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 br**sts 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 ha**ng s*x 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.”

There it was. A sign, a small one, but one like him keeping me warm that said maybe he was a decent guy and he was going to try.

“I’m glad,” I said softly.

He looked back at his plate and shoved more pancakes in his mouth.

Okay.

Maybe that went better than I suspected.

Phew.

Chapter Seven

Mr. Conversation

While Frey’s attention was on the deer, I grabbed my stuff and nipped to the hot springs for a quick bath.

One could say the hot springs were awesome but one could not say drying off afterward was. However, I’d done it so often, I’d made an art of it so I was out, dried off and clothed in record time. Then I wrapped my clean, wet hair in the bathing cloth and nipped back quickly, luckily without him seeing me.

Since I had one day of essentially semi-kinda-dating my husband before we got down to the nitty gritty husband and wife stuff, once I got back, I lotioned, powdered and perfumed as well as put on some light makeup. I mean, I would never go on a first date without making an effort. And I had at least a couple of weeks of dates (according to my own personal philosophy of how long before I considered sleeping with someone) to squeeze in one day so I made an effort.

As I did this, I planned the dinner I was going to make that night and therefore drew up a grocery list in my head of what I needed to get from the store. I wanted something special so he would notice I was making an effort (and maybe he would make one too). I also wanted something chewy. He made light work of those pancakes, chewing approximately twice before each enormous swallow and I was hoping dinner would last a whole lot longer than that.

I was in the kitchen, all done up but hair still wet (though pulled back in the ribbon again) and I was getting the basket I usually took to town with me to carry my purchases back when Frey walked in.

I turned to the door and again, like that morning, when he saw me, he stopped dead.

Weird how he did that.

“Hey,” I greeted. “I’m going to town to pick up some stuff for dinner. Do you want anything?”

He stared at me a moment and I was hoping he wasn’t back in silence mode when he stated, “I’ll take you.”

Hells bells. I’d actually wanted some time alone to psych myself up for what was going to happen after dinner.

However, time alone wasn’t going to help me know this guy any better, or get used to having him around, so maybe him going was a good thing.

We could chat.

“All righty then,” I replied.

His eyes moved to my hair and he moved toward the living room, muttering, “I’ll saddle Tyr. You get a hat. I don’t want my new wife catching a chill.”

Hmm.

That was thoughtful.

So thoughtful, I smiled as I followed him and called out, “Tyr?”

He turned at the front door, answered, “My mount,” then left.

Well, there you go. I already knew something more about him. His horse was called Tyr.

That was a start.

I went to my trunks and pulled out a cloak I liked especially. It was a light silvery-gray wool with fur in a matching color on the high collar. It had matching gloves and hat. The hat was knit wool at the top, furry around the edges and I’d noticed it didn’t give me hat head.

I didn’t want hat head. Not that day or, maybe, any day when Frey was around.

So I got ready to face the chill, nabbed my basket and then walked to the stables.

When I got there, Frey had Tyr in the middle of the space, bridle on, saddle on (with a longer, very dark brown blanket style thing that hung over his rump, probably to help ward off the cold, something the horse hadn’t worn on our long ride there). I noticed now that the horse was like everything Frey that was to say his coat so dark brown it was nearly black. He was also huge. He was also glossy. He also had extremely intelligent eyes.