“We should leave in the morning.” He traced his finger over the curve of my hip. “I want to get you out of Skaland.”
“South?” I murmured. “Where it’s warm?”
“Not too far south or I’ll overheat.” He carried me down the length of the pool. “I need to feel the bite of winter for at least part of the year.”
I drowsed against him, thinking of summer lands. Imagining building a home. Having a child. Raising animals and tilling the land. My mind stalled on the last as I tried to imagine Bjorn farming, the vision refusing to manifest. Refusing to give me anything other than images of him running into battle, blazing axe in hand.
It’s only because you’ve never seen that side of him, I told myself. Not that it doesn’t exist.
Bjorn carried me out of the water, a cool night breeze blowing into the chamber and chilling my skin. I shivered as he set me down, the rock cold beneath my bare feet. Still naked, Bjorn left the cave, returning with an armload of branches. Using his usual haphazard method, he dumped the wood on top of his axe and waited for it to light. “Here. It’s a bit soggy, but edible,” he said, handing me some dried meat that had been in his belt pouch, then retrieved my sword and both our mail shirts, which were probably already setting to rust.
“Throw them away.” I rested on my elbow as I watched him work, drinking in the sight of his naked body. “I never want to wear armor again,” I added, full well knowing that wearing it had once been my dream.
Bjorn lifted his face, firelight glinting off his eyes. “We aren’t out of Skaland yet, love. And no matter where we go, there will be dangers we’ll need to protect against. Besides, this mail is worth a small fortune and—” He broke off, giving his head a shake. “You don’t have to wear it, Freya. I’ll pack it away.”
I knew what he’d been about to say. That wealth would no longer be ours for the taking. He was used to being the son of the jarl. To raiding every season to fill his pockets with gold and silver. Neither of which would be possibilities where we planned to go. Which meant that, in many ways, it would be a harder life.
Unease chilled my stomach and I tried to push away the many challenges that would face us in the days to come, the euphoria of finally being together fraying around the edges. I was used to a simple life on the farm, so it would be easy for me to give up the weapons and the fighting, to turn my back on power. Much less easy for him, because he’d been a warrior all his life.
Was that why he didn’t want to give up the armor? Because he couldn’t imagine life as something other than a warrior? Ask him, I told myself. Better to know now than later.
My tongue felt numb and my throat tight as I finally managed to say, “What do you think it will be like?”
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug, then moved to hang up the oiled mail away from the steaming pool. “We’ll want to keep to the wilds until we’re far enough away that no one will recognize us. Even then, we’ll want to keep our magic hidden until we’re out of Skaland and across the sea. They have different gods and magic than ours, and rumors about strangers travel far.”
“I meant,” I swallowed hard, “afterward.”
He had my sword in hand, warped blade half out of the scabbard, but he paused, then sheathed it. “Wherever we end up, whatever we do, all that matters is that I am by your side, Freya.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks because that was no answer to my question, and I instantaneously began to fret that he was withholding his true thoughts because he knew they were different from mine.
The corner of Bjorn’s mouth quirked in a half smile, and setting aside my sword, he rose in a smooth motion, circling the fire. Dropping to his knees, he pressed me onto my back, pulling down my damp cloak to expose my breasts. My nipples instantly peaked and it had nothing to do with the cool air and everything to do with the hungry way his eyes roved over my body.
“You want to know how I see our future?” he murmured, stubble rough against my sensitive skin as he kissed his way from my throat to my navel. “I want to see this body beneath me every night and”—he gave me a dark smile, breath teasing my sex—“every morning. I want to see your face when I make you come each and every time.”
“Bjorn…” I wanted him to be serious, needed him to be, but desire burned hot between my legs as his tongue caressed me, made me forget what I’d asked in the first place.
But rather than bringing me to climax, he moved to lie down at my side, pulling me backward so that he was curled around me. “I see you asleep in my arms in the home I’ve built for you,” he said, breath tickling my ear. “I see you full on game that I’ve hunted for you, baking bread from grain that I’ve grown in our fields after you teach me how, because I don’t know the first fucking thing about growing plants.”