Chapter 8 #2
His body already knew it. The bond had known from the first moment she walked into his restaurant smelling like citrus and berries. Every instinct he possessed strained toward her now with primal inevitability.
Protect. Claim. Keep .
He gripped the submerged stone ledge harder.
“Elise,” he said carefully, because if he wasn’t careful he was going to drag her across him and kiss her until neither of them remembered how language worked. “You should stop touching the marks.”
Her fingers paused but didn’t fully retreat. “Do they hurt?”
“No.”
“They’re beautiful.”
That did not help.
The silver-gold lines pulsed faintly beneath her fingertips, heat radiating through his skin straight into his bloodstream. He could feel every place she touched with agonizing clarity.
“You’re shaking,” she murmured .
Because you’re touching me.
He swallowed hard. “That is also your fault.”
Her mouth curved slowly.
The water lapped softly between them, steam drifting around the edges of the cavern. The phosphorescent glow painted pale blue-green light across her skin and caught in her damp hair. She looked warm. Soft. Real. Entirely too close.
“You keep warning me away,” she said quietly. “But you never actually move.”
Because there was nowhere in this mountain far enough away from her now.
His gaze dropped to her mouth before he could stop himself. That tiny shift changed the air between them.
Elise inhaled softly. Then she moved.
Not fast. Not dramatic. Just closer through the water until her knees brushed his beneath the surface. Her hand slid from his forearm to the side of his neck, tentative only for a second before her fingers settled into the damp hair there.
“Tell me to stop,” she whispered.
Every survival instinct he possessed failed simultaneously.
He kissed her, tilting his head so his tusks brushed the sides of her face and he had free access to her lush lips.
The sound she made nearly destroyed him.
Warmth exploded through the bond as her mouth opened beneath his, soft and eager and impossibly sweet. He cupped the back of her neck instinctively, pulling her closer while the other hand found her waist beneath the water.
She fit.
That was the horrifying thing.
Like she had always been meant to fit there.
Elise kissed like she tasted food—completely, attentively, savoring every sensation. Slow at first, then deeper when he groaned against her mouth. Her fingers tightened in his hair, and the small, desperate sound she made when his tongue brushed hers nearly snapped the last thread of his restraint.
He pulled back abruptly, breathing hard.
Her eyes fluttered open, dazed and dark.
“Stenrik—”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing to me,” he said roughly.
“Then explain it.”
The honesty of that hit him directly in the chest. The bond surged again, painfully warm. He kissed her instead of answering.
This time there was nothing tentative about it.
She climbed into his lap with a splash of water, her knees on either side of his thighs, and suddenly there was too much of her everywhere.
Her thighs bracketed his hips beneath the water, while her hands stroked his chest, and her breath mingled with his.
He groaned into her mouth as she rocked against him instinctively, her core brushing against his painfully erect cock.
Gods.
His hands slid down her back, spanning her waist easily before settling lower, squeezing the curve of her ass beneath the water. Elise gasped sharply against his lips and rolled her hips again.
The friction nearly made him black out.
“You feel that?” he asked against her mouth, voice ragged.
“Yes.” Her forehead pressed against his. “Oh God, yes.”
The bond pulsed hotter with every movement between them.
He kissed down her throat, unable to stop himself now, breathing her in while she trembled against him. Her fingers dug into his shoulders when he dragged his mouth along the sensitive spot beneath her ear.
“Stenrik—”
His name sounded wrecked in her voice.
He wanted more of it.
One of his hands slid up her side slowly, giving her time to stop him. She didn’t. If anything, she arched into the touch with a soft moan that went straight to his cock.
His palm closed over her breast through the soaked fabric of her swimsuit.
Elise cried out softly and kissed him harder.
He thumbed over the hardened peak beneath the fabric, fascinated by the way her body responded instantly—her breathing ragged now, her hips moving restlessly against his.
“You’re so responsive,” he muttered against her throat.
“You’re enormous and glowing,” she breathed. “I’m doing my best.”
He laughed helplessly against her skin.
Then she kissed him again, and all coherent thought vanished.
The water sloshed around them as she ground against him with increasing desperation. His cock strained painfully against his swim trousers, trapped between their bodies while she rode the friction instinctively.
Every small movement sent pleasure shooting up his spine.
“More,” she whispered against his mouth.
He slid one hand between them beneath the water.
Her entire body jolted when his fingers found her.
“Oh—”
“There?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yes.”
He stroked her slowly, watching her expression unravel in real time. Elise buried her face against his neck with a broken sound while her body trembled in his arms.
The cavern filled with soft splashing water and uneven breathing.
“You’re beautiful like this,” he murmured.
She whimpered.
The praise did something to her. He felt it instantly in the way she clung tighter, the way her body softened and opened beneath his touch.
“Stenrik, please?—”
That pleading sound destroyed the last careful part of him.
He kissed her hard while his hand worked faster beneath the water, and Elise came apart against him with a sharp cry muffled against his shoulder.
The bond exploded with heat.
Pleasure slammed through him in response so intensely that his vision blurred. Her body kept trembling against his while he held her through it, breathing hard into her damp hair.
Then she touched him. Not tentative this time. Her hand slid beneath the water between their bodies and closed around him through the wet fabric.
He swore violently in Icelandic. “Elise?—”
“You’re shaking again,” she whispered breathlessly, clearly delighted by this discovery.
He laughed once, rough and helpless. Then she stroked him, and every thought left his body.
He buried his face against her shoulder with a groan while her hand moved carefully, curiously, learning him through the barrier of soaked fabric. The friction was maddening after everything else—the heat, the bond, her soft body still draped across his lap.
“That’s it,” she whispered shakily, as if she was encouraging him through tasting something delicate. “Tell me what feels good.”
“You,” he said immediately.
She laughed, a throaty, sexy sound. Then he came hard beneath her hand with a broken groan that echoed through the cavern.
For several long moments neither of them moved.
Elise lay against his chest breathing unevenly while the glowing runes slowly dimmed beneath his skin. The geothermal water lapped gently around them.
“This feels medically irresponsible,” she murmured eventually.
He laughed weakly, one hand smoothing up and down her damp back. “Probably.”
“I may need to stay in Iceland for scientific follow-up.”
“That seems reasonable.”
She tilted her head up, smiling sleepily at him.
The archway behind them exploded inward with a crack of displaced air and a smell of ozone and mountain weather, and Gryla arrived.
She was enormous. She was always enormous, but she had made particular effort tonight—full height, silver-streaked hair wild around her shoulders, a fur cloak that had definitely been acquired from something that no longer needed it.
She took in the scene with the satisfied expression of someone collecting payment on a very old debt.
“MY DAUGHTER,” she bellowed.
Elise screamed.
Stenrik nearly launched himself bodily out of the hot spring.
Gryla stood beside the cheese board in full fur-trimmed glory, holding a tray of pastries and looking unbearably pleased with herself.
Behind her, Torfi leaned halfway through the tunnel entrance with the expression of a man witnessing the greatest moment of his immortal life.
“I brought celebratory snúeur,” Gryla announced. “And to welcome my new daughter-in-law to the family.”
“Elise is not—” Stenrik began.
“Oh good, you’re both mostly dressed,” Gryla continued. “That’s much less awkward than Gunnar’s situation.”
“Mother,” Stenrik said, in a tone that had never once worked on her in five hundred years and did not work now.
“I have been WAITING.” Gryla pressed both enormous hands to her chest. “Do you know how long I sat with that wine? That CHEESE? I arranged it beautifully, Stenrik. I lit a candle?—”
“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“I am your mother. I am everywhere.” She turned the full force of her attention to Elise, who met it without flinching, which Stenrik noted with a complicated surge of pride.
“You. You are brave and sensible, and your knife work is excellent. Torfi told me about the knife-work. I have decided I approve of you.”
“Thank you,” Elise said. “That’s very kind.”
“It is not kindness. It is a formal declaration.” Gryla drew herself up. “Welcome to the family.”
Elise stared at all of them in complete, overwhelmed silence.
Then she looked at Stenrik.
“Is your entire family insane?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
Gryla beamed. “She’ll fit in beautifully.”