Chapter Nine
RAGNAR HAD NOT anticipated this.
He felt like his skull was about to implode.
He had not spoken to so many people in all of his life, let alone in the compressed space of a few hours.
And yet there was more. Touching her for hours had left him on edge.
For a man who had spent so much of his life in relative silence.
Isolated. In the woods, it was an overload to his senses.
And what she was offering was a chance to take that energy at the center of his guts, and pour it all out.
He had been so en garde about her manipulating him. But she was a goddess. He had that realization when he had seen her tonight.
He did not often think of Freya. He had let go of the idea of deities so long ago.
And yet he could remember a story. Whispered to him before he fell asleep at night.
He couldn’t remember who had told him. His mother, a nanny? But when Fern had come in wearing that gold gown, he had thought of Freya.
That soft voice inside of him whispering about the promise of Freya’s afterlife.
It is one thing to die in battle. It is another to die for those you love.
And any soldier who goes to battle with love in his heart is dying for that love.
Freya weeps for her husband. Because she separated from him.
She understands the pain of love being lost. And that is why her field is reserved for those who wish to meet again with their heart’s desire after death.
Such a strange thing. The memory had been so strong. It was still.
And it made him want to draw closer to Fern.
It certainly made him feel as if he didn’t want to resist.
No. He had no desire to resist.
He also couldn’t wait. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed her body up to his.
It was familiar now. And yet gloriously undiscovered.
He lowered his head and kissed her. The taste of her mouth better than the cake. And he had decided he very much liked cake.
He kissed her. Deep and hard, and with a ferocity he had never before given to a lover. Because he had never felt such an intense, specific need before. It had to be her. It had to be.
He held her face as he kissed her. As he tasted her, his tongue sliding against hers.
And then when they parted, she looked up at him, those green eyes clear. “Yes. Take me to bed.”
“I have questions for you first,” he said, a strange sensation gripping his stomach. Concern. For her. He no longer felt that he was in danger of being manipulated by her. Because this was not manipulation. It was far too honest. But he required things to also be clear.
“Yes?” She looked uncertain.
“Why is it that you’ve decided you want me?”
“I don’t know that I decided that I wanted you. I simply do.”
“You know that I’m not staking a claim on your body by keeping you here as my wife. You are not obligated to give yourself to me.”
“I know that.”
“You have told me that no one in your life has ever cared for your choices. You told me that you felt like all these men made a claim on your sexuality, me included. I didn’t even think of it that way. I…”
She touched his face. “I believe you. I know that you were practically raised by wolves. And I know that…I wasn’t a person to you.
I was an ideal. A goal. And I would be more offended by that except I also understand that you even see yourself as a person.
As a man. You see yourself as a symbol of revolution. As a king, but not as a man.”
“True,” he said, the words rising rough in his throat. “All true.”
“But I see you as a man. And I want for you to feel like a man tonight. I want you to let go of everything. Of your idea of duty, and honor. Take what you want. And I’ll take what I want.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There is nothing to understand. I spent the last three years in a convent, and even I know that.”
“Sex isn’t confusing. Need isn’t confusing. It’s simply an appetite.”
“This isn’t an appetite. There’s something between us.
Even when you were furious at me in the library, you wanted me.
Even when I was running from you, when you brought me up on the back of that horse, I felt…
your heat. Part of me wanted to lean into your strength, rather than run away from it—I can’t explain it.
But we have this time. This marriage. Why can’t we enjoy it? ”
“You want me,” he said. Because everything else she was saying was difficult to hold onto. In his lust-addled brain it was moving through too quickly.
“Yes, Ragnar. I want you. Not because you kidnapped me, and not because we got married. If I had seen you across a crowded ballroom, if you had always been the king of this country, if you had been in the life you should’ve had, and I had been in mine, I would’ve wanted you.”
She wanted him. She was choosing him. Of all the limited choices that Fern had been able to make in her life, he now counted as one of them. There had been spare few pleasures in his life that he could remember. Only small moments of joy.
But this stood out as one of the greatest. One of the most profound. It was nothing like the potential for satisfying an appetite. It was something deeper. Something that reached through the garden walls around his heart and touched him.
Touched his soul.
He hadn’t even thought it was possible. He wasn’t even sure that he retained a soul. In much the same way he had lost his faith in anything divine.
But then, he kissed her. And it was like looking into the heavens. An experience beyond anything he had ever had before. She was a virgin.
And yet he might as well have been.
He had always looked at sex as something divorced of any emotional connection. He had honed his skills, because he did not believe in using a person for pleasure without giving it in return. But it was only his body involved. While now everything felt locked in. Everything felt engaged.
And then every pass of her lips over his, of his tongue against hers, felt like something new.
He lifted her up, sweeping her into his arms, the way that he had done on the Isle of Skye when he had plucked her off the ground.
Only this time, he did not put her on the back of his horse.
This time, he held her against his chest as he carried her down the long corridor, and to the spiral staircase that led to his chambers.
The room was sparse, and he still was not in the habit of sleeping on the bed. When he opened the door, his bedroll was still on the floor beside the large canopy bed, and his eyes went to it, even though he wished she wouldn’t notice.
“What is that?”
“I’m not accustomed to sleeping in a bed. I spent most of my life sleeping on the floor. And then on the ground outside.”
“Oh but that’s…”
“It’s all right. I have been saving this bed. I needed a reason to use it. And you have given me that.”
She smiled, and it was like something had been lit up inside of him. “That was almost funny.”
“I feel almost amused.”
With her lips still curved into a smile she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
He growled, laying her down in the center of the bed.
The mattress was soft. And so was she. He looked down at her, at all that glorious gold over her beautiful body.
He touched her face, and for a moment, he could only stare in reverence at all of her beauty.
She truly was glorious.
Not a conquest. Even better than that, she was giving herself to him. Joyfully.
She had chosen him.
That reality echoed inside of him, stronger than any heartbeat. Stronger than anything.
If this was joy, then he could understand why people threw away their duty, their honor, their everything to pursue it.
He himself was unfamiliar with the feeling. He had felt something like it when they had finally managed to reclaim the country, but even then it had not been pure joy. Because on the other side of the victory lay a long road ahead.
While this was all about the moment. Not a race to the finish line, not the beginning of the next step. He intended to take his time with her. To devour her. To luxuriate in this.
“What do you know about sex?” he asked.
“I have not spent these past years in the woods like you. I think I know quite a bit about it.”
“Yes? You think?”
“I’m not ignorant.”
“You were in a convent.”
“Not because of any great pious thoughts on my part. I was in a convent because I was being hidden away. But I wasn’t reading the catechism.”
“Were you reading manuals about sex?”
“No. In fact, I deliberately didn’t think about it. It’s why it took me some time to realize that I was attracted to you.”
“Is that so?”
“Well. That and you being my kidnapper.”
He chuckled. “I can see how that might be a barrier.”
“I told you. I felt like I had been given away. It made it so that my fantasies weren’t even mine. Because if I thought too much about sex, if I thought too much about any of that, then I would have to think about it with…him.”
“And of course you didn’t want that.”
“No. Of course I didn’t. So yes, I know about it. I know plenty, but I wouldn’t say that I’m…”
“I’ll teach you.”
He lowered his head and kissed her neck and she arched beneath him, grasping his shoulders.
He growled, and she gasped. He raised his head and looked at her. “Did I frighten you?”
She shook her head. “No. I… I like it.”
“I am not a civilized man. Perhaps if you had chosen differently, you would not get a man who growls.”
“If he doesn’t growl then I don’t want him.”
Then she kissed him, and he kissed her back, luxuriating in the feel of her soft mouth on his.
Then, the warrior in her came out. He could feel her nerves leaving her body, could feel all the resolute determination within her as she kissed him, his face, his neck.
As if she was the one mounting a seduction.
“Let me,” he said.
Even though he knew that she wouldn’t. Because she had to fight him; it was what made her feel alive. He knew that much.
One warrior recognized another.