Page 125 of Fallen Gods
“Frost…”
I lean closer, my hair falling around us like a curtain.
“Odinfather…frost…”
My stomach twists. He’s not dreaming—he’s remembering. Gods, what is he seeing?
I pull the blanket over his trembling body and back away, myhands shaking as I grab my clothes off the floor. Every piece I slide on feels mechanical, like I’m dressing someone else, like this moment isn’t real.
When I look back, he hasn’t woken. He’s still caught in whatever vision is clawing at him, silver blood drying like war paint across his skin.
Unsure what to do, I start to inch away from the bed. Aric’s hand lashes out and captures mine. He strokes his thumb along my wrist, cooling—and healing—my skin.
“Tired,” he croaks from the bed.
“You should rest.”
“But the night was going to end so well, with you naked.”
I laugh despite being worried. But I don’t leave his room. I linger beside his bed.
“It would be easy if I didn’t like you,” I admit, as if what just happened between us wasn’t earth-shattering and world-bending. I can feel him all around me, like I no longer exist on my own.
“Life is rarely easy, and sex complicates everything—even really,reallygood sex with ice, and frost, and shivering—”
I cup a hand over his mouth. “Stop or you’ll have an orgasm without me.”
He clasps my hand in his. “Impossible. No man left behind.”
I laugh again. He cracks an eye and holds the blanket up for me to lie back next to him.
I don’t hesitate.
He peels the covers back farther, and I dive in against the golden heat of his skin, the body of a Giant carved from storm and shadow. I gulp.
“I’m not a piece of meat, Rey.” His mouth tilts in a lazy grin. “Giants have feelings, too.”
My cheeks flame. He catches it, of course.
“Wow,” he murmurs, tracing my jaw with his knuckles. “Sheblushes. Pretty. Where else do you blush?”
Before I can answer, his hand slides lower, cupping my breast, then gliding down my stomach in a slow, deliberate path that makes my pulse stutter.
I gasp as he flips me onto my back.
“Thought you were tired,” I breathe.
Shut up, Rey. Not the time to remind the man he’s tired.
“Second wind.” His palms spread wide over my hips, pinning me. “Don’t tell me how to feel. I’m hungry now.”
The meaning hits me the moment his head disappears beneath the sheets. A teasing kiss. Then the cool brush of his breath between my legs.
His hands grip my thighs. “Blush,” he whispers, icy air fanning heat where I need him most. My body arches in answer.
“Still worried about you,” I pant. But we both know that’s not true.
“Good.” His laugh is dark, wicked. “It’ll make me more determined to hear you scream my name.”
