Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE MOUNTAIN APPROVED. PROBABLY.
T he tunnels beneath the mountain were quieter at night.
Not silent. Never silent. The earth itself breathed around them in low distant rumbles and soft geothermal hisses that echoed through the volcanic stone.
Warm lanterns lined portions of the passage, their rune-lit glow casting gold across black rock while Stenrik guided her steadily deeper beneath the mountain.
Elise had expected fear. The tightness in her chest. The panic crawling up her spine.
The feel of the walls pressing inward. And the pressure was there, but muted somehow, as if having Stenrik by her side had shielded her from the worst of the claustrophobia.
She was mostly aware of him as they navigated the tunnels.
The warmth of his hand whenever the footing turned uneven.
The occasional touch on her shoulder to check on her.
The subtle way he adjusted his pace for hers without making it obvious.
“You’re very quiet,” he murmured as they rounded another curve in the tunnel.
“I’m concentrating.”
“That sounds ominous. ”
“I’m deciding whether I should be offended you called this a geological excursion when this is clearly the entrance to a supervillain lair.”
A soft laugh echoed through the tunnel. “I don’t think villains usually install heated floors.”
She blinked downward. “Oh my God, these are heated.”
“Geothermal vents beneath the stone. Natural to the aesthetic.”
“That’s absurdly luxurious.”
“We live inside a volcano, Elise. We may as well commit to the aesthetic.”
The tunnel widened gradually ahead before opening into a massive natural chamber.
Elise stopped walking entirely. “Oh.”
The cave stretched around her in layers of volcanic stone and warm amber light.
A wide fire crackled near the center of the room, throwing golden light across carved shelves lined with books, pottery, bundles of drying herbs, and what appeared to be approximately five hundred years of cooking implements. Museums would kill for his collection.
The space was enormous, but somehow still felt intimate.
Soft woven rugs covered the black stone floor. Thick furs draped across carved benches near the fire. A massive wooden table sat beneath hanging lanterns, scarred with knife marks and years of use.
And everywhere she looked, there was evidence of Stenrik. Hand-carved shelves. Perfectly balanced kitchen knives displayed beside old Icelandic cookbooks. Neatly stacked sketchpads filled with recipe notes. A half-finished wooden carving resting near the hearth.
Warmth lived here. Not just heat. Care.
Her chest tightened unexpectedly.
“This,” she said slowly, “is not helping my ability to leave Iceland. ”
Behind her, Stenrik sucked in a breath.
Elise crossed deeper into the cave slowly, taking everything in while the fire crackled softly nearby. The air smelled faintly of cedar smoke, rosemary, and something warm baking.
Her gaze narrowed.
“Why does it smell like cinnamon?”
Stenrik frowned. “Because someone dropped off a care package.”
“For you? But you’re a chef.”
A pause. Then a heavy sigh. “You’ve met my family. What do you think?”
She turned toward the hearth. A tray of still-warm cinnamon buns sat near the fire beneath a folded towel.
Elise laughed helplessly. “Someone else baked your emotional support pastries.”
He scowled. “I regret telling you people anything.”
“No, you regret having brothers and an overly involved mother.”
“That too.”
The cave felt impossibly cozy with firelight fresh cinnamon rolls cooling near the hearth while the mountain sheltered them.
Elise could suddenly picture winter here with startling clarity.
Snow piling outside the cave entrance. Long dark nights beside the fire.
Stenrik cooking while she edited footage at the massive wooden table.
His family wandering in uninvited, loud and impossible.
Hot springs after service. Shared breakfasts underground.
The image arrived so naturally it stole her breath for a second.
Dangerous. So very dangerous.
She turned slowly toward him.
Stenrik still stood near the entrance, watching her with an expression filled with such longing that it made her chest ache. No one had ever looked at her like that before. Like she was something worth waiting for.
“How close is your family?” she asked softly.
His brow furrowed slightly. “To the cave?”
She nodded.
A strange expression crossed his face briefly before he looked toward the fire. “No one comes here.”
Something in the quiet way he said it twisted painfully inside her chest.
“Ever?”
“I prefer it that way.”
The loneliness beneath the words echoed through the bond immediately.
Elise looked around the beautiful, warm cave again and suddenly saw it differently—not just cozy but solitary. A carefully built life designed for one person and no one else.
“That sounds lonely,” she said quietly.
One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I have the restaurant.”
“You never leave the mountain?” she asked.
“In winter, I travel occasionally for supplies. Imports. Specialty ingredients.” He crossed toward the fire slowly, adjusting one of the logs with practiced ease. “But I prefer it here.”
Prefer.
Yet something faint moved beneath the word. A note of yearning so brief she almost missed it. Like preference had become habit somewhere along the way.
Her heart hurt for him suddenly. For the troll chef who fed hundreds of people every season while going home alone to a cave no one visited. For the man who built warmth for everyone except himself.
Elise moved deeper into the cave toward the large bed carved into a recessed alcove in the stone wall.
Then she sat on the edge and moaned. “Oh, this is unfair. ”
Stenrik looked over his shoulder warily. “What is?”
She pressed a hand into the mattress experimentally. It sank beneath her palm like heaven.
“You lied to me.”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
“You said the restaurant bed was practical.” She looked at him accusingly. “Meanwhile you’ve been hiding this.”
A reluctant smile pulled briefly at his mouth.
The mattress was absurdly comfortable. Thick blankets layered beneath soft woven throws, surrounded by enough pillows to support a small kingdom.
Elise laid back carefully then immediately sank farther into the mattress with a startled noise. “Oh no.”
Stenrik crossed his arms. “What now?”
“I may never leave this bed.”
“That’s probably acceptable for at least several hours.”
The fire popped softly nearby.
Warm light flickered across the cave walls while Stenrik stood beside the hearth watching her with that same restrained expression that was rapidly becoming impossible for her to ignore.
The bond pulsed quietly between them.
Elise looked around the cave one more time. The fire. The books. The warmth. Him.
Then she looked back at Stenrik.
“Can we sleep here tonight?”
S he should have been nervous.
She should have hesitated. Should have done the math—flights, New York, spreadsheets, the network deal, the very reasonable argument that she had known this man for less than a week and was apparently unraveling her entire life inside a volcano over him.
She didn’t hesitate.
She’d spent thirty-one years being reasonable. Being strategic. Keeping herself at a careful one-step remove from anything that could catch her.
The bond doesn’t care about your spreadsheets, some unhelpful part of her brain offered.
She ignored it.
The mattress shifted as he sat beside her, and the warmth of him reached her before he even touched her. His hands settled on her thighs. Large and careful, as if he were conscious of the difference in size and had held himself still rather than overwhelm.
Not possessive.
Reverent.
He looked at her for a long moment, memorizing her, and she held perfectly still under the weight of it and felt, strangely, not assessed but seen. Not vulnerable, but safe.
“You’re certain?” he asked.
She almost laughed.
He would stop. She knew that with absolute certainty.
His shoulders were tense, the restraint wound tight beneath the surface of his skin.
The runes were already warming to a faint silver glow along his forearms. He was asking because he would stop if she said so. Even now. Even wanting her this much.
“Yes,” she said.
He exhaled unsteadily and kissed her. Slow at first, as if learning the shape of her, the taste of her.
Of course he did. The man fermented things for months and wrote four-hundred-word rebuttals with citations. He was not going to rush this.
She slid a leg over his lap and kissed him back. She slid her hands into the front of his shirt and stopped thinking about anything else.
The sound he made against her mouth—low, involuntary, like she’d surprised it out of him—sent a pulse of heat straight through the bond to her stomach and did not dissipate.
She understood why the springs had been dangerous.
It wasn’t the water. It wasn’t the runes.
It was the way his body responded to hers, immediate and unguarded, and the fact that she felt it through the bond like a second heartbeat.
She was going to be in significant trouble.
She was already in significant trouble.
He pulled back just enough to look at her, and his eyes were dark and careful and full of something that made her throat tighten.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he said.
She laughed, a little uneven. “I have some idea. The runes are a useful indicator.”
“The runes,” he said, “have been unhelpful since the moment you walked into my kitchen.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“Emphatically not.”
Then he kissed her again, and this time there was nothing restrained about it.
His mouth was hungry and thorough and she arched into it with abandon. His hand slid along her waist, pulling her flush against him, and the heat of his body through his clothes was scorching. She shifted against his lap.