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Had his mother lived, Evander had no doubt he never would have been banished in the first place.
“And how,” Freya said, sitting up, the blanket falling away, “do ye expect me to give ye an heir if we lead separate lives? Have ye considered that at all, husband?”
“Daenae pretend ye daenae understand me, wife,” he almost snapped. “I’m sure ye ken perfectly well how heirs are produced.”
As expected, her cheeks turned pink, but she wasn’t one to be pushed aside or to stop mid-rant. She was going to say what was on her mind, whether he wanted to hear it or not.
“Stop calling me that. I’m nae yer wife, nae truly, nae in the way ye mean it.”
She was on her feet before she’d finished the sentence, the words coming out hotter than she’d intended.
He rose too, unhurried and deliberate. When she stepped back, he stepped forward, closing the distance she’d meant to open between them.
“Ye are mine, lass. For eighteen more days, ye’re mine. Daenae forget that.”
“In name, mayhap. Naught more.”
“Is that the trouble, then?” His voice had dropped low, rough at the edges. “Ye need me to claim ye properly, before ye’ll believe it’s real?”
“I need ye to stop pretending that this is simple. That I’m just some arrangement ye stumbled into, convenient and biddable, waiting for ye to decide what I am.”
“I’ve never once called ye biddable.”
“Ye didnae have to. It’s in the way ye speak to me. As if I’ll fall in line eventually, given enough time and enough of yer charm.”
“Ye threw a pillow at me. And then a lantern. I hardly think ‘biddable’ is the word for ye, lass. And yet ye’ve stayed.” He tilted his head, studying her the way he might a wary horse, patient and watchful. “Have I forced anything on ye that ye didnae want?”
“That’s nae the point, and ye ken it.”
“Then tell me the point, lass, because I’m standing here with no notion what ye want from me beyond a reason to be angry.”
They were a breath apart now, both of them furious, both of them wanting something neither would name aloud. The air between them had grown thin and dangerous as ice over deep water, the kind that looked solid enough until the very moment it broke underfoot.
“I want…” She faltered.
He didn’t wait for her to find the words. He kissed her instead, hard and certain.
18
The kiss was nothing like the one at the feast. There was something different about it, something that spread pleasure through her body, a warmth pooling between her legs she had never felt before.
The first kiss had been slow, warm, full of firelight and half-formed wanting. It was the kind of kiss that asked permission even as it took it, a kiss that she had never experienced before. Not before Evander, at least.
This one had teeth in it.
His beard tickled her throat, and she shivered all the way to her toes. Two weeks’ worth of arguments folded into the press of his mouth against hers, every unresolved thing between them poured into it instead of into words.
She gave as good as she got, fisting a hand in his shirt to pull him closer even as some distant, sensible part of her reminded her that she did not, in fact, trust this man and hadn’t decided she wanted to. Yet beneath the frustration was something tender, a wish to be truly known by him.
His hands found her waist, her hip, over the thin linen, and she let them, arching into his palms before she’d decided to allow herself that much, some part of her already surrendering ground she’d meant to hold.
She should push him away. She should tell him to stop. The first time she tried to speak those words, nothing came out. She clamped her lips shut when a moan tried to escape them.
To think, she almost moaned out loud! It was horrifying and embarrassing, certainly never something she had expected Evander would drag out of her.
“We cannae,” she managed when his mouth moved to her jaw, her throat, tracing a line of heat she felt everywhere at once. “Nae before the three weeks are up, or else there’s no possibility of an annulment, and then where would that leave us?”
She clutched tighter to his shirt, trying to tell herself to push him away, but all she did was pull him closer, feeling the warmth of his body against her own. It was enough to draw a wanton whimper from her that made his eyes darken.
