scalp, but he was a very big man with his very big fist in my hair so he had my attention.
“Say that again,” he repeated.
“Um… Frey,” I whispered.
Suddenly, he used my hair to pull me to him as he leaned close to me and when he had me an inch away, he growled, “Gods, that you’d say that, just like that, when you were full of me.”
At his words, I felt a little tingle in happy place.
Uh, what was that?
I put a hand to the massive wall of his (very hard, I noted on encountering it) chest, and put on gentle pressure, starting to suggest, “Maybe we should –”
“Tonight, we pretend,” he muttered, cutting me off.
Ho boy!
“I think –”
Before I could finish telling him what I thought, he let me go. Then he twisted, bent his torso and tugged his boots off. Then before I knew it, off went his sweater and I was treated to a view of a highly tanned, supremely muscled, obviously powerful back. I was still blinking as that vision burned into my brain (and I had to admit, it was pleasantly) when, still seated in the bed with me, off went his breeches.
Ho boy!
Now frantic, though unfortunately belatedly, I started to scoot back, saying, “Um… would you mind if –?” but I again didn’t finish.
This was because, without appearing to move, he was reclining in bed and I was reclining with him. He flicked the covers over us then both his powerful arms locked around me and yanked me to his side.
“Cradle my thigh,” he growled and I blinked at his chest, pushing lightly against it, registering it was as powerfully muscled as his back and so wide it seemed to go on forever.
“Wha… what?”
“As you did the quilt,” he stated then got impatient. His hand, starting at my hip, moved swiftly down my thigh, his torso (and me, I might add, since his other arm was still l
ocked around me) lifting in order to reach, then his fingers hooked the back of my knee and he yanked my leg up until I was doing what he asked, half straddling his thigh like I did the covers.
Then he settled back down in bed and kept firm hold on me.
“Well, uh… okay, uh… do you think –?” I started but he cut me off again.
“This is not the welcome home I’d like, wife, but it’ll do and you’ll sleep here, like this, until the morning. You don’t, I’ll take the welcome home from you I’d like and I won’t delay. Do you understand me?”
I understood him. I was totally okay with sleeping like this because I had a feeling I knew what kind of welcome home he’d like.
And incidentally, I was right about drunk guys not minding lesbians.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Now shut your mouth and sleep.”
I pressed my lips together in order not to inform him that he hadn’t actually let me open my mouth to say much of anything. I didn’t think he’d appreciate that reminder at that juncture.
What I did not do was sleep.
He was out in seconds.
I still did not sleep.
Penelope clawed her way back up the rope, curled at my one free foot and purred herself to slumber and I still did not sleep.
I knew that dawn had to have touched the sky (though I couldn’t see it with the curtains closed) and then, only then, did I find sleep.
And unfortunately when that happened, in sleep, I curled deeper into the big, hard, stranger at my side, my arm snaking around him and holding tight, my thigh curving around his, my knee and calf falling between his legs, my hips cradled by the side of his, my cheek pillowed on his massive, hard chest.
This was something I did normally in my sleep with covers and pillows.
Something I did that night with something a lot warmer, a lot more comfortable and a lot more dangerous.
And when I slept curled tight around my dark stranger husband, I slept deep.
Chapter Six
Phew
I slept in but Penelope was still with me when I woke.
And Penelope was my only bedmate.
Phew.
I lay in the warm cocoon of covers that was pulled up to my neck and wondered if my dark stranger husband pulled them up after he left me in bed which would be a surprising indication he could be thoughtful.
Then I figured he did because I likely didn’t.
Then I didn’t know what to do with that so I set it aside and listened to the house.
Nothing.
I couldn’t even feel his presence.
Phew. Okay. Good.
Space to get my head straight.
Penelope sensed I was awake and sauntered up the curved line of my body then jumped down to curl in the warm shell of my belly, lap and thighs and there she started purring. I noted the windows were covered by the heavy curtains and the curtain was still drawn at the railing but sunlight was coming through there (not at the windows, they didn’t mess around in Lunwyn with curtains, total blackout situation, nothing got through, they even had draft protectors to set at the base of the doors). This had to mean it was late morning for Lunwyn’s days were very short, by my estimation, starting around nine or ten and ending around two or three. Then it was moonlight all the way.
I tipped my head and saw the fire was blazing, heating the small nest of space.
Definitely my dark stranger husband did that for me unless Lunwyn had heretofore unknown fire fairies.
Another surprising act of thoughtfulness.
Hmm.
I pulled just an arm out of the covers to scratch Penelope behind the ears as I considered my dilemma.
First, I was married and my husband was home.
Second, I was not a lesbian like he thought I was.
Third, my husband was a renowned Raider, known to be virile and “skilled in that area” but also it was clear he was very virile unless you were blind, deaf and lost all your senses of perception.
Fourth, I knew there was a strong possibility the rumors of his “skill” were true with the one kiss he’d given me, the light touch he’d woken me with last night and the gentle way he touched my jaw and neck.
Fifth, he liked my hair.
Sixth, he wanted to sleep with me cuddled to his side.
Seventh, he left me covered and cocooned, stoking up the fire to keep me warm.
Hmm.
On the other hand…
First, he’d married me, hauled me across country for hours upon hours through the freezing cold night and left me in a dirty house all by myself for six weeks (well, the house wasn’t dirty for six weeks, but he sure as hell left me there alone that long).
Second, when he first saw me again, he bossed me around right in front of everyone without even saying hello. Granted, he was with his buds, and maybe obviously virile, Viking-type Raiders behaved that way in front of their buds, but he could at least have said hello.
Third, for reasons unknown he’d carried me out like a sack of flour, again, right in front of everyone.
Fourth, he’d sent my horse galloping when I was not secure on her back.
Fifth, he barely spoke to me, didn’t let me talk when he was speaking and most of the stuff he said when he was speaking, I didn’t like much.
And last, he was huge, scared me most of the time and, um… he scared me most of the time (that was worth repeating).
I left Penelope to her purring, put my arm back under the covers, rolled to my back to stare at the ceiling and kept thinking.
I was an adventurer but I wasn’t a sexual adventurer.
There were two reasons for this.
First, I had a bunch of money. My father inherited a shitload from my grandfather and after the plane he was piloting with Mom in it went down over the Nile, I inherited his shitload of money.
Money made people do stupid stuff and lots of it was not so nice. And having lots of it made you a target for some not so nice folks who did stupid stuff mostly to get you to use your money on them or just to get your money. So, I’d learned early and Dad had taught me to be careful with my heart (and my money). So I was.
I had good friends but they were few. Trust was difficult when you were loaded like me.
I’d had far fewer lovers.
Second, I was just plain careful with my heart. I’d lost the two people I loved most in my life when I was fifteen. That hurt. Too much. I didn’t want that to happen again and if I was going to risk it, I was damn well going to make certain I took that risk on the right guy.
That guy, so far, had not made an appearance and, so far, no guy even came close.
So, two and two together meant that I didn’t go there. This didn’t mean I was a virgin, it was just – you share your body, you open a part of yourself and make it vulnerable. So unless I was sure I could cut ties or I had my head on straight (the latter being a rare occasion with me), I didn’t take that risk. Vulnerable was not something I liked to be.
But this situation was something else.
This was an adventure with a limited time span.
In ten and a half months, I was going home to my friends, my house, my money and new adventures. I wasn’t staying here, no way. They didn’t have planes here or cell phones or sushi.
True, it would have been good after what I read in those books, especially about the Raiders, to discover more than Lunwyn. Hawkvale sounded beautiful, Bellebryn gorgeous and Fleuridia was known to have really good food and it must be said, I liked really good food. To explore it all, I could use two years here, maybe three.
But that would mean leaving behind my friends, my house, my money and sushi for two years, maybe three.
I wasn’t about to do that.
And I was loaded but I couldn’t throw a million dollars at trip after trip.
This was a onetime deal.
So here I was, a princess in a frozen world with a very scary yet very hot husband who could really kiss and liked to cuddl
e.
And I knew I was going home so there was no risk because I knew those ties would be cut.
Then Sjofn would have to deal as she’d left me to do the same.
And Frey Drakkar…
Well, we’d see how I’d handle that.
First I had to see if he could communicate in the sense that he listened as well as talked and when he talked he didn’t only say scary shit or stuff that pissed me off but other… uh, stuff.
Then I would decide.
I rolled out of bed, banked the fire, shoved back the curtain and climbed down. I found fires burning merrily in both fireplaces as well as the kitchen stove (which, seriously, being iron, conducted a lot of heat, the kitchen was always cozy warm) and there was fresh brewed coffee – strong and good.
He could make good coffee and he could build good fires meaning I didn’t have to do either. This meant his plus column was growing. So far there were only four things on it but yesterday there were none so I had hope.
I heated some water, washed a bit at the basin in the bathroom space and pulled on some undergarments, cashmere stockings attached to garters and a long, dusty pink, soft wool knit dress that clung everywhere, had a scooped neckline, some serious cleavage (by the way, all my dresses had serious cleavage, this was the way they were made, this was what my underwear also made when I strapped it on and, it had to be said, natural cleavage was the way I was made) and long flowing sleeves that belled out at the wrists. I pulled my hair back from my face with a pink satin ribbon, tied the long, matching knit belt so it hung low on my hips, touched some perfume behind my ears and at my wrists and headed to the kitchen to make Penelope a late breakfast and her Momma some brunch.
Penelope was on all fours, belly to the floor and had her face in a bowl of leftover chicken I’d warmed by setting it on the stove when the backdoor opened, Frey Drakkar prowled through and then he stopped dead when he saw me.
I took him in.
A first, no knives or sword. Another first, his hair was partially wet. He’d also shaved. Someone had visited the hot spring.
Wildest Dreams Page 7