White Stag (Permafrost #1)(74)

“Go ahead,” he said. My heart fluttered. “Or are you scared?” he teased.

“Never,” I said, working at the laces. He left them deliberately loose, and he shrugged off the jerkin with ease. With one hand, he reached back and pulled the tunic over his head, baring his chest.

Like mine, it was covered in scars and flat with muscle. This time, he didn’t need to take my hand. I traced the scars on my own. He reached around to cradle my head.

“If I kiss you, will you kill me?” he asked, eyes sparkling.

“Only if you stop,” I said and finally gave in.

His lips pressed against mine with a type of urgency I didn’t know his kind could feel. My hands wrapped in his hair, and when he broke away to kiss my neck, the fine, white locks spilled around me. One of his hands went for the strings on my undershirt while mine tugged at his new pants. His teeth grazed against the sensitive skin of my remaining breast and I tilted my head back.

It didn’t matter anymore. Being human, being goblin-blooded, being a traitor to my kind, or whatever was spouted by those who didn’t understand me. All that mattered was my happiness, and right now, in this moment, I was happier than I’d ever been.

“Do you still want to take a bath?” he whispered, as he nicked my ear with his canines.

“Maybe a bit later,” I said. “When we’re dirtier.”

He smiled wickedly. “I vastly underestimate you sometimes, did you know that?” His hand skimmed around my hip, moving up the small of my back until he was stroking my spine. This time I heard him move and felt the heat of his body against mine. He had to be close, very close.

“If I wasn’t vastly underestimated by more deadly beings, then I would be dead already,” I said.

“Spoken like a true hunter.” His touch disappeared, and I ached to pull him closer until it reappeared lower on my body. A strange sound escaped my throat.

Soren paused. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Open your eyes.”

I did. He was so close, our bodies almost touched. My head reached up to his chest, right where his heart should’ve been. I thought I heard something in there too. “Do you have a heartbeat?” I asked.

“If I do,” he said, “I don’t hear it. Not like a human’s. But I’m a living creature, so I suppose so.”

There. Proof that this monster had a heart.

The wicked, catlike grin returned to his face as he tipped my head up, lips pressing against mine. A shiver rocked me to my core until it was melted away by a slow-burning fire.

He softly bit my lip and ran his tongue across it. His mouth trailed down to my throat, to the side of my neck, and when he pulled away, I found my free hand twining into his hair, pulling him close again. He chuckled and kept kissing, going as far down as he could. His lips skimmed against the scar tissue on my chest, treating it as tenderly as he would perfect, flawless skin. One of his hands cupped my remaining breast, his thumb caressing it softly.

We backed up until we were on my makeshift bed with the furs pulled tightly against our bodies.

I was breathless. I was on fire. I was floating and falling at the same time. I was everything, but I wasn’t afraid.

His lips pressed under the skin of my ear, and I heard him whisper, “Is this okay?” His hips shifted to press hard against mine, and I could feel the eagerness in his own body.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” he asked breathily. “You can always say no. I’ll understand.”

I took his hand from my breast and brought it to my lips, kissing his knuckles. “What happened to me, happened. It still wakes me up at night. I still feel the fear. But you aren’t Lydian, and I trust you. Yes, I’m sure.”

He moved so he could look me in the eyes, the furs parting so the cold air could come in.

“I’m going to get cold.” I buried my face in his shoulder as the air stung my exposed skin.

“I’ll keep you warm,” Soren promised.

And he did.



* * *



LATER, LYING ON the furs and still tangled up in his body, I smiled. My body ached, but it was a good ache. A glow filled me, some type of lazy euphoria that made me sleepy and content. “That was nice.”

He’d buried himself in my hair and from there he chuckled. “That is the understatement of the century. If I’m going to die, at least now I can die with my life’s purpose fulfilled.” His lips pressed against the back of my neck. “You’re sure you’re not hurting anywhere?”

“I’m fine. And I didn’t know your life’s purpose was to be with me.”

His body shook from laughter. “I thought it was obvious.”

“So what were you doing those six hundred-odd years I wasn’t alive?” I joked. “Twiddling your thumbs with boredom, waiting until you could sleep with a goblin-blooded human girl?”

“What else is there to do?” He was still laughing.

I sighed contently. Here was one goblin whose cackle-like laugh I didn’t mind. “You’re getting quite good at the sarcasm, you know.”

“I picked it up quick. A century has to be a record,” he said. “Which is good considering I’d be totally confused where you and Seppo were concerned otherwise.”