Both of them froze, enjoying the sensation of their bodies becoming one, but it was not long before need overcame them. They moved in unison as only a couple familiar with one another can. It may have been ten years since they last made love, but their erotic dance picked up where they left off. Gressa squeezed her legs each time Strian thrust into her, tilting her hips to meet him.
“I won’t break,” she whispered as he lips scorched the skin along her neck.
“I don’t want this to end,” he admitted. He waited for her to come to her senses, but instead, she lifted his chin to kiss him. Love, desire, need, and acceptance flowed between them in that single kiss.
Gressa could not get close enough as she clung to Strian. Each surge of his sword into her sheath made her body quiver. Her mind had blocked out just how good making love to Strian felt. It had been one of the many compromises she made with herself to survive their separation, but now her body taunted her as it remembered how satisfying it was to join with Strian. She moved in ways she knew he enjoyed, and her soft mewls of pleasure drove him to pound his length into her over and over until she cried out his name.
“Strian! Oh, gods!”
Strian returned his lips to the sensitive skin behind her ear as his seed filled her.
“Gressa,” reverence filled his whisper, but she did not hear it over the pounding in her head.
“You didn’t pull out,” she choked.
Strian leaned back far enough to look in her eyes.
“Of course not. I never pulled out of you.”
“That was when I was your wife.”
Strian felt his mind freeze at the same time his heart broke. It was a long moment before he could find words.
“You are my wife. Still. I didn’t pull out because I have never stopped thinking of you like that. It didn’t even cross my mind that I might need to.”
“And now what? What if you’ve gotten me with child?”
“Then we will finally have the family we already planned for.”
Strian watched as a look of sheer agony flashed in Gressa’s eyes before she let go and tried to push him away.
They both groaned as Strian’s cock slipped free, and Strian’s glare told Gressa he knew what that sound meant. She missed their connection just as much as he did. She pushed past him to the tub that was now overflowing. She rushed to turn off the water and hopped in before Strian could say anything. She sat with her back turned to him as she scrubbed her body with soap that sat on a nearby tray.
Strian was in shock. There was no other way to describe it. It shocked him He was shocked that they had made love. He was shocked at how it felt like no time had passed since they were last together, that making love to Gressa was still the most earth-shattering experience he had ever had. He was shocked at her reaction, and he was shocked at how deeply it reopened the wound that never fully healed when his friends and jarl forced him to leave without her.
He stood mute as she washed her hair, sliding back under the water to rinse the suds from it. She did not look at him as she stepped from the tub and grabbed a drying cloth before walking to the door that led to the cold-water pool. Her head tilted, as though she might look at him, but she pushed the door open.
As she passed into the part of the bathhouse where she would take a plunge into an icy bath, someone knocked at the door. Strian broke free of his stupor and pulled his pants back into place before opening the door a crack. Freund stood there will a stack of clean clothes.
“Frú Lena gave these to me.”
Strian looked at the neatly folded gown along with a chemise, hose, and slippers, but he saw nothing.
“Thank you,” he murmured before closing the door.
He turned around in time to see Gressa step back into the steam room. She had a drying cloth wrapped around her and was eyeing the stack of clothing he held. They were at an impasse.
Gressa took a few tentative steps forward before Strian moved towards her. He handed her the clothes, but he could not let go before he tried to set things right.
“Gressa, I can’t force you to remain my wife. You have every right to leave this marriage if you want, and I wouldn’t want you to feel trapped with me. But know that I will never turn you away. There will never be another.”
Strian spun around and left the bath house before he humiliated himself further by bursting into tears. Gressa watched him go. She even ran to the door before she remembered she did not have any clothes on. She did not want him to go, but she was not sure if she could stay.
Seven
Gressa watched Tyra and Bjorn’s wedding, but it was not her childhood friends she saw standing before the altar. She saw herself with Strian. They had been so young when they married, but she had been so certain that they would have a long and happy life together. Instead, they had only married a few months before war separated them, and the enemy took her as a thrall. As the ceremony continued, Gressa’s mind wandered back to when she first arrived in Wales.
“You would do well to make a good first impression,” her still nameless captor told her. Gressa looked around as she took in the settlement, she supposed was her new home. She watched as a well-dressed couple approached, and people moved out of their way as they passed.
