It was a point of quiet pride that she’d kept at it anyway. Eventually, that pride had morphed into a solid wall of resistance. Her father could not take her art from her, no matter how he tried. In fact, she discovered that she could leverage his belief that hecouldtake it away to her benefit. The act of creation fed her dying soul but her small exertion of power had kept the fire of defiance burning in her belly.
Still, she trembled with nerves as she leaned to one side, allowing Otto to peer over her shoulder as he got comfortable behind her. His fingers ghosted over several drawings before he reached for a rolled canvas. Carefully pulling at the twine that held it in place, he revealed an oil painting of a row of townhouses engulfed by writhing blue flame.
Otto breathed something in Danish before he set it aside and reached for another roll. So it went as he inspected still life paintings of half-eaten plums and crystal decanters, loose renderings of the world outside her window in ink and watercolor, and charcoal studies in their dozens.
He’d begun to make a considerable pile by his right knee. All manner of pieces were cobbled together there, even some of her roughest, most quickly sketched studies. Was he making a rubbish pile? Was it intentional at all?
Josephine sat stiffly, barely breathing, as he muttered to himself in a raspy voice. Were those compliments? Criticisms? It was impossible to tell. He’d promised to teach her Danish, but so far she only knewlille mus, kone,and a few curse words she stalwartly refused to use.None helped her in this situation.
Finally, when she worried that she might combust at any moment, Otto’s fingers settled on the drawings she’d done of him.
“Oh!” Josephine felt her face go nearly violet with embarrassment. Her hands darted out to snatch them from his loose grasp. “Those are just—”
“Is thisme?”
She wished that the old wooden floor of the cabin might open up and swallow her whole. “I… can’t you tell?”
Her proud artist heart withered.Gods, did I render his likeness so poorly?
“Itisme. Those are my scars!” he exclaimed, as if he hadn’t heard her. Drawing the pages closer, he flipped through them several times, faster and faster, as if he couldn’t decide which one he wanted to look at first. “When did you do these?”
“After the first day we touched,” she shyly admitted. “The next day, when you asked me if I’d slept poorly— that was partly why. I stayed up until my lamp ran out of oil just… drawing you.”
A hard exhalation puffed against the back of her neck. “You make me more handsome than I am, I think.”
ChapterThirty-Five
At last braveenough to gauge his expression, Josephine turned her upper body as much as she could. Otto looked stricken, his mismatched eyes gleaming in the warm orange glow of the stove. His golden brows were pinched together and his lips parted as he sucked in quick breaths.
Overcome by the emotion shining in his eyes, Josephine reached up to caress the long, curved scar that bisected one brow and the top of his cheek. “I was frustrated after I drew them because they fell so short of how magnificent you are. Those drawings don’t capture even a sliver of my admiration for you.” She passed her fingertips over his soft lips. “I suspect I will have to draw you a thousand times before I even come close.”
The drawings drifted from Otto’s fingers. Grasping her hips, he turned her so she knelt between his thighs. “I am humbled by you,” he grated, cupping her cheeks with rough, trembling hands. “To have such talent, such kindness, such strength in this delicate frame—” He stopped abruptly, his voice cracking, before he began again. “To know that you trust me even when nothing in the world has taught you to do so— I am overcome by you, my Josephine. Every day. I fear that I will never be what you deserve, but I cannot release you. I will not.”
Josephine’s breath shortened. Tears were a hot pressure behind her eyes as her fingers stole under his wool coat and thin cotton shirt to find the raised, puckered scars of her bite.
“Were you able to, I would not allow it.” She leaned forward to deliver a swift, punishing bite to his lower lip. A reverent kiss followed. Speaking against his mouth, she told him, “I have claimed you. You aremine,Otto Beornson.”
A deep, tearing growl erupted from his chest.
In an instant, one strong arm was banded around her middle and his lips crushed to hers. Her world tipped as he laid her back, one hand sweeping paper and canvas aside, to spread her before the glowing warmth of the stove.
“You aremine,”he rumbled, kissing and licking and biting between each word. “My mate in our den. Everything I need.”
“Yes.”Josephine clutched him to her with fingers turned to claws. The beast in her breast crowed with need when she begged, “Bite me now, Otto.Bite me.”
He swore. Tearing himself out of her hold, Otto sat back on his haunches and began to yank at his clothing. The sounds of seams tearing made the rational part of her wince, knowing that she’d need to see to those later, but the rest of her cheered his haste.
The sight of him shucking his clothing would never get old.
He’d lost a bit of weight during his feverish days, but after weeks of steady meals and relative rest, his health had rebounded. Her mate was thick with muscle, his skin golden and luminous with health. Every morning, he allowed her to plait his thick blond hair for him. She loved grooming him, as he liked to say, but more than that, she found the sight of him removing the thin leather cord to allow the braid to unravel around his wide shoulders intensely arousing.
Watching him do so now, as he was gilded with firelight, made her claws curl into the rug beneath her.
Otto watched her squirm with a ravenous look in his eyes. They flickered back and forth from mismatched to golden. His chest, scarred and sprinkled with pale hair, rose and fell rapidly.
“If you want to keep your dress and stays,kone,I suggest you remove them.”
The beast didn’t give one whit whether he tore her pretty gingham dress or not. Josephine, on the other hand, was rather attached to it, seeing as it was a gift from her mate.
