He bit into the bread, and something in his shoulders eased. They ate in a silence that felt nothing like the charged, brittle quiet of their early days. This was comfortable, lived in.
Ragnar set down his cup, but his thumb traced the rim.
“I almost lost ye yesterday.” The words came stripped bare. No poetry, just the raw fact of it. “When I heard Liv scream... fer a moment, I couldnae breathe.”
Isolda set her fork down carefully. “But ye didnae lose me.”
His jaw tightened. “Three seconds later, and they’d have had ye on a horse and halfway tae the coast before I could’ve—” He stopped, drew a deep breath.
“Ragnar—”
“Me faither died in me arms, ye ken that. I killed him.”
The fire crackled.
Isolda said nothing, the anguish in his eyes making her eyes sting.
“Call it mercy. Call it honor. But at night, when ‘tis quiet—” He stared into the fire. “I just call it what it is. Murder.”
She rose from her chair. Ragnar’s eyes tracked her, wary, braced.
He thinks this is the part where I see the monster.
She crossed the small distance between them and knelt beside his chair. Took his hands—those broad, scarred, impossibly gentle hands and pressed them between both of hers.
“Ye gave him what he asked fer.” Her voice was steady, though her chest ached. “Ye loved him enough tae carry that weight, sparin’ him sufferin’. That isnae murder, Ragnar. That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He stared at her. Something moved behind his eyes—something vast and barely held, like a sea wall taking on more than it could bear.
His breathing changed, roughened. His fingers curled around hers so tightly she felt the controlled tremor running through him—the restraint of a man who’d spent his whole life holding everything together and was now, for the first time, allowing the cracks to show.
“Ye’re kneelin’ beside me in yer shift, and ye just told me the worst thing I’ve ever done isbrave.”
“Well, it is.”
A sound came from deep in his chest—low, rough, almost a growl, the kind of sound a man makes when something breaks loose that he’d been holding down for far too long. His hands released hers and found her face instead, tilting it upward, his thumbs tracing her jaw with a tenderness that made her pulse stutter and kick.
“Ye told me I made ye a promise,” he murmured, his mouth hovering so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her lips.
Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. “Ye’ve promised me a great many things, husband. Ye’ll have tae be a wee bit more specific.”
“That when I kissed ye,” his thumb grazed the corner of her mouth, feather-light, devastating, “I’d be thorough.”
“Aye.” The word barely made it past the tightness in her throat. “I remember.”
Ragnar leaned in, his lips stopping a fraction short of hers, smiled, and then his mouth found hers.
He kissed her, but there was nothing gentle about it, nothing careful or measured or restrained. It was the kiss of a man who’d been drowning and had finally broken the surface—raw, fierce, all-consuming. His lips moved against hers with a hunger that stole the breath from her lungs, one hand cradling her jaw while the other slid into her hair, angling her head and pulling her upward as he stood to deepen the kiss.
Isolda’s hands fisted in his tunic, pulling him closer. A sound escaped her and his answering groan vibrated through her chest. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, and when she opened for him, he tasted her so thoroughly that her knees threatened to give in entirely.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead resting against hers, both of them breathing hard, she couldn’t think, could barely see.
“Well.” Her voice came out wrecked, breathless. “I suppose ye’re a man of yer word after all.”
“I’ve barely started wi’ ye.”
The promise in those five words sent heat flooding through her so fast she went dizzy. His arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, setting her on the edge of their bed. The shift rode up her thighs and his gaze dropped, tracing the bare skin above her knee with an intensity that made her stomach flutter.