He handed me the world.
And I was going to take it.
I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going home except to tie up my life, explain and say good-bye to people I loved.
I was going to embark on the ultimate adventure.
Somehow, someway, I had to figure out how to talk my husband (and the king and queen) into accepting me as a replacement for good and communicate with Sjofn that her hopes for Lunwyn had come true.
I was going to stay with the man I loved in this fabulous world that had elves and dragons (and people who wanted to kill me, but I decided not to think of that).
And I was going to do it forever.
* * * * *
“Do you suppose we should eat, wee one?” Frey murmured
Frey was on his back, his arm around me, his fingers drawing lazy patterns on my hip. I was pressed to his side, cheek on his shoulder, my leg over his, my fingertips floating absently across the skin of his wide chest. But at his question, I dropped my hand to that chest, pressed in and curled my body deeper into him.
Truth be told, I was absolutely famished. I’d learned having hours of very energetic sex and countless orgasms did that to you.
But right then it was just Frey and me tangled in each other and velvet blankets on a divan in a cabin on a fabulous ship with nothing but the dark cut minimally by moonlight coming in his windows and the fact that I’d just come to the realization I was in love for the first time in my life. And I liked all of it just like that and I didn’t want to lose any of it.
To communicate all this, I mumbled, “Mm.”
His body shook with his inaudible chuckle and he rolled into me so we were both on our sides, face to face.
I could barely make him out in the moonlight but I didn’t need to. I’d remember his face and every inch of his skin until my dying breath.
His hands drifted up and down my back and his voice was soft when he asked, “Do you want to doze while I find food?”
My arm around him got tighter and I blurted, “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
His hands stopped drifting and he held tight before he whispered, “All right, my Finnie, I’ll not go anywhere.”
I nodded and dipped my chin, pressing my face in his chest and his hands started drifting again, one gliding up to play with my hair.
I didn’t stroke, I just held on.
And both of us did this for awhile.
Finally, I broke the silence to ask quietly, “How do people go back to normal sex after that?”
Frey answered just as quietly, “If they do it with their partner, they don’t.”
I blinked at his chest then my head tipped back, I heard his move on the pillow and I knew he was looking down at me.
“They don’t?” I queried.
“Never.”
Ho boy.
“Frey,” I whispered, “that was… it was…well, freaking awesome but we can’t do it like that every time. It would kill us.”
His chuckle was audible this time and he gave me a slight squeeze before he explained, “No, my love, the adela tea isn’t meant to be used every time, not even sometimes. It is meant to be used carefully, it is meant to be used as a means to deepen something that is already deep, to heighten awareness of things that are already there. There are those who use it simply for pleasure but when a husband and wife who care about each other use it, the goddess Adele’s intent for her gift is much more meaningful.”
Both his arms got tight around me and he gently pulled me up so my head was on a pillow by his.