Not with a man who would share this with me and give me multiple orgasms multiple times but with the man I would chose to share this with, trusting him enough to open myself so completely, I was fully exposed and instead of taking everything, he handed me the world.
He handed me the world.
And I was going to take it.
I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going home except to tie up my life, explain and say good-bye to people I loved.
I was going to embark on the ultimate adventure.
Somehow, someway, I had to figure out how to talk my husband (and the king and queen) into accepting me as a replacement for good and communicate with Sjofn that her hopes for Lunwyn had come true.
I was going to stay with the man I loved in this fabulous world that had elves and dragons (and people who wanted to kill me, but I decided not to think of that).
And I was going to do it forever.
* * * * *
“Do you suppose we should eat, wee one?” Frey murmured
Frey was on his back, his arm around me, his fingers drawing lazy patterns on my hip. I was pressed to his side, cheek on his shoulder, my leg over his, my fingertips floating absently across the skin of his wide chest. But at his question, I dropped my hand to that chest, pressed in and curled my body deeper into him.
Truth be told, I was absolutely famished. I’d learned having hours of very energetic sex and countless orgasms did that to you.
But right then it was just Frey and me tangled in each other and velvet blankets on a divan in a cabin on a fabulous ship with nothing but the dark cut minimally by moonlight coming in his windows and the fact that I’d just come to the realization I was in love for the first time in my life. And I liked all of it just like that and I didn’t want to lose any of it.
To communicate all this, I mumbled, “Mm.”
His body shook with his inaudible chuckle and he rolled into me so we were both on our sides, face to face.
I could barely make him out in the moonlight but I didn’t need to. I’d remember his face and every inch of his skin until my dying breath.
His hands drifted up and down my back and his voice was soft when he asked, “Do you want to doze while I find food?”
My arm around him got tighter and I blurted, “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
His hands stopped drifting and he held tight before he whispered, “All right, my Finnie, I’ll not go anywhere.”
I nodded and dipped my chin, pressing my face in his chest and his hands started drifting again, one gliding up to play with my hair.
I didn’t stroke, I just held on.
And both of us did this for awhile.
Finally, I broke the silence to ask quietly, “How do people go back to normal sex after that?”
Frey answered just as quietly, “If they do it with their partner, they don’t.”
I blinked at his chest then my head tipped back, I heard his move on the pillow and I knew he was looking down at me.
“They don’t?” I queried.
“Never.”
Ho boy.
“Frey,” I whispered, “that was… it was…well, freaking awesome but we can’t do it like that every time. It would kill us.”
His chuckle was audible this time and he gave me a slight squeeze before he explained, “No, my love, the adela tea isn’t meant to be used every time, not even sometimes. It is meant to be used carefully, it is meant to be used as a means to deepen something that is already deep, to heighten awareness of things that are already there. There are those who use it simply for pleasure but when a husband and wife who care about each other use it, the goddess Adele’s intent for her gift is much more meaningful.”
Both his arms got tight around me and he gently pulled me up so my head was on a pillow by his.
Then he said softly, “I know things about you now, things you like, sounds you make, expressions on your face that I may not have understood or would have missed before. I would assume you now hold the same knowledge about me.”
He would assume correct in a big way.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His head bent so his forehead was touching mine and he was whispering too when he replied, “It will never be the same between us because we hold that knowledge, we’re more in tune, we better understand not only what brings pleasure to each other but also to ourselves. We won’t miss those things as we might have done before, wee one, we’ll know how to take advantage of them. It will not be the same as we just had but it won’t need to be and it will make something that was already splendid much better.”
Wow. That was actually kind of beautiful.
“Boy,” I breathed, “that Adele knows what she’s doing.”
Frey gathered me closer and tipped his mouth so his lips touched mine.
I felt his were smiling.
Then he said quietly, “She is a goddess, Finnie.”
“Right,” I whispered, he chuckled and moved his head slightly back.
Then I asked the question no girl should ask, no time, no place, no reason, no matter what.
But I asked it.
“Have you done that with other women?”
His big relaxed body grew stiff and I closed my eyes tight then opened them and tried to repair the damage.
“I’m sorry, Frey, so, so sorry. It’s none of my –”
He cut me off to say, “Two.”
I blinked at him in the dark then asked, “What?”
“Two,” he repeated then continued. “A courtesan in Fleuridia and that time it was not about a deeper meaning but an intense experience. It had no meaning. I don’t even recall her name.”
Hmm.
“And a woman in Sudvic,” he went on. “A widow who I visited frequently when I was in the city and this acquaintance lasted some time. She introduced it in an attempt to get me to feel more about what we shared than was there. But if it isn’t there, you can’t make it be there. Her attempt backfired for she exposed how she felt about me, feelings I knew I couldn’t return. I came to understand it was unfair to give her hope by continuing our liaison and shortly after, I stopped visiting her.” His arms gave me another squeeze and he explained, “Adele rules passion but she holds no sway over love.”
I was pleased he was honest and trusted me without hesitation with stories of his past. That felt nice and said a lot of good things about him.
But at his mention of love, I held my breath hoping he wouldn’t notice I was holding my breath and also hoping that maybe he was about to share something so I could share something, both of which were crucially important.
I quietly let my breath out when he didn’t.
I hid my disappointment with another question. “So the Lunwynians don’t actually have a goddess of love, just passion and motherhood?”
“For the ancients, when the dragons flew freely, they did,” Frey answered and he gave me another squeeze and whispered, “Her name was Sjofn.”
I held my breath again and after awhile let it out when he said no more.
Then I shared, “My parents named me after a Norse goddess of love. She was an ancient goddess too. They did this because I was born with my hair. They thought it looked like snow. There’s a lot of snow in
