Page 12 of Sky and the Grumpy Troll

“There’s smut. Delicious, wonderful smut. About two men who fuck like bunnies.” He clutched the book to his chest and looked at me with an expression of pure, radiant joy. “Moerrven, are you into men?”

“I feel attraction to people of various genders. And I may have had a slight crush on a male teacher when I was in school.”

“Ooh, spicy. Did you suck him off?”

“No! Of course not, besides, right after that I met—”

I snapped my mouth shut. I’d almost said ‘my late wife’ there, and that wasn’t a thing you said to a person with a curiosity like Sky’s. Because then there’d be so much explaining to do, and the moment would be ruined.

“Met who?”

I waved a hand. “It’s in the past. Maybe you could read a book in the bath? Let me show you how it works.”

His reaction to the hot water tap in the tub was even more giddy. “You have running water? This is incredible.”

“It comes from a hot spring, underground. The mountains are full of them, and many troll cottages take advantage.”

“How did you know I needed this?” He held his fingers under the tap, moaning happily. And I definitely needed to get out of the room before I ended up washing every part of him thoroughly, the way the hero in my book did with his lover.

“I’ll, um. I’d better go prepare lunch.”

“You’re sure it’s okay to take the book in the bath? It looks precious,” he said.

“I have a couple dozen copies somewhere. It’s fine. They were printed on a press, and I think I even still have the plates for the illustrations around here.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said, turning it over in his hands like it was something precious. “Thank you.”

He gave a little jump, caught my horn, and tugged me down to plant a kiss on my cheek. I needed to tell him to stop touching me there. He didn’t know any better, after all.

Maybe tomorrow.

Chapter 4

Sky

The bathroom contained perhaps the best news I’d gotten since the fall through the mirror. Despite the rustic appearance of his cottage, Moerrven had running water. It was fed somehow by the cool creek outside. Over the bathtub, a lever opened a tap that emitted deliciously warm water from a mineral spring, filling the stone tub.

I filled the tub and sank into that silky, mineral-warm water and my brain turned off for the first time since I’d fallen through a magic mirror in a nightclub bathroom, and for about ten minutes I was nothing but a body in a hot bath, not thinking about anything; not Pip, not the portal, not the fact that I was living in a troll’s cottage under some cultural obligation that I was ninety percent sure was bullshit he’d made up to get me to fuck him. For some reason, he kept dragging it out even though I’d made it perfectly clear that I was willing.

I’d kept the translation pendant on, the shell warm against my collarbone. Partly in case Moerrven called for me through the door. Mostly because I remembered what the world had sounded like before it, that day of grunts and shoves where nothing meant anything, and I never wanted to feel that small again.

But if not for sex, why would he care if I stuck around or not?

I pushed that thought down as I cleaned myself. The soap smelled like herbs. The hair oil smelled like rosemary and honey. I used both liberally, scrubbing twenty-four hours of interdimensional grime. Between dancing at work, the kidnapping, and the panic, I was filthy. After a delicious rinse, I floated, listening to the water lap against the stone walls.

Eying the book sitting on the chair next to the tub, I thought about the filthy contents. Moerrven wrote smut, and I was pretty sure it was smut so good you forgot you were reading because your whole body got involved.

I dried off my hands on a towel and reached for it, bit my bottom lip, and opened the book, holding it clear of the water as I flipped quickly to a smuttier scene. It was my second of Moerrven’s novels in two days. I was devouring them. I moaned as I found a scene where the gargoyle was sitting in the bath, his troll lover cleaning every inch of his body, every inch of his cock.

The descriptions were exquisite, and I slid a hand down between my legs, stroking my shaft as I imagined Moerrven was here, doing that to me, his cock hard and dripping pre-cum on the floor as he touched every inch of my body.

I moaned, my body jerking up into my hand.

Three sharp raps. A pause. Two more. At first, I thought it was Moerrven, about to barge in and find me jerking my cock to his filthy book, but then a door opened somewhere else in the cottage.

Through the bathroom door came a voice, not Moerrven’s. Older, lighter, with the amused cadence of someone who’d come to stir a pot.

“Moerrven! Good day! I have turnips.”