My mouth curved into a smile, but my heart ached to hear him put voice to what I’d always sensed: the discontent simmering beneath quips and quick smiles, the tension in him that never seemed to ease.
He turned me in his arms, one hand rising to tangle in my mess of braids. “I used to dream only of fire and ash,” he whispered, running a thumb over my cheek as I lifted my face to meet his gaze. “Now when I close my eyes, all I see is your face.”
Tears drenched my cheeks because hearing those words was my dream. Was what my mind had created in the dark hours where I’d allowed it to drift into fantasies that I thought the gods and fate and circumstance would never let me have. It had always been him.
“I love you, Bjorn,” I whispered. “And the only future I wish for is the one with you by my side.”
He let out a shaky breath, tension seeping out of him in a rush, then his mouth was on mine.
I gasped, catching hold of his neck so that I didn’t fall backward, but he’d already taken hold of me. Lifting me even as he kissed me, tongue tasting mine and sending bolts of pleasure down to my already throbbing core. I wrapped my legs around his waist, rubbing myself against him, a moan escaping me as his arm tightened around my hips, dragging me closer.
But not close enough.
I wanted to feel his skin against mine, yet we both still wore sodden clothing and mail. “Off,” I said between kisses, straightening my legs to slide down his body. “I want it all off.”
And lest he miss my meaning, I caught hold of my mail and lifted it over my head, tossing it aside, the tunic and undershirt I wore beneath swiftly following, baring my peaked breasts.
Bjorn growled, his eyes dark as he dropped to his knees, catching the tip of one of my breasts in his mouth. I moaned as he sucked it deep, teeth nipping to the point I couldn’t tell whether it was pleasure or pain, only that my thighs were slick with the need for more.
Not just more of his hands and mouth on me, but mine on him. I wanted to taste that taut tattooed skin, to dig my nails into the hard curve of his muscles, to stroke my palm over his thick cock.
So I pushed him back, stepping down into the pool, the heat of the water stinging my skin as I backed deeper. “It’s hot,” I murmured, reaching down to remove one shoe and then the other, tossing them past Bjorn even as I held him in place with my gaze.
As I took a step deeper, the water rose to just above my hip bones. I unlaced my trousers, pulled them off, and sent them flying onto the bank with a wet slap. Then I leaned backward and pushed with my toes, sending myself floating to the far side of the pool, feeling his eyes on my body. Feeling his desire, the sensation making my sex throb almost painfully with the need to be touched. To be filled. Resting my elbows on a ledge at the far end of the pool, I said, “Coming in?”
Bjorn didn’t answer, and backlit as he was by the burning flame of his axe, I couldn’t see his face. But my answer came as he pulled off his mail, tossing it aside, shirt and boots following. He was all hard lines and thick muscle, shoulders broad and waist tapered, and I held my breath as he slowly unbuckled his belt, anticipation making me clench my thighs together.
He caught his thumbs in the waist of his soaked trousers, dragging them down. My breath caught—
And his axe extinguished, plunging the cave into darkness.
“You arsehole,” I snarled, hearing both Bjorn’s dark laugh and the splash of water as he entered the pool, ripples moving ahead of him to brush my breasts. “I’m starting to question whether you have something to hide. Or rather, a lack of something.”
“We both know that isn’t the case, Born-in-Fire.” His chuckle was closer this time. “Besides, they say anticipation makes all pleasures sweeter.”
“The gods spare me from the ego that comes with a big—” I gasped as his hands caught my waist, pulling me close, the part in question pressing against my stomach.
His teeth caught at my earlobe. “You were saying…”
As though I could remember words as his tongue trailed up the rim of my ear, his cock rubbing against my sex as the current pushed against us. I tilted my head, whimpering as he licked my throat and bit just above my pulse, his fingertips trailing down the inside of my arm with featherlight touches that made me see sparks in the darkness.
But I wanted to see more.
Capturing Bjorn’s lips, I kissed him hard, then bit at his bottom lip until he groaned before pulling back to whisper, “Hlin.”
Magic flowed into me, and I pushed it out of the fingers of my left hand. The silver light illuminated Bjorn’s skin as I traced a finger down the hard muscles of his shoulders, resting my cheek against his collarbone as my eyes followed the light. Drinking in the swell of his biceps, the carved shadows between the muscles of his forearm, and the broad expanse of his palm as he flattened his hand against mine before interlocking our fingers.