“Uh… the part where you strip me naked and do as you please,” I whispered. “That’s the next level.”
He scowled.
I waited.
He scowled more.
I didn’t have anything left.
Then he asked in a low, surprised, unhappier than normal unhappy voice, “By the gods, are you asking me to court you?”
That sounded crazy. The very idea of this big, scary guy who was a renowned Raider courting me or anyone sounded absolutely nuts.
And that must have been why I burst out laughing.
He did not laugh, in fact, not one thing was funny to him and he made this obvious so I struggled to control my mirth, won my fight and suggested, “How about this? We make a deal. You don’t order me around, throw me over your shoulder and carry me out of pubs or other locations, toss me into sleighs or on horses, send me careening through the forest on a horse whose reins I don’t have in my hands and maybe we share a few meals together. I’ll cook. Then we’ll see about the next level. Is that a deal?”
“And how many meals would we share, Sjofn?”
Hmm. He was considering this.
I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“Fifteen?” I tried.
“How about two?” he returned.
Two?
Okay, maybe it was bad.
“Twelve,” suggested.
“Two,” he fired back.
“Nine?” I kept trying.
“Two,” he stated firmly.
Ho boy.
“So, in your two, does this one count as one?” I asked, pointing with my fork at my plate.
“Absolutely,” he answered.
Ho boy!
“Do I have to answer now?”
“Yes.”
Shit.
I stared at him and tried not to look like I was breathing as hard as I was breathing.
Okay, this was an adventure, my adventure. I’d paid for it and I knew there were risks. There were always risks. And this was a risk I had to take.
And, seriously, there had to be worse risks than sleeping with a hot guy who could kiss really, freaking well and whose touch could be both light and gentle.
Right?
So I straightened my shoulders and declared, “Okay, two but only if you throw in not cleaning that deer in the house. I don’t want to see it or even hear it when you clean it and I certainly don’t want to clean up after it.”
He scowled at me again and then he noted, “You’re the finest huntress in the realm, Sjofn, and known for cleaning your own game.”
Gross!
Damn, time, again, to cover.
“Well, I had an incident that um… troubled me, uh…. mentally and gave that up. I’m not a vegetarian.” This word got me narrowed scary eyes which meant Lunwynians didn’t do vegetarian so I explained, “I eat meat I just don’t want to think of where it comes from. If you agree no carcass cleaning or carcasses on the whole, ever, in the house except, of course, what I cook when it’s all good and cut up and doesn’t resemble an animal anymore.” God! How lame could I be? Time to sum up. “We have a deal. If not, we have no deal.”
“Deal,” he replied immediately and my heart clenched, my belly dropped and my breasts swelled again.
“One more thing,” I said hurriedly when he picked up his fork to start eating.
His head, partially bent over his plate, tipped back to look at me. “You’ve already tried me, Sjofn,” he warned then he shoved the pancake already on his fork in his mouth.
“Okay,” I nodded, “I get that but… I don’t want you calling me that.”
He did a slow blink. Then he swallowed.
I rushed on. “I… would you...?” I hesitated. “Actually, I’d prefer it if you called me Finnie.”
He sat back a few inches, his hand came down to rest on the table and after he did that, he studied me intensely for a very long time. It took a lot but I sat there and withstood it.
Finally, he asked softly, “Finnie?”
And shit, shit that sounded nice in his deep voice.
“Yeah, Finnie,” I replied softly.
He studied me.
Then he said, “Finnie.”
Yep. Oh yeah. That sounded nice in his deep voice.
I took that as a yes so I smiled at him and whispered, “Thanks.”
He kept studying me. Then he shook his head. Then he forked into his pancakes, cutting off a huge bite and shoving it in his mouth.
Okay, well, that didn’t go great, as in, after dinner I was clearly having sex with someone I barely knew, but it didn’t go badly either.
Shit.
“You’re known for hunting, skinning your own animals and being a very good archer, wife, you are not known for cooking well,” he told his plate, I nearly choked on the pancakes I’d just put in my mouth and I stared at him as his eyes shifted to me. “I’m pleased to learn this about you.”