made me think he’d sensed my idiotic jealousy even through the wall he’d put up between our connection.
I grimaced. “I shouldn’t have asked. Sorry. It’s none of my business.”
Grim’s eyes flickered from mine down to my breasts. When he reached for one, I gasped at the coldness of his touch, my nipple puckering into a tight tip.
“I sometimes felt you. When you climaxed. On your own, or with someone,” he said, rubbing one thumb over my peaked nipple and drawing another shudder from me. “This… trickle of pleasure. It was the only times I felt the call to copulate. But I never yielded.”
I frowned, some of my attention scattering for every cool touch against my achingly tight nipple. I probably should have been embarrassed that he’d felt me in such intimate, private moments, but I wasn’t. “Why not? Bjarni and Saga… I’m sure they… enjoyed themselves while they waited for me.”
He didn’t look up from my breasts, but I still saw the dark flicker passing over his features. And then it clicked. Like it should have before I’d even opened my mouth in the first place.
“Oh, Grim,” I whispered, the ache in my heart withering the tendrils of desire his thumb had awakened. I’d had some hazy idea that maybe he’d been like Modi, unwilling to risk offspring, but no. “Of course. I’m so sorry. That was… thoughtless.”
“I’m not broken, Annabel.” Grim looked up then, and to my surprise his eyes weren’t coolly distant like I’d expected, but mildly annoyed. “I don’t think of her when I’m inside of you.”
“How can you not?” Shame made me look away. I’d done what I did because it was the only way, but… “I blackmailed you, just like her.”
He snorted and grabbed my other breast with his free hand, pushing both up and out in lewd invitation. “No,” he said, and then closed his lips around my unattended nipple.
I drew in a sharp breath, my hands flying to his hair without conscious thought. He flicked his tongue over the tight bud before he sucked, deeply.
My pussy tightened and my clit sang, scattering my focus and driving away the clenching guilt from my chest.
“There was no pleasure,” he murmured against my breasts. “Only submission.”
I slid my fingers down to cradle the back of his head as he suckled, skimming my lips over his scalp.
“I’ll kill her,” I whispered into his hair. “For what she did to you.”
“If I wanted her dead, I would have killed her myself,” he said, lifting his head to meet my gaze. “She is my brothers’ mother.”
“And you don’t want to cause them pain,” I said, placing a kiss on his forehead. “My noble, kindhearted mate.”
He chuffed a laugh, bitterness drawing his mouth into a line. “No one’s ever called me that before. Calculated, yes. Weak. Miserable. Grim. And here you are, little mortal, with your soft human heart, lost in the depths of Hel because I killed you… and you’re calling me noble?”
I flushed. “Yeah, well, I’m not saying I’m pleased about that, but you did it for your brothers. I get it. What matters is that you’ve realized you were wrong and are helping to rectify it.”
The wry smirk slid off his face, his features turning stony. But in his eyes, hunger flared. My pussy clenched on instinct, slickness gathering deep in my core.
Without another word, Grim slid his hands to my hips and shoved me to the ground hard enough to force a huff from my lungs. A yank around my waist ripped my trousers down my thighs past my knees. I tried to sit up to push them all the way off and kick off my boots, but Grim fell on top of me before I could so much as get up on my elbows, settling his hips against mine.
I gasped softly at the chill of his skin pressed against everywhere I was bared, and again—sharper—when he pressed the thick head of his cock against my lower lips.
I stared up at him, up at the simmering darkness in his eyes as he took me in. Then he forced himself inside of me in one hard push, penetrating me all the way to my womb.
I shrieked, my body entirely unprepared for the suddenness of his entry, even though I was wet enough to take him. My pussy shuddered around his girth, stretching to fully accommodate him inside of me. Where his coldness had felt like a blessing during my heat, my body was decidedly more susceptible to