Chapter Eight
Darhg
I’ve been away all day and it was pure torture. Being back is even worse.
I wish I was strong enough to stay away. There is no reason for me to keep Rona here, no rationale imperative for her continued presence in my lair.
She could rent a room at the Saltwater Lodge and I could keep her safe there just as well. She’s only hiding from the press. It’s not like she’s in any physical danger.
But here she is, in my lair, surrounded by my scent. And if I was a stronger man, I would tell her to pack her bags and take her away. Instead, I’m bringing her more food. More gifts.
This means nothing, I lie to myself. This is just business. Just my job.
More lies. We’re way past that, Rona and me. At least, I’m way past that. I never felt this way about a woman before. Never felt this level of possessiveness, of protectiveness.
And I hate myself for it. Because it’s wrong and it’s dangerous.
I kill the headlights but stay inside the car, listening to the engine ticking heat into the frozen air.
Through the front windshield, I watch Rona cross past the kitchen window, her silhouette backlit by warm lamplight.
The sight of her, so comfortable and peaceful inside my space, settles the restless feeling in my chest.
Don't go in. Wait until you can breathe normally again.
I try. I fail.
The hunger that lives under my ribs wakes the instant she turns toward the glass and looks straight at my SUV.
I know she cannot see me through the tinted glass, but it feels like she can see me sitting here in the dark, watching her like some kind of monstrous stalker.
Which I am, apparently. I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles go white, telling myself I've succeeded in staying away all day.
Chopping wood. Hauling supplies. Fixing stuff inside the cabin. I didn’t even dare sit across from her while she ate. Didn’t dare watch her enjoy what I cooked. Didn’t dare think about all the ways I want to feed her.
I can't stay in this fucking car all night. I have to go in.
I grab the two paper sacks full of groceries from the passenger seat. After a second of hesitation, I reach for the glass jar I purchased at Elga’s shop. The rose petal bath salts. The ones Rona held like treasure before setting them down with that wistful expression.
I'm an idiot. But I'm an idiot with excellent hearing, and I heard exactly what she said. I love this.
I shoulder the door against the bitter cold and trudge up the shoveled path, groceries in my hands, the jar clutched stupidly tight in my grip like it might escape. Snow crunches under my boots, and my breath forms white clouds that dissipate immediately in the dry air.
I step inside and stop dead.
The cabin is warm, lamplight low and golden, the fireplace murmuring contentedly. But it's the smell that hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest. Roasted meat, garlic, and rosemary, rich and complex and absolutely fucking perfect.
Did Rona cook? Did she cook for me?
The meaning lands hard enough to buckle my knees. She cooked in my lair. For me.
I swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat. She probably doesn't understand what this means to an ogre. How cooking in a male's lair, using food he gathered, translates in the most primitive part of my brain.
She's claimed me. Whether she knows it or not.
Rona stands at the kitchen table, cheeks pink from the heat of the stove, wearing a cozy pink sweater that softens all her lines and jeans that hug her legs like a second skin.
Her hair falls over one shoulder in a loose French braid, the thick rope of it resting heavy against the swell of her breast. When she sees me, her face lights up with pride and something that might be shyness.
"I cooked," she says, like she's offering me the world. "For you."
I set the grocery sacks on the counter, my eyes glued to her despite every warning bell going off in my head.
Don't look like a starving beast, I think. Don't let her see how much this affects you.
I fail spectacularly. The world tilts on its axis, everything in me recalibrating around her smile like the entire universe is feeling the gravitational pull of this moment.
I clear my throat, suddenly remembering the jar in my death grip, and hold it out across the space between us.
"For you."
She takes it, puzzled at first, then brings it to her nose and breathes in. The gasp that escapes her is soft and delighted. When she looks up at me again, I know I can never be the same man I was just a few days earlier.
"Darhg." She looks at me with those pale-blue eyes gone soft. "Thank you."
No joking. No teasing. Just warmth, spreading through the space between us like honey.
I nod, suddenly clumsy with my own hands, and turn to the mundane task of unpacking groceries. Milk in the fridge, coffee on the shelf, apples in the bowl—anything to keep busy while she moves around the kitchen, plating the food.
I can't not notice what she's doing. How she chooses the best seared edges of meat for my plate, adds extra roasted carrots, tucks in the crispiest potatoes. How she slides the plate my way with a satisfied smile.
Don't read into it, I warn myself. Don't pretend this is some kind of vow.
I fail at that too. The thought echoes through my head with crystalline clarity. She fed me.
We sit across from each other at the small table, the lamp between us casting everything in warm gold.
Outside, snow hisses against the windows and the wind howls through the pines, but inside it's just us.
Fork against plate. The soft sound of her breathing.
The scrape of my chair when I shift to accommodate legs too long for the space.
We eat in silence, like both of us are afraid to disturb whatever truce this is.
The food is incredible. Tender beef with herbs that taste like summer, vegetables roasted to caramelized perfection, flavors that explode across my tongue and make me want to groan with pleasure. She's not just a good cook, she's gifted. Every bite is a revelation.
Midway through the meal, she looks up from her plate. I watch her as she puts her fork down and tilts her head. Then she shatters my world once again. She’s making a habit of it, apparently.
"Feed me, Darhg."
I blink. Water goes down wrong in my throat and I cough, choking on it like an amateur. She doesn't look away. Doesn't laugh at my obvious distress. Instead, she leans forward slightly, lips parting, mouth opening in clear invitation, a spark of that familiar mischief dancing in her eyes.
Heat slams into me like a freight train.
My cock throbs hard against my jeans, my erection brutal and immediate, the kind of arousal that makes thinking impossible.
Does she know what she's asking? Does she understand that feeding between ogres is intimate, territorial, a claiming as old as our species?
I don't move. Every alarm in my head is shouting. You’ve gone too far. If you cross that line, you can't come back from this. Still, I can't look away from her mouth. Lust coils in my guts, spreading from that place right below my navel through my entire body.
I want to do it. I want to place a perfect morsel of food between her parted lips and feed her. I want to grab her and kiss her like there’s no tomorrow. And I definitely want to bury my cock inside her and lay my claim on her.
But I can’t. It’s wrong. She’s too young, too fragile. Too human.
Rona finally closes her lips with a soft tutting sound and looks down at her plate, but there's nothing defeated about the gesture. She spears a perfect bite of meat with deliberate slowness, her eyes lifting to hold mine.
"If you won't feed me," she says, gentle and wicked, "I'll feed you."
She brings the fork across the space between us, and in my mind, I see myself perfectly from her perspective. An ogre with eyes blazing red and ravenous, looking at a woman like she's the whole feast. I know I should refuse.
I open my mouth anyway.
The bite lands on my tongue and flavor explodes across my palate, but it's nothing compared to the wild, feral satisfaction that roars through me at being fed by her hands. The most primitive part of my brain screams its approval.
Mine. She fed me. She's mine.
Like I'm watching myself through a looking glass, I reach for my own fork and select the best piece of roasted meat I can find, bringing it across to her waiting mouth. She's already prepared, lips parted, gaze holding mine without flinching as she accepts what I offer.
Fuck. She claimed me. I claimed her. But even as the thoughts form in the back of my mind, I ignore them. I’m way too horny now to listen to reason.
She chews slowly, humming in satisfaction, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
I don’t need a mirror to know my eyes are glowing more fiercely than they ever did before, throwing off a vivid red glow across the table. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.
She looks at me like she’s trying to decide her next move.
Slowly, Rona sets her fork down and wipes her thumb across the corner of her own mouth. I follow the movement, memories rushing through my head of how those soft lips felt under mine.
“I have a question for you,” she says softly, her eyes large and mesmerizing in the low light, her pupils dilated.
“What question?”
I try to think, but my mind refuses to formulate a single thought as I watch her stand up.
She comes around the table with slow, deliberate movements.
She stops beside me, close enough that I can smell the powerful aroma of her arousal on her body.
An arousal that lays waste to what little remains of my sanity.
“Darhg,” she says, setting her palm on the table next to mine. “Do you want to kiss me?”
I keep my hands flat where she can see them. I make the choice to stay still. My heart beats so hard against my rib cage that it hurts, and my blood rushes through my ears, drowning out the sound of the alarm bells going through my head.
Do I want to kiss her? No, I don’t. I want to claim her. I want to feast on her body like a starving man. I want to feel her come all over my cock and scream my name.
That’s not what I say, though.
“I do, but I don’t think we should.”
“Good.” Her mouth tilts in that sexy, wicked grin I’m beginning to realize has been my downfall since the first day. “The best things in life are usually bad ideas.”
She leans in, one warm hand bracing lightly at my jaw. Her big blue eyes never deviate as she holds my gaze while she gets close enough that her breath fans my face. I feel the world narrow down to just her and me, like we’re the center of the entire universe.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” she whispers.
I wish I had something clever to say. I wish I could move, but I can’t. I’m paralyzed like a deer in headlights.
“Okay,” is the only word I can push out.
Then Rona’s lips touch mine, and the world as I know it ceases to exist.