Hmm.
It must be said, I kind of liked the beard.
As I took him in, I realized I kept forgetting how big he was. By then, I was used to that kitchen. It wasn’t mammoth but it wasn’t small either.
With him in it, it seemed tiny.
His eyes were on me standing at the butcher block whisking pancake batter. I watched them go down the length of me he could see then they went up.
I swallowed.
Then I said, “Hi.”
My word activated him, he moved in, swung his arm around that I hadn’t noticed was carrying a large stick over his shoulder and he plonked the dead carcass of a small (what looked like a baby) deer on the kitchen table.
I blinked.
Then I gagged.
Then I controlled my urge to hurl, pulled in breath and looked from the dead deer to him.
“Uh… I have a rule. No dead game on the kitchen table.”
His green-brown eyes held mine. He didn’t speak. He also didn’t move.
Okay, ignore big dead animal carcass and move on, Finnie, I told myself.
I searched for a good strategy. Then I hoped I found it.
“I… well, um… I just wanted to say, uh… before I forget, thanks for stoking the fire upstairs and keeping me warm while I slept in,” I said, thinking that was nice, noticing and commenting on something he did that was nice.
He crossed his arms on his chest and studied me.
All righty then.
“You, um, came home last night after having a few,” I noted, got no response, I waited just in case his brain didn’t work as fast as mine, still got no response so I continued. “You look okay. I hope you aren’t hungover.”
Nothing.
Okay. Right.
“Would you like pancakes? I’m making a late breakfast of pancakes and bacon.” More nothing. “Uh… if you want to eat, you’ll have to remove the dead animal.”
Finally, a semi-response. He picked up the deer, opened the backdoor and flung it on the back porch where it landed with a sickening thud.
I winced.
Eek!
He closed the door.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
He walked toward me, I braced then he walked by me, grabbed the handle of the kettle then prowled out of the room.
I relaxed.
Then I set about wiping down the table (doing this mostly with my eyes closed then, still with my eyes closed and finding it with arms in front of me walking like a mummy, I threw the cloth out the backdoor) after which I put the slices of bacon I’d already cut into the warming skillet.
He came back while I was fiddling with the pancakes in one skillet and moving the bacon around in another one. He stalked right up to me, slammed the kettle down on the stove, grabbed the percolator, poured himself a hot mug o’ joe and then stalked to the table where he sat down, one knee bent, one leg sprawled, king of his rustic-chic cabin, eyes on me.
Dear Lord.
In silence and with a one man audience, I finished the food, served it up, slapped slabs of butter on the warm pancakes and it started melting. Then I turned toward the table. I put a plate in front of him, one in front of my seat then I went to the cupboards to get honey and silverware. I gave him his, set mine at my place and put the honey on the table. Then I moved across the kitchen to warm up my coffee and I sat down, poured honey all over my pancakes, put it on the table and pushed it in his direction.
Then I tucked in.
I saw him reach for the honey then I heard the jug hit the table then I heard him start to eat.
I looked at him. Then I tried again.
“Frey, I think we need to talk.”
His brown-green eyes came to me. Then his eyebrows rose. Then he shoved a gigantic bite of pancake in his mouth.
I took the eyebrow raise as a, “Yes, Seoafin? What would you like to discuss?”
“I’m not a lesbian,” I blurted for some completely unhinged reason and those raised brows shot together in a scary way.
He chewed, swallowed and growled his first word to me of the day, “What?”
“I’m not a lesbian.”
Words two and three came in quick succession. “A what?”
Oh. Maybe they didn’t have the term lesbian here.
“I… uh,” Damn you, Sjofn! “I don’t prefer um… my own sex.”
He froze. Completely. His face. His body. His hand with pancake on fork suspended in mid-air. All of him. Frozen. Even the air around him seemed to glitter with frost.
Okay, maybe I should have left that for later, say, after I learned his birth date, favorite color and preferred way to down a deer.
I hurried on. “See, I was, well, I don’t remember it actually and when you told me about it the other… well… after we got married, I was surprised. I mean, I didn’t even remember I said that to you. That’s kind of uh… a crazy thing to say and a crazier thing to, um… share. I’ve tried to figure out why on earth I would say something like that and I think maybe I was drunk and nervous. I mean, uh…” I faltered. Shit. Think Finnie! “You’re a big guy and all and I’m… well, I’m not that big and you kind of, um, flip me out…” His eyes narrowed at a term he clearly didn’t understand. “I mean, scare me a bit. Actually, uh… you’re doing it, well… right now.”
He dropped his fork on his plate, sat back, crossed his arms on his chest and scowled at me in that way it made me think he wanted to break me in two.
I kept blathering. “And… well, now. Actually more now. The scaring me part. Since I’m, you know, sharing.”
He didn’t speak.
Shit! I wished he would talk and not when he said stuff that freaked me out or pissed me off but when I wanted him to.
I kept on going. “I thought, with you home and us being, well, you know, wedded in holy matrimony…” I faltered again because his eyes narrowed telling me they didn’t have that and he had no clue to what I was referring so I covered, “of the… um, gods,” Eek! “that maybe we should start to get to know one another and I thought we should start off on the right foot, with everything out in the open. Being honest.”
“Being honest,” he finally spoke and he did it on a low rumble.
I nodded. “Yes, being honest.”
“So this is you honest, now, and that wasn’t you honest, back then?” he asked a good question.
“I can be a little… crazy when I have a bit too much to drink.”
“Yes, the wench at the inn said you come in often, drink much ale and get quite loud,” he remarked, not looking happy about this but I was sure glad Lindy corroborated my story.
“Uh… yes,” I agreed. “That sounds like me.” And, actually, that was no lie.
He scowled at me.
I pulled in breath and said quietly, “Frey, this really sucks to admit but just the way you’re looking at me now scares me.”
“The Winter Princess Sjofn of the House of Wilde does not easily get scared,” he replied quietly right back but his quietly was distrustful, disbelieving and a bit frightening.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. You’re right. I can usually handle myself but I’m alone in a cabin in the woods with no one even close with a really huge man who could break me in two who doesn’t seem to like me much and you have no problem getting physical and it scares the beejeezus out of me and when it isn’t doing that, it ticks me off.”
“Ticks you off?”
“Upsets me, makes me angry,” I explained.
He went silent again.
“Frey –” I said softly but he cut me off and scarily changed the subject.
“So if you do not prefer women, you wouldn’t mind if I took you to the loft, stripped you naked and did as I pleased with you?”
I felt my face get hot, my breasts swell and my heart start beating faster.
“Actually, I would,” I whispered.
He started scowling again. “Right,” he whispered back.
He totally didn’t believe me.
<
br /> “But only because… well, I’d like for us to get to know one another better. Spend time together. Then maybe advance to the next level.”
His brows snapped together again and he asked, “The next level?”
“Uh… the part where you strip me naked and do as you please,” I whispered. “That’s the next level.”
He scowled.
I waited.
He scowled more.
I didn’t have anything left.
Then he asked in a low, surprised, unhappier than normal unhappy voice, “By the gods, are you asking me to court you?”
That sounded crazy. The very idea of this big, scary guy who was a renowned Raider courting me or anyone sounded absolutely nuts.
And that must have been why I burst out laughing.
He did not laugh, in fact, not one thing was funny to him and he made this obvious so I struggled to control my mirth, won my fight and suggested, “How about this? We make a deal. You don’t order me around, throw me over your shoulder and carry me out of pubs or other locations, toss me into sleighs or on horses, send me careening through the forest on a horse whose reins I don’t have in my hands and maybe we share a few meals together. I’ll cook. Then we’ll see about the next level. Is that a deal?”
“And how many meals would we share, Sjofn?”
Hmm. He was considering this.
I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“Fifteen?” I tried.
“How about two?” he returned.
Two?
Okay, maybe it was bad.
“Twelve,” suggested.
“Two,” he fired back.
“Nine?” I kept trying.
“Two,” he stated firmly.
Ho boy.
“So, in your two, does this one count as one?” I asked, pointing with my fork at my plate.
“Absolutely,” he answered.
Ho boy!
“Do I have to answer now?”
“Yes.”
Shit.
I stared at him and tried not to look like I was breathing as hard as I was breathing.
Okay, this was an adventure, my adventure. I’d paid for it and I knew there were risks. There were always risks. And this was a risk I had to take.
And, seriously, there had to be worse risks than sleeping with a hot guy who could kiss really, freaking well and whose touch could be both light and gentle.
Right?
So I straightened my shoulders and declared, “Okay, two but only if you throw in not cleaning that deer in the house. I don’t want to see it or even hear it when you clean it and I certainly don’t want to clean up after it.”
He scowled at me again and then he noted, “You’re the finest huntress in the realm, Sjofn, and known for cleaning your own game.”
Gross!
Damn, time, again, to cover.
“Well, I had an incident that um… troubled me, uh…. mentally and gave that up. I’m not a vegetarian.” This word got me narrowed scary eyes which meant Lunwynians didn’t do vegetarian so I explained, “I eat meat I just don’t want to think of where it comes from. If you agree no carcass cleaning or carcasses on the whole, ever, in the house except, of course, what I cook when it’s all good and cut up and doesn’t resemble an animal anymore.” God! How lame could I be? Time to sum up. “We have a deal. If not, we have no deal.”
“Deal,” he replied immediately and my heart clenched, my belly dropped and my breasts swelled again.
“One more thing,” I said hurriedly when he picked up his fork to start eating.
His head, partially bent over his plate, tipped back to look at me. “You’ve already tried me, Sjofn,” he warned then he shoved the pancake already on his fork in his mouth.
“Okay,” I nodded, “I get that but… I don’t want you calling me that.”
He did a slow blink. Then he swallowed.
I rushed on. “I… would you...?” I hesitated. “Actually, I’d prefer it if you called me Finnie.”
He sat back a few inches, his hand came down to rest on the table and after he did that, he studied me intensely for a very long time. It took a lot but I sat there and withstood it.
Finally, he asked softly, “Finnie?”
And shit, shit that sounded nice in his deep voice.
“Yeah, Finnie,” I replied softly.
He studied me.
Then he said, “Finnie.”
Yep. Oh yeah. That sounded nice in his deep voice.
I took that as a yes so I smiled at him and whispered, “Thanks.”
He kept studying me. Then he shook his head. Then he forked into his pancakes, cutting off a huge bite and shoving it in his mouth.
Okay, well, that didn’t go great, as in, after dinner I was clearly having sex with someone I barely knew, but it didn’t go badly either.
Shit.
“You’re known for hunting, skinning your own animals and being a very good archer, wife, you are not known for cooking well,” he told his plate, I nearly choked on the pancakes I’d just put in my mouth and I stared at him as his eyes shifted to me. “I’m pleased to learn this about you.”
There it was. A sign, a small one, but one like him keeping me warm that said maybe he was a decent guy and he was going to try.
“I’m glad,” I said softly.
He looked back at his plate and shoved more pancakes in his mouth.
Okay.
Maybe that went better than I suspected.
Phew.
Chapter Seven
Mr. Conversation
While Frey’s attention was on the deer, I grabbed my stuff and nipped to the hot springs for a quick bath.
One could say the hot springs were awesome but one could not say drying off afterward was. However, I’d done it so often, I’d made an art of it so I was out, dried off and clothed in record time. Then I wrapped my clean, wet hair in the bathing cloth and nipped back quickly, luckily without him seeing me.
Since I had one day of essentially semi-kinda-dating my husband before we got down to the nitty gritty husband and wife stuff, once I got back, I lotioned, powdered and perfumed as well as put on some light makeup. I mean, I would never go on a first date without making an effort. And I had at least a couple of weeks of dates (according to my own personal philosophy of how long before I considered sleeping with someone) to squeeze in one day so I made an effort.
As I did this, I planned the dinner I was going to make that night and therefore drew up a grocery list in my head of what I needed to get from the store. I wanted something special so he would notice I was making an effort (and maybe he would make one too). I also wanted something chewy. He made light work of those pancakes, chewing approximately twice before each enormous swallow and I was hoping dinner would last a whole lot longer than that.
I was in the kitchen, all done up but hair still wet (though pulled back in the ribbon again) and I was getting the basket I usually took to town with me to carry my purchases back when Frey walked in.
I turned to the door and again, like that morning, when he saw me, he stopped dead.
Weird how he did that.
“Hey,” I greeted. “I’m going to town to pick up some stuff for dinner. Do you want anything?”
He stared at me a moment and I was hoping he wasn’t back in silence mode when he stated, “I’ll take you.”
Hells bells. I’d actually wanted some time alone to psych myself up for what was going to happen after dinner.
However, time alone wasn’t going to help me know this guy any better, or get used to having him around, so maybe him going was a good thing.
We could chat.
“All righty then,” I replied.
His eyes moved to my hair and he moved toward the living room, muttering, “I’ll saddle Tyr. You get a hat. I don’t want my new wife catching a chill.”
Hmm.
That was thoughtful.
So thoughtful, I smiled as I followed him and called out, “Tyr?
”
He turned at the front door, answered, “My mount,” then left.
Well, there you go. I already knew something more about him. His horse was called Tyr.
That was a start.
I went to my trunks and pulled out a cloak I liked especially. It was a light silvery-gray wool with fur in a matching color on the high collar. It had matching gloves and hat. The hat was knit wool at the top, furry around the edges and I’d noticed it didn’t give me hat head.
I didn’t want hat head. Not that day or, maybe, any day when Frey was around.
So I got ready to face the chill, nabbed my basket and then walked to the stables.
When I got there, Frey had Tyr in the middle of the space, bridle on, saddle on (with a longer, very dark brown blanket style thing that hung over his rump, probably to help ward off the cold, something the horse hadn’t worn on our long ride there). I noticed now that the horse was like everything Frey that was to say his coat so dark brown it was nearly black. He was also huge. He was also glossy. He also had extremely intelligent eyes.
He was lastly beautiful.
I went to the hooks on the wall to get a bridle for one of the grays and had lifted a hand to nab it when Frey called from behind me. “What are you doing?”
I dropped my hand and turned to him then answered, “Preparing a gray to ride.”
“You’ll ride with me.”
I blinked.
Then I asked, “What?”
He stood by his horse for about half a second then he walked to me, reached low, engulfed my hand in his then led me to his horse. Before I became unstuck, he’d mounted and leaned down to hook me around the waist and pull me up in front of him.
Then he immediately clicked his teeth and Tyr walked out of the stable. Once clear of the structure, Frey clicked his teeth again and leaned slightly into me, taking me with him, chest to back, at the same time his arm moving me back into him as it tightened around my belly and Tyr took us from walk to a not fast but definitely not slow canter.
Apparently, Frey Drakkar did not stop and smell the roses.
“Um…” I started then pointed out, “You just broke our deal.”
“How?” he asked, his voice sounding in my ear.
“You just put me on your horse,” I explained as the forest went passed us and I noticed Frey knew a better, what appeared to be more direct route because he was now taking it.