Page 73 of A Darkness So Sweet

“You’d know if she was willing.”

Ragnar didn’t want her to mistake it for just a dream, though. He wanted her ready and willing and dripping like she had been in the kitchen. Just the thought made every muscle in his body tense and his cock so hard that he thought it might burst.

“You could always go to the brothels. There are plenty of women there who would love to have you back.”

But he didn’t want to go to the brothel, either, because at some point his mind had shifted to wanting red hair wrapped around his wrist. He wanted to count the freckles on her shoulders and lick at them like they were tiny drops of caramel. He wanted to twist her body into every position he could think of just to see if he could get that sound to come out of her mouth again, like it had the first time he’d made her come.

And then the second.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “I have no interest in a moment of release. I want all of this to be over with so I can convince my wife to fuck me.”

“You could go right now.”

He stared at Gunnar in silence. It wasn’t fair of his brother to tempt him like that. He had too many duties, too many things to do right now that would lead his people toward victory. This was his duty to the entirety of troll kind.

And somehow, Gunnar was still staring at him like he was an idiot.

“Well?” his brother asked.

“You know I can’t go anywhere right now. I have too much to do.”

“You don’t have too much to do that you cannot return home, fuck your wife, and be back in...” Gunnar’s lips mashed together. “An hour or two? Three hours, if you don’t break her.”

“There is much I could do here in three hours.” But he wasn’t thinking about making potions or grinding up healing herbs. He was thinking about what it would be like if he hooked her knee over his shoulder and drove into her soft, wet heat.

Three hours wasn’t enough. He’d need more. There were too many things he wanted to do and so many ways he wanted her to scream. He’d need five hours, and then maybe he would be satisfied enough. At least for a little while.

She’d have to eat, after all.

“I’ll cover for you,” Gunnar said, grinning far too wide. “You need a break, Ragnar. You need to get all those thoughts out of your head or you’re going to make a mistake.”

“I don’t know if she’ll even want me.” Or if she was even ready.

But if he spent a few hours making sure she was prepared, she could take him. And damn it, now he was drooling. Wiping at his mouth, he tried to hide the reaction from his brother, who was still grinning from ear to ear.

He had to do something about this reaction. It wasn’t natural to feel this way about a woman—that much he knew. Their father certainly hadn’t followed their mother around like a panting beast.

“Go on,” Gunnar said. “I’ll cover for you. And then we can see what to do about the rest of this business.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Ragnar stood, heading out the door and up a winding stairwell. The room in the depths of the castle had always been for healing, but it was far away from the entrance. It took some time for him to walk through the crowds of people who were working, all of them finding something to keep them busy at times like these. From the people who kept the castle clean, to the blacksmiths working on weapons, to all the generals who trained their warriors, it was always bustling here.

Ragnar usually enjoyed these crowds. He would take his time walking through them all, ensuring that he said hello to everyone he had healed before. Many of them wanted to speak with him about potions or stiff shoulders. And normally, he wouldn’t mind.

But right now? He wanted to get home to his woman so he could focus on them. Their relationship. The taste of her skin and the sound of her pleasure. All the things that he should have been focusing on since the beginning, and yet had been pulled away from multiple times. He justwantedand it was his greatest hope that she wanted the same thing.

He felt lighter than he had in a week. It wasn’t just about the sex that he was going to please her with, because he would use one of those recovery half hours to ask her how it had been going in the garden. He’d heard she had managed to tame the impossible troll. Birger didn’t hate her. He didn’t like her, of course, but he didn’t hate her. And that was saying something for the old man.

Every detail of her life was something he wanted to hear about. Did she like the job he’d picked for her? Did she hate it?

If he knew her as well as he believed he’d come to, she’d absolutely love it.

Ragnar inched by a group of new warriors he knew would stop him and ask about their sore muscles, trying to remain out of sight. They were the first to complain about how they were feeling during training hours. It was always an excuse for them to return home when they were feeling lazy.

The castle doors burst open and a single scout raced in. He was covered in dirt and red mud… although on closer inspection Ragnar realized it was blood. The troll ran through the front rooms of the castle, heading toward the throne without a single word to anyone else.

Ragnar stared at the open door. He could still leave. He could head out into the city and no one would come to get him. If there was something terribly wrong, someone would get sent out to his home and they would interrupt whatever happened there. If he hurried, there might be time for a single taste.

But he could feel the fear and anger that rose in the room at the arrival of the scout. Something was seriously wrong. That man had been sent out for a good reason, and coming back like that? Clearly, the troll had a message that could only be for the king’s ears.

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