Page 21 of A Darkness So Sweet

Instead, he just grabbed the shoulders of the dress and lifted it up. “There is room for you to still be dressed, fire hair. Tuck your arms into the dress and I will spin it.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks turned a lovely shade of bright pink. “I suppose I should have thought of that.”

Maia tucked her arms into the dress, clearly crossing them over her chest, and he turned the fabric around. It took very little effort, considering the garment was still far too big for her. One spin and then it was exactly how the dress was meant to be worn. But as he let it settle against her skin, his eyes were drawn down to the deep gap between her breasts.

A troll’s shoulders were wider than humans’. Her shoulders and broad chest should have stretched the fabric, so it didn’t reveal quite so much skin. But on her, the leathers dipped nearly below her breasts. Instead of just seeing a hint of that flesh, he was treated to an unhindered view of all the freckles that dusted over her collarbone, down between her breasts, and even underneath the faint shadow of the globes that were suddenly far more interesting than they should have been.

She looked like she tasted sweet, as though her skin was dusted with sugar and granules of bee pollen. His mouth shouldn’t have watered at the feast laid out before him, but he was suddenly a starving man. He wanted to taste her. He wanted to draw his tongue along the shadows hinted at beneath her breasts and brand her taste to his memory.

As it was, he could not do that. He didn’t want to be married to her. He didn’t want a human for a troll wife, and he didnot want her.

Blowing out a long breath, his gaze flicked up to hers. Her pupils were dilated, turning that bright green into black. Scared? Perhaps. He had been staring for a long time, and even Gunnar was suspiciously quiet.

“I see now why you put it on the way you did,” he rasped. “Let’s turn it back around.”

Because he had the sneaky suspicion that if he caught anyone looking at his wife the way he had just been staring at her, he’d get into a fight. He’d rip their eyes out of their head if they saw what he did, even his own brother. Those were sights for his gaze only.

Ragnar lifted the sleeves of her dress again, this time allowing her to turn while he held the fabric still. She seemed to want to cover herself even faster than he did.

But then she was facing away from him, and the revealing fabric showed him the graceful line of her spine. He’d marveled at the muscles in her arms, but they were nothing compared to her back. Strong muscles flexed with her movements, an impressive show of strength as the wings of her shoulder blades moved. The valleys and hollows there were almost enticing.

Now his mind was back in that tent. When he’d leaned over her, he swore he had smelled honey, spun sugar, pretty things that melted on the tongue without ever having to chew. Unbidden, Ragnar leaned forward until his nose almost touched the valley between her shoulders. And there it was again. That scent that drove him wild and made his mouth water as nothing ever had before.

His mind spun. He clenched his claws into fists, hoping that the pricks of pain would ground him, but all it did was made him want to sink his claws into something else. It was either anger or desire. That was all he could feel in his moment and he hated her for it.

Growling low under his breath, he grabbed onto her waist and turned her again. “You’ve got your shoes on the wrong feet like a child. You know nothing about my people.”

“Considering I’ve never met one of you before, I don’t think that’s so surprising.”

Ragnar wasn’t expecting the fight from her. He wasn’t expecting that she would call him out for what was arguably outrageous behavior on his part. He was trying to throw her away. To get her to run from him or at least go back into the tent so that he could breathe a little easier.

Instead, she called him out on what was the stupidest thing he’d said yet, and that made him like her all the more. There was a hint of fire in her after all, and not just on the top of her head.

He was frozen in shock, unsure if he should argue back or if he should just shut up. But then a snort from his brother broke through his awareness and Ragnar leaned to the side to glare at the offending fool.

“What?” Gunnar said, then he shrugged. “She’s right, you know. You expect her to know how to put on our clothing, but you’ve seen what the humans wear.”

“Constricting nonsense that makes it hard for them to move,” Ragnar snarled.

His troll wife looked between the two of them and then eased around him. She sat on the opposite log, carefully removing her shoes and revealing tiny, delicate feet. He hadn’t looked at those much last night. But he was surprised to see that there were small cuts on the bottoms of them.

Angry that he’d missed it, he pointed at those wounds and demanded, “Where did you get those?”

“I slipped in the stream and cut my feet.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

Her head lifted. Locks of that bright red hair fell in front of her features, but he could easily see her eyes widen and her mouth drop open. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

She didn’t think he’d...

That was ridiculous. He was her husband. He was supposed to care about everything that came with her well-being and if she wouldn’t even tell him when she was bleeding, then what else would she hide? He was a healer! Everyone came to him with their wounds and the knowledge that his own wife wouldn’t?

He stood abruptly and started to leave. But then he remembered she was a meek little thing and apparently needed to be ordered around. So he marched right back to the fire and pointed in her face.

“Eat,” he snarled. “We have a long day ahead of us. I will not slow down for you again. Do not embarrass me before all the other trolls.”

And then he stalked away before he did something else stupid. Like hold those delicate little feet in his hands and heal every single wound. Like throw sand in his brother’s face and then lock tusks with him just because Gunnar got to eat breakfast with her and he didn’t.

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