Chloe laughed and was about to deny any part in the state of Fenris’s mood, when he pushed into her mind. “We shall be met at the longhouse. I would have my grooming attended to.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed at the women in the lake. Was there some kind of family version of wolf telepathy she didn’t know about? “Um … hi,” she mind-spoke back to Fenris. “Do you mind washing your own hair today? I’m at the lake and I still have to—“
“We shall be met at the house.”
So Chloe pulled on her prairie dress and walked back to the house, where she found him standing in the door in only his pants and his sword strapped across his back.
“Where be your woman’s dagger?” he asked as she walked up the longhouse. “We have spoken of this. What if you be met with some manner of animal while you pick herbs in the forest?”
“Then it would probably kill me,” she answered. “You saw what happened when you tried to take me on that field trip to the sheep farm and they slaughtered that poor little lamb. Me and up-close-and-personal animal killing don’t exactly go together.”
He gave her what she’d probably call a “much aggrieved” look, if she were speaking in Old Norse, and then walked past her, leaving it to her to follow.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked a little while later as they approached the hot springs in gloomy silence.
“Nay,” he answered between gritted teeth.
“Because if this is about me not washing your hair these last couple of weeks, you should know I’m super-busy with all the stuff that needs to get done for the wedding.”
“I do repeat, I am not angry with you.”
“Well, you snapped at me about the dagger, and you didn’t even laugh at my self-deprecating sheep farm comment—which was pretty funny.”
“Chloe, I hold no anger toward you.”
She twisted the side of her mouth, “But see, I think you do—”
She wasn’t able to finish, because he suddenly turned her around, placing her hands on the rowan tree beside the hot spring before whipping her the skirt of her dress up. And then he was inside her, his fingers clawing into her hips, as he pumped into her.
As she’d grown big with the baby, they’d developed different positions for different places, against the tree while at the hot spring, on hands and knees on the benches and floors, and reverse cowgirl—a position that had particularly blown Fenris’s Viking mind—for the bed closet. Usually Fenris took his time with her these days, careful with her and with the baby.
However, that day he slammed into her mercilessly, as if crazed and out of control. And her she-wolf loved it. Howled inside of her for more, even as he drove into her hard and rough. “Yes! Yes!” she said in English. “That feels so good, Fenris. More, more!”
It was all she could do to hold on to the tree as the orgasm washed over her, fierce and breathing like a beast coming alive within her. “Fenris,” she cried out. “Oh, Fenris.”
He let out an angry roar, and she felt him spilling hot ropes of cum inside of her, his cock pulsing between her folds as his large rough hands held tight to her hips.
But to her surprise, as soon as he had fully released, he pulled out of her, letting go of her hips with a disgusted growl.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“No.” She turned around just in time to see him kick off his shoes and pants, which were pooled around his ankles.
“And the pup? He is unharmed?” He unbuckled his sword and also let that fall to the ground.
“He’s kicking up a storm like, ‘Hey, what just happened?’ But other than that, he’s fine. Are you okay?”
His face was now a grim mask. “I am sorry I took you in this manner.”
“My she-wolf isn’t.” She cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered, “Don’t tell her I told you, but I think she might like the rough stuff.”
His answer to that wasn’t to laugh but instead to turn and do a running dive into the hot spring water, leaving her there to awkwardly adjust her skirt.
By the time she made it over to the bank, he was lathering soap under his arms and over his shoulders. He looked angry, truly angry. And she had no idea why. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked him.
WHEN HIS QUEEN CAME TO STAND above him at the hot spring’s bank, he lathered the soap over his chest, refusing to meet her eyes. “You did speak truth. You will probably be safe to return to the village without your woman’s dagger. You may take your leave now. I will attend to my own grooming.”
But she remained where she was. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked again.
He gave the air an exasperated glance. “No, you have done nothing wrong. Return to the village, so you may finish your wedding preparations.”
Her answer to that command was to carefully lower herself down to the ground and crisscross her legs under her swollen belly, “I thought we were getting along now.”
He gritted his teeth. “We are.” He turned away from her, soaping himself in the opposite direction, hoping that would put an end to the conversation.
But she said behind him, “Then under our communication contract, I would have your thoughts.”
He slowly turned around to face her unable to keep his annoyance off his face.
“Be there need to know my thoughts when there is so much for you to attend?” he asked.
“Just the fact that you’re acting like you care how much I have to do is setting off my alarms, Fenris, so come on, spill.”
“I know not this ‘setting off alarms’—” he began.
“You’re stalling.”
Indeed he was. But how to tell her in words his feelings when he did not understand them himself? “I did try,” he confessed.
“You tried what?” she asked, shaking her head.
“You think I saw not all the work you have been doing, that I care not for your well-being or what you would want. But I did see you have been tired of body and slowed in your actions because of our pup. I am a wolf but I did not want to act the animal. And I did try to stay away from you, to give you the days you did need to make ready for our wedding. It nearly drove me mad.”
She folded her hands on top of her belly. “So let me get this straight. You’re angry now because you were so horny?”
“I know not the meaning of ‘horny.’”
“Full of losti.”