Then he kissed her mouth, her neck, lowered his head to take one nipple into his mouth and sucked hard.
She arched up off the mattress and then he positioned himself at the entrance of her body, and thrust deep inside of her in one smooth stroke.
“Ragnar,” she cried, her internal muscles pulsing, tightening around him. She did not seem to be in pain. Rather she seemed to be having the aftershocks of another release. He began to move, not allowing that trembling to subside as he staked his claim over and over again.
Her wet heat drove him to the edge. Made him feel more beast than man, but for a better reason than ever before. Not because he was being stripped of every comfort, every bit of humanity, but because he was acting only on instinct. Only on need.
He could feel her getting close. Another orgasm building within her. And his own was about to steal every last bit of his control. He put his hand between them, brushing his thumb over her clit as he continued to thrust inside of her.
A short cry escaped her mouth, and he drove himself into her quickly, chasing his own satisfaction. And when it hit, with all the force of a pack of wolves, gripped him around his throat and left him gasping for air, he cried out her name: “Fern.”
His Fern.
“Mine,” he growled, resting his forehead against hers.
They held each other for a long moment after.
Then he moved away from her, and tucked her against his side. He pushed her hair away from her face. He had never done this before.
Never held a woman in the aftermath of pleasure.
“Why is there sadness in Freya?”
Her voice was soft, in the silence of the room.
“She’s sad because her husband left her. He’s roaming the earth, and she’s waiting for him back home. But he isn’t there.”
“My husband is here,” she said, putting her hand over his.
He felt as if he had been stabbed, clean through the chest.
The sweetness, the softness of her words nearly unmanning him.
“Yes,” he said. “I am. I will never leave this place.”
In truth, in the future, he would be more like Freya. Tasked with guarding a particular place, and unable to follow her as she went on to make her choices. To live her life.
But she could be unburdened of all of this. She could be free.
And he would rejoice for her.
He hadn’t cared at first. Not at all. He hadn’t seen her as a person, just as she had said. She had been an ideal. A symbol. Something that he had thought might be useful.
But not a person.
She had in this short space of time become the person that he knew best. She had become someone who mattered. And he couldn’t remember the last time a person had mattered to him. An idea, yes. People as a group, yes. But not a person. One that he wanted to know. To touch, to kiss, to keep with him.
“I guess I’ll always know where to find you,” she whispered. Then she leaned in and kissed his hand.
“Yes,” he said. “You will.”
Chapter Ten
FERN WOKE INthe early hours of the morning, and it took her some time to remember what had happened the night before. She had slept with Ragnar.
That was when she became aware of her body. Of her surroundings. She ached in interesting places. And she was lying in a bed different than her own. But she was alone.
She frowned, she looked around and then sat up. Then she peered down over the edge of the mattress and saw that he was there. On the floor, on that awful bedroll.
