“Both things are true.”
“Everyone there was so kind. Except you.”
“It was my job to protect you, not to be kind.”
“I thought you hated me.”
He touched her chin with his fingers, turning her gaze to his but unable to read it. One thing he was sure of was that when it came to her, his emotions were entirely jumbled. He had no clear sense of how he felt or whether he saw her as a friend or an enemy. She unsettled him. Standing so close to her, he sensed the turmoil within her, and felt a sudden need to lift all her burdens away from her. Promise to watch over her forever, promise to help her and her son reclaim what was rightfully theirs.
“I don’t hate you.”
She had been about to pull away from him, but instead she stopped and stared up at him. She opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, but he would never know, because he lowered his head and kissed her. Her arms came around him and she kissed him back, opening for him when he ran his tongue along her lips. He put his hands on the back of her waist and pulled her closer to him, revelling in the feel of her tongue in his mouth touching undamaged skin with all its nerves intact. Sensations he hadn’t experienced for years shot through him and he closed his eyes as he deepened the kiss. He stopped, lifted his head and opened his eyes.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. When her arms tightened around him, he was sure she wanted whatever was happening between them as much as he did. Not that he knew what was happening. Or even if anything could happen. But for now, he was going to take whatever she was offering and hope his body functioned better than he thought. He had only Ingrid to thank for the most intimate scars.
He followed her glance towards the fire where Caelin lay sleeping, hidden from them by the table and chairs. Even if the boy awoke, he wouldn’t see them. The more people who knew about this relationship, the more risk there was to both him and Gemma and there was always a risk Caelin would say something unintentionally even if he and Gemma never spoke of it again. Hopefully, however, he would be too focused on the cubs to pay attention to his mother.
Chapter Fourteen
Gemma let Arne pullher tight against him, feeling his strength, and clung to his promise of protection. His kiss made her yearn for pleasures she shouldn’t want from him, but wasn’t going to reject. She didn’t return his kiss out of gratitude, nor out of fear. She sensed that if she pushed him away, he would let her go and likely never touch her again.
Besides, she didn’t want to push him away. Whatever he wanted from her now, she wouldn’t refuse him. She was tired—tired of always having to think, always having to plan and being expected to make the right decisions. And look where those had got her. She smiled, and he pulled back.
“What?”
She shook her head and pressed her mouth to his once more. But he only touched her lips for a moment before he began feathering kisses along her jawline, then moved lower. She lifted her head, and he brushed his lips along her throat before repeating the actions on the other side of her face. He cupped her buttocks and lifted her easily onto the bed.
She hadn’t lain with a man since her husband had died and she worried she wouldn’t be able to please him. She slid her hand between them and felt him respond to her touch, but he took her wrist and moved it away.
“Don’t,” he whispered. For a moment he held onto her, then let go.
His face was blank of expression as he ran his fingers through his hair and linked them together behind his neck. Then he turned away from her and paced back to the table.
“What is it? Did I do something wrong?” Her fragile confidence was starting to shatter at his refusal of her touch.
“No.”
“Then—”
He leaned over the back of a chair. She could see he was still hard, so why did he not let her touch him? She shouldn’t want to. In her past life she would have been horrified at the thought of taking a Norseman to her bed. Somehow, here, now, her life seemed so unreal that she felt she had been given a chance to do whatever she wanted with no repercussions.
There might be repercussions, though. If they lay together, they would need to make sure there was no child. But it was possible for her to do this for him, with little danger of a child tonight. Caelin was asleep. There was no one here to know.
“Arne?”
He turned his head to face her, but she noted the way his knuckles tightened around the chair.
“Please come here. I would like to—”
“No woman wants to—” He kicked at the chair and the wood squealed over the floor.
“Shh, you’ll wake Caelin.”
“Maybe I should wake him. Maybe that would stop his mother from doing something she will regret.”
She waited for him to look at her, but he kept his eyes averted.
“Arne.” She got up and moved behind him, wrapped her arms around him. She laid her head against his back and they simply stood together. “I will not regret it.”
