Page 21 of Sky and the Grumpy Troll

Inside, my thoughts were a wild tangle of questions and want, as I tried to sort back through the relationships I’d portrayed in my stories and calculate whether or not he was right.

“You should get some rest,” I said, gently shifting away from him. My voice sounded like it had been dragged over gravel.

A long silence, his gaze a weight on me in the dark.

“Did I—”

“You did nothing wrong.” I swallowed. “I am gratified that the book moved you.” I paused and chose my next words the way one chooses a path through ice. “But there are things I am not able to offer. As a widower.” That was the first time I’d admitted that to him.

Sky gasped softly, then reached across and squeezed my hand.

“I’m sorry for your loss. And goodnight, Moerrven. Thanks for the hug. Troll hospitality is truly like no other.”

He didn’t let go of my hand, and I couldn’t make myself release that one last point of contact. Within minutes, his breathing had evened out.

Chapter 7

Sky

I dreamed about Moerrven in his stone tub in his stone cottage, hot springs water steaming around him as his muscles rolled with each movement. I was kneeling on the ledge with my hand around his cock, stroking him slowly, watching the water slosh against the rim every time his hips jerked. Dream Moerrven was staring at my cock like he wanted to devour it, and calling me Sir, as I whispered filthy praise in his ear, bringing him closer and closer to the edge, until I was tempted to let the submissive little slut have his orgasm.

I startled awake with a gasp, disoriented for a moment as the memory of my dream blended with a reality in which my face was on Moerrven’s bare chest, and my cock was so hard it ached.

We’d fallen asleep side by side, hadn’t we? Moerrven had put a respectful distance between us, and then… well, I must have passed out from exhaustion because I couldn’t remember anything after that. Now, the distance was not respectful. I was draped across him, with one leg thrown over his thigh, my arm across his stomach, my cheek pressed to bare skin. His arm was around me, heavy enough to hold me pinned there, with his hand on my lower back, under my shirt.

A bird chirped outside, and the window was already pale with dawn. Poppy was purring somewhere nearby. There was another sound, too, a slow, deep heartbeat under my ear that reminded me that I needed to extract myself from this ludicrous position before Moerrven woke. Not that things I’d done in my sleep were in any way my fault. Clearly, from the hand on my back, sleep-Moerrven had been complicit.

But that didn’t mean he needed to feel my erection making a wet spot against his hip.

His skin was smooth and smelled of cedar soap and a warm masculine musk. And I needed to move. Now.

But I didn’t want to wake him. I would lose the warmth, the weight of his arm, the sound of his breathing. I knew the moment he woke, because when awareness hit, his whole body went rigid. The arm around me tightened for one involuntary second, pulling me closer, and froze.

“Morning,” I said, trying to sound casual.

His chest expanded with a controlled breath. “Good morning.”

“Sleep okay?”

He swallowed, loud enough that I could hear it. “Yes.”

“Me too. Best I’ve had in a long time.” I yawned against his chest. The dream was still clinging to me like steam. “You’re like a heated mattress. Has anyone told you that? You’re very warm, and I’m very comfortable, and to be perfectly clear, I didn’t mean to end up here.”

“Noted.”

“But now that I’ve wandered over here in my sleep, I’d kind of like to stay. Unless you want me to move.”

He didn’t say anything, and his arm stayed where it was. We lay there in the gray morning light, breathing, his heart rate gradually slowing from the initial spike of waking up with a human plastered against him.

“Your heart was going pretty fast for a second there,” I said.

“I was startled.”

“Startled by what? The cuddling? We established cuddling last night. Shouldn’t you pretend it’s ancient troll tradition? Subsection: morning-after cuddles.”

“There is no such subsection. And I’m not pretending. Why would you think that?”

“No reason.” Shit, me and my big mouth forgot all about my evil plan to milk this for all that it was worth. Next, I’d be telling him I knew he was telling people I was his soulmate. And that couldn’t happen, because then innkeepers wouldn’t stick us in a single room together. No, I was invested in my plan. So invested that I pressed my face against his collarbone and breathed him in, and his fingers curled tighter against my hip.