Then he growled two words, “Arse. Home.”

“But –” I started but didn’t finish.

He lifted a large hand and slapped my gray on the rump, barking, “Yah!” and my gray took off at a full gallop.

I didn’t even have the reins in my hand!

What a f**king dick!

I quickly hooked my leg around the saddle, leaned forward, holding onto the gray around her neck so I wouldn’t fall off, I grabbed the reins then sat back and, as best I could with purse and reins, I flung the fur lined cloak around my shoulders.

Then I rode home and I did this fast. This was because I was pissed way the f**k off and I knew if I didn’t go in that direction, I’d go back to the pub and probably do something that would get me murdered by a giant Viking-type, parallel universe Raider.

So I went home, straight to the stables where I unsaddled and stalled the gray, stomped to the house, stoked up the banked fires, dropped logs on them, lit candles and lamps, climbed up and built a fire in the loft and then I went down the ladder and paced.

What I did not do was calm down.

My husband and I had to get a few things straight.

First was that he didn’t do anything that threatened to break my neck, such as set a horse to full gallop when I was not seated properly and didn’t have hold of the reins.

Second was that he had to stop throwing me on or in some type of transport when I didn’t have anything to shield me from the freezing, arctic, f**king air.

Third was that he was going to hear how I felt about him humiliating me in front of people who were becoming my friends.

I knew there was probably a fourth through about a five hundredth but I was f**king well going to start with those.

I seethed and ranted in my brain while I paced for a long time. Then I realized I’d been pacing for a long time. Then I realized I’d been drinking ale, had a fabulous shepherd’s pie at the pub and I was getting tired. Then I realized this was happening because it was way late and I’d been home for what felt like hours and he wasn’t home.

Then I decided, f**k him.

I was going to bed.

So I went to the trunks, grabbed a nightgown, went to the bathroom type room, changed, came out, flung my clothes on a trunk, blew out the candles and lanterns, threw more logs on the fires and climbed up the ladder where Penelope was already curled and asleep.

I threw more logs on that fire too, slid the curtain shut then I climbed under the sheet, quilt and fluffy wool blanket and was out like a light within minutes.

* * * * *

My eyes drifted open as something light and lovely glided from the back of my knee up the skin of the back of my thigh.

I came to a sleepy, confused, definitely hazy semi-focus in the firelight, my eyes taking in a muscled, so dark brown it was nearly black, wool breeches covered knee and thigh resting on the bed.

I blinked.

“Waste,” I heard a low, male rumble and the finger kept going, pushing up my nightgown, drifting over my hip and then down toward my ass. “Waste,” it repeated.

The words registered, the touch registered and the direction it was heading registered.

Holy moly!

I shot up to sitting in bed, one hand in the bed, the covers tumbling off me, the finger moved from me and Penelope scrambled away on a bee-line to the rope of the pulley, deserting me as she used her claws on the rope to crawl down.

Oh shit. My husband was sitting on the bed facing me. I was half lounging in it. As usual, I’d kicked the covers off one leg and was straddling them; the ones that covered my torso were now at a bunch at my waist.

But I didn’t notice this. I was staring in his eyes which were staring at me.

Then his big hand lifted and I sat stock-still as it moved toward me, cupped my jaw gently, then it slid down to the side of my neck. There, it curled around to the back, his fingers tangled in my hair and kept moving downward.

“Uh –” I started but didn’t continue mainly because I was speechless with fear.

“Soft,” he muttered, his eyes on my neck, his fingers twisting in my hair. “Softer than I expected. As soft as it is beautiful. A miracle,” he kept muttering, his mind somewhere else at the same time it was on me.

My mind was totally on him and he wasn’t completely in my space but he wasn’t far enough away that I couldn’t smell the whisky.

Shit. Drunk guys probably didn’t care if you were a lesbian.

No, I knew by the look in his heated green-brown eyes they most definitely did not care.

Shit!

“Frey,” I whispered and when I did, his gaze snapped instantly to mine.

“Say that again,” he ordered.

I didn’t say it again. I asked what I thought was a very pertinent question.

“Uh, are you inebriated?”

At my words, his hand twisted and fisted in my hair. It didn’t hurt, a slight pull at my scalp, but he was a very big man with his very big fist in my hair so he had my attention.

“Say that again,” he repeated.

“Um… Frey,” I whispered.

Suddenly, he used my hair to pull me to him as he leaned close to me and when he had me an inch away, he growled, “Gods, that you’d say that, just like that, when you were full of me.”

At his words, I felt a little tingle in happy place.

Uh, what was that?

I put a hand to the massive wall of his (very hard, I noted on encountering it) chest, and put on gentle pressure, starting to suggest, “Maybe we should –”

“Tonight, we pretend,” he muttered, cutting me off.

Ho boy!

“I think –”

Before I could finish telling him what I thought, he let me go. Then he twisted, bent his torso and tugged his boots off. Then before I knew it, off went his sweater and I was treated to a view of a highly tanned, supremely muscled, obviously powerful back. I was still blinking as that vision burned into my brain (and I had to admit, it was pleasantly) when, still seated in the bed with me, off went his breeches.

Ho boy!

Now frantic, though unfortunately belatedly, I started to scoot back, saying, “Um… would you mind if –?” but I again didn’t finish.

This was because, without appearing to move, he was reclining in bed and I was reclining with him. He flicked the covers over us then both his powerful arms locked around me and yanked me to his side.

“Cradle my thigh,” he growled and I blinked at his chest, pushing lightly against it, registering it was as powerfully muscled as his back and so wide it seemed to go on forever.

“Wha… what?”

“As you did the quilt,” he stated then got impatient. His hand, starting at my hip, moved swiftly down my thigh, his torso (and me, I might add, since his other arm was still locked around me) lifting in order to reach, then his fingers hooked the back of my knee and he yanked my leg up until I was doing what he asked, half straddling his thigh like I did the covers.