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“Come to bed,” she said. “I don’t trust you, but it’s notbecauseof you. It’s…”
“It’s men,” he said. “You don’t trustmen. You go on these diatribes about society, because you think all of us—”
“I don’t trustpeople,” she said. She reached through the door and tugged him back inside. “It’s not just men making the patriarchy. Women make it work, too. Society makes it work. We’re all complicit, and we all sometimes just succumb to these primitive parts of ourselves, and love is just one of those stupid, stupid things that our instinct makes us do and that… that… even without a bond, do I really have a choice? What kind of choice is it? Safe and alone? Or constantly in danger of heartbreak and together?”
He shut the door. “If I commit to you, I’m not going anywhere. That’s not the sort of person I am.”
“Liar,” she said. “We’re all capable of hurting each other. That’s why it happens every day.”
“I’m not a liar,” he said. “You… it’s not me you have a terrible opinion of, it’s likeeveryone, huh?”
She shrugged. “I don’t trust people, but maybe I want to. And I don’t know if you figure outhowto trust again if you don’t, you know, risk it? I want to risk it with you.” Her eyes were welling with tears.
He crowded her into the wall, sweeping one huge hand under her jaw to cup her face. “I’m not a risk,” he said in a gravelly voice.
“Stay,” she said. “Don’t abandon me.”
He put his mouth on hers.
She clung to him, tongue moving desperately against his.
He pulled away. “I’m not going anywhere,” he breathed. “If you want me here, I’m here.”
“I want you here,” she said. “I’m not pushing you away. I’m just scared.”
His thumb feathered against her cheekbone. “I’m scared, too.”
SO, THEN THEYwent to bed, but they didn’t have sex. They didn’t even take off all their clothes. They slept in their shirts and their underwear. She burrowed into his chest and he wrapped his strong, strong arms around her and tucked her in against him. He traced the pads of his thick orc fingers over the back of her neck, over her shoulders, down the notches of her spine.
She plastered her face into him and breathed in his scent. She soaked up his warmth.
It had been a very long time since Hiljd had admitted to anyone that she wasn’t entirelyfineto doeverythingherself. Maybe not even with Valdemar. Maybe that was why Valdi had been so sensitive about not making much money—not because he was comparing himself to her, but because he wanted to matter to her, and he could tell she just wasn’t interested in making herself vulnerable.
The bond had ripped into them and taken them over.
The bond had done serious traumatic violence to them both.
They were both scarred forever from it.
It was no wonder she was wary of love, in the end, no wonder it scared the fuck out of her.
But here she was, falling for Gunnar. He fit against her, around her, inside her. And he felt like hers.
GUNNAR TURNED TOHiljd, who was coming down into her kitchen, wearing his t-shirt and nothing else, which he liked more than he could quite explain. “So, I didn’t know how you liked your eggs, so I cooked one sunny side up and one fried and one scrambled and then I realized I shouldn’t have wasted all your eggs, and I’ll buy you more and—”
“No, I’ll eat them all,” she said, sweeping in and sitting down at her little round kitchen table. There was a lazy susan in the middle with little snowmen figurines on it. She really did have snowmen everywhere, and he liked it. He couldn’t say why, it just seemed cozy and domestic and exactly the sort of thing the mother of his child should do. “I’m very hungry. Whenever I’m pregnant, I’msohungry in the mornings.”
Right, she had experience. She’d given birth and then her baby had died. And then she’d been alone in it. He had this lurch in his chest, this sensation of never wanting to leave her alone, wanting to protect her from that sort of pain ever again.
“Well, all the eggs for you, then,” he said.
“Did you cook some of the sausage? In the freezer? The little links?”
“I did not, but I can,” he said. “I was concentrating too much on eggs, I think.”
She beamed at him. “Thank you for breakfast.”
“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. He went over to her freezer and got out the frozen sausage links. “Can these just go right in the skillet?”
