A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [99]
Opening her eyes, she watched him sleep. His sooty lashes lay in dark crescents against his lean bronzed cheeks. Her throat tightened with love to see him looking so peaceful, even while her body quivered at the prospect of making love with him again. She slid down the bed and rained tiny kisses across his chest, gradually working her way over the taut muscles of his abdomen and lower.
He woke with a gasp and pushed up on an elbow. “Sonja, love . . .” He blinked at her as she dropped a kiss on his hip. “We need to talk.”
“Not more talk.” She wrinkled her nose. She was well aware they had issues to discuss, like where she would live and how she’d earn a living, but that could wait until later. She ran a teasing finger over his belly and thighs. Already things were starting to perk up down there. She grinned at him, excitement tingling through her. For the first time in her life she could do what she wanted without her aunt watching her every move. How ironic that Odin’s ring had confined her, yet set her free to be with Vidar.
She straddled his thighs and smoothed her palms up his body until she lay on top of him. Then she wiggled her hips and his breath shuddered out. His hands settled at her waist and she rubbed her lips across his, teasing him with the tip of her tongue. Although he kissed her back, she sensed reluctance. A tiny chill took the edge off the heat in her belly.
Breaking the kiss, she rested her head on his shoulder, suddenly uncertain. The first time they’d made love had been wonderful for her, but perhaps she’d overestimated his enthusiasm. She kissed his neck and stroked tiny circles on his chest. Perhaps he was just tired.
“Sonja.” Vidar rolled over, depositing her on the bed beside him. He propped his head on a hand. “We need to discuss the past and how it affects us.”
Goose bumps rushed across her skin, so she pulled the quilt over herself. He must mean about the disagreement between their families. “I’m sorry my grandfather killed your brother, but that doesn’t have to be a problem for us, does it?”
Vidar rubbed a hand over his face and wouldn’t meet her gaze. The tiny chill inside her hardened to a ball of ice.
“Vidar, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want you to worry . . . but you have to know something. You weren’t born twenty-six years ago, Sonja. You were born a lot earlier than that.”
“What?” She squinted at him in the firelight. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Two thousand years earlier, to be precise.”
“Yeah, right.” The tension in her gut released. She laughed, expecting him to smile. He didn’t.
Silence stretched between them until her ears hummed. He was freaking serious.
“That’s crazy! There were cars and planes and stuff when I was little.”
Yet, why was she trying to counter such a ridiculous claim?
Vidar sighed as if what he was about to say ripped at his soul. He climbed off the bed and pulled on his pants before joining her again. Resting his back against the headboard, he leaned his forearms on his raised knees and said, “There’s no easy way to explain this, so I’m just going to say it. Everything I told you about the past was true, but I left out a couple of things. Troy’s father killed my brother two thousand years ago. That was before Troy developed his power. Odin wanted to kill you and your mother along with Troy as part of his revenge. I managed to persuade him not to kill you. Instead, I had you frozen in a Crystal Crib by a frost fairy.”
Sonja’s gaze riveted to Vidar’s face. How could the man she’d made love with be so old? She’d thought he was maybe thirty-five. That would have made him nine when she was born and explain how he’d been old enough to take her Magic Knot to keep tabs on her. But . . . two thousand? She couldn’t even comprehend living that long.
“Did you hear me, Sonja?”
“I don’t believe you’re two thousand years old.”
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his