First was that he didn’t do anything that threatened to break my neck, such as set a horse to full gallop when I was not seated properly and didn’t have hold of the reins.
Second was that he had to stop throwing me on or in some type of transport when I didn’t have anything to shield me from the freezing, arctic, f**king air.
Third was that he was going to hear how I felt about him humiliating me in front of people who were becoming my friends.
I knew there was probably a fourth through about a five hundredth but I was f**king well going to start with those.
I seethed and ranted in my brain while I paced for a long time. Then I realized I’d been pacing for a long time. Then I realized I’d been drinking ale, had a fabulous shepherd’s pie at the pub and I was getting tired. Then I realized this was happening because it was way late and I’d been home for what felt like hours and he wasn’t home.
Then I decided, f**k him.
I was going to bed.
So I went to the trunks, grabbed a nightgown, went to the bathroom type room, changed, came out, flung my clothes on a trunk, blew out the candles and lanterns, threw more logs on the fires and climbed up the ladder where Penelope was already curled and asleep.
I threw more logs on that fire too, slid the curtain shut then I climbed under the sheet, quilt and fluffy wool blanket and was out like a light within minutes.
* * * * *
My eyes drifted open as something light and lovely glided from the back of my knee up the skin of the back of my thigh.
I came to a sleepy, confused, definitely hazy semi-focus in the firelight, my eyes taking in a muscled, so dark brown it was nearly black, wool breeches covered knee and thigh resting on the bed.
I blinked.
“Waste,” I heard a low, male rumble and the finger kept going, pushing up my nightgown, drifting over my hip and then down toward my ass. “Waste,” it repeated.
The words registered, the touch registered and the direction it was heading registered.
Holy moly!
I shot up to sitting in bed, one hand in the bed, the covers tumbling off me, the finger moved from me and Penelope scrambled away on a bee-line to the rope of the pulley, deserting me as she used her claws on the rope to crawl down.
Oh shit. My husband was sitting on the bed facing me. I was half lounging in it. As usual, I’d kicked the covers off one leg and was straddling them; the ones that covered my torso were now at a bunch at my waist.
But I didn’t notice this. I was staring in his eyes which were staring at me.
Then his big hand lifted and I sat stock-still as it moved toward me, cupped my jaw gently, then it slid down to the side of my neck. There, it curled around to the back, his fingers tangled in my hair and kept moving downward.
“Uh –” I started but didn’t continue mainly because I was speechless with fear.
“Soft,” he muttered, his eyes on my neck, his fingers twisting in my hair. “Softer than I expected. As soft as it is beautiful. A miracle,” he kept muttering, his mind somewhere else at the same time it was on me.
My mind was totally on him and he wasn’t completely in my space but he wasn’t far enough away that I couldn’t smell the whisky.
Shit. Drunk guys probably didn’t care if you were a lesbian.
No, I knew by the look in his heated green-brown eyes they most definitely did not care.
Shit!
“Frey,” I whispered and when I did, his gaze snapped instantly to mine.
“Say that again,” he ordered.
I didn’t say it again. I asked what I thought was a very pertinent question.
“Uh, are you inebriated?”