“Freya…”
I went to the water’s edge, watching the steam eddy and swirl without really seeing it. Instead, visions of our future filled my head, and in them I saw Bjorn growing bitter and angry at having been denied his destiny, endless arguments and nights spent with our backs turned, cold empty space between us. My eyes stung, the grief that rose in my chest as real as if my visions were reality.
The scuff of boot on rock and the swirl of steam told me that he’d come up behind me. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his chest, his chin brushing my temple. “There is no future where I would regret choosing you.”
I sucked in a ragged breath, but it felt like no air reached my lungs, my heart a riot in my chest as my emotions warred within it.
“I wish I’d realized it sooner.” His breath caught and he swallowed hard, his struggle to say what he wanted to say making me want to hear it all the more. “For nearly all my life, revenge for what was done to my mother was all that mattered to me. It consumed my every waking breath and I refused to allow anything else to matter. Then the most fierce and beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on hit me in the face with a fish and proceeded to wind her way into my heart. To make me want a life ruled by something deeper than hate.”
My mouth curved into a smile, but my heart ached to hear him put voice to what I’d always sensed: the discontent simmering beneath quips and quick smiles, the tension in him that never seemed to ease.
He turned me in his arms, one hand rising to tangle in my mess of braids. “I used to dream only of fire and ash,” he whispered, running a thumb over my cheek as I lifted my face to meet his gaze. “Now when I close my eyes, all I see is your face.”
Tears drenched my cheeks because hearing those words was my dream. Was what my mind had created in the dark hours where I’d allowed it to drift into fantasies that I thought the gods and fate and circumstance would never let me have. It had always been him.
“I love you, Bjorn,” I whispered. “And the only future I wish for is the one with you by my side.”
He let out a shaky breath, tension seeping out of him in a rush, then his mouth was on mine.
I gasped, catching hold of his neck so that I didn’t fall backward, but he’d already taken hold of me. Lifting me even as he kissed me, tongue tasting mine and sending bolts of pleasure down to my already throbbing core. I wrapped my legs around his waist, rubbing myself against him, a moan escaping me as his arm tightened around my hips, dragging me closer.
But not close enough.
I wanted to feel his skin against mine, yet we both still wore sodden clothing and mail. “Off,” I said between kisses, straightening my legs to slide down his body. “I want it all off.”
And lest he miss my meaning, I caught hold of my mail and lifted it over my head, tossing it aside, the tunic and undershirt I wore beneath swiftly following, baring my peaked breasts.
Bjorn growled, his eyes dark as he dropped to his knees, catching the tip of one of my breasts in his mouth. I moaned as he sucked it deep, teeth nipping to the point I couldn’t tell whether it was pleasure or pain, only that my thighs were slick with the need for more.
Not just more of his hands and mouth on me, but mine on him. I wanted to taste that taut tattooed skin, to dig my nails into the hard curve of his muscles, to stroke my palm over his thick cock.
So I pushed him back, stepping down into the pool, the heat of the water stinging my skin as I backed deeper. “It’s hot,” I murmured, reaching down to remove one shoe and then the other, tossing them past Bjorn even as I held him in place with my gaze.
As I took a step deeper, the water rose to just above my hip bones. I unlaced my trousers, pulled them off, and sent them flying onto the bank with a wet slap. Then I leaned backward and pushed with my toes, sending myself floating to the far side of the pool, feeling his eyes on my body. Feeling his desire, the sensation making my sex throb almost painfully with the need to be touched. To be filled. Resting my elbows on a ledge at the far end of the pool, I said, “Coming in?”
Bjorn didn’t answer, and backlit as he was by the burning flame of his axe, I couldn’t see his face. But my answer came as he pulled off his mail, tossing it aside, shirt and boots following. He was all hard lines and thick muscle, shoulders broad and waist tapered, and I held my breath as he slowly unbuckled his belt, anticipation making me clench my thighs together.
He caught his thumbs in the waist of his soaked trousers, dragging them down. My breath caught—
And his axe extinguished, plunging the cave into darkness.
“You arsehole,” I snarled, hearing both Bjorn’s dark laugh and the splash of water as he entered the pool, ripples moving ahead of him to brush my breasts. “I’m starting to question whether you have something to hide. Or rather, a lack of something.”
“We both know that isn’t the case, Born-in-Fire.” His chuckle was closer this time. “Besides, they say anticipation makes all pleasures sweeter.”
“The gods spare me from the ego that comes with a big—” I gasped as his hands caught my waist, pulling me close, the part in question pressing against my stomach.
His teeth caught at my earlobe. “You were saying…”
As though I could remember words as his tongue trailed up the rim of my ear, his cock rubbing against my sex as the current pushed against us. I tilted my head, whimpering as he licked my throat and bit just above my pulse, his fingertips trailing down the inside of my arm with featherlight touches that made me see sparks in the darkness.
But I wanted to see more.
Capturing Bjorn’s lips, I kissed him hard, then bit at his bottom lip until he groaned before pulling back to whisper, “Hlin.”
Magic flowed into me, and I pushed it out of the fingers of my left hand. The silver light illuminated Bjorn’s skin as I traced a finger down the hard muscles of his shoulders, resting my cheek against his collarbone as my eyes followed the light. Drinking in the swell of his biceps, the carved shadows between the muscles of his forearm, and the broad expanse of his palm as he flattened his hand against mine before interlocking our fingers.
I smiled, extinguishing the magic, only to relight it on my other hand. Brushing my lips over his and curving my palm over the roughness of his cheek. Wrapping a stray lock of his black hair around my glowing fingers, painting him in silver light. He didn’t like to cede control, I knew that. Yet I could also see the rapid throb of his pulse in his neck, hear the low groan that tore from his lips as I trailed my fingers down his throat to his chest, feel his cock growing harder still where it rubbed between my thighs.
“Why wouldn’t you ever let me touch you?” I murmured, leaning back to trace my glowing fingertip over the intricate tattoo of runes on his chest. “Didn’t you want me to?”
He made a strangled noise. “Gods, woman. It was for the exact opposite reason to that.” His fingers tightened, digging into the curve of my arse. “Touching you had me on the verge of breaking. Having your hands on me would have snapped my control entirely. And…” He drew in a breath. “I didn’t want to take from you, not knowing if I could return it in equal measure.”