I stared up at her silent but I felt my lips twitch.

Apparently, Father got it regular.

“Do you understand me, my darling girl?” she asked softly.

I nodded. I understood her. Totally.

Her face went soft and she murmured, “Good.”

Then she dropped her hand and moved to the door while I turned to watch, her sweet, soft touch still tingling on my skin, her smiling eyes burned on my brain.

She stopped at the door and looked at me. “The dressmakers have left the undergarments they have made for you to wear under your Gales gown in your dressing chamber. You may don them now in preparation for the fitting. I will find one of your maidservants to bring the dressmakers to you so you can be done with this chore and get on with whatever other…” she paused with meaning, “pressing matters you intend to see to today.”

Not exactly a subtle hint so it wasn’t lost on me.

It was time to seek out The Drakkar.

Shit.

She waited and she did this with obvious expectation.

So I gave her what she expected.

“Okay, Mother,” I whispered.

She lifted her chin majestically and I decided I had to practice that. The way she did it was way cool.

Then she moved gracefully through the door like she floated on air rather than walked on rug-covered wood and she was gone.

Chapter Sixteen

She Missed You

I stood in my dressing room wearing a pair of skintight, delicate, black silk undies that had an abundance of exquisite lace at the seat of my ass, a black satin, boned corset that tied up the front with a blood red ribbon that pushed up my br**sts and a red silk, loose-fitting, camisole-type thing under it that had a short, dense, lace ruffle around the edge, a black ribbon that drew it tight against my flesh and showed serious cle**age.

I had one foot on the lounge because I was connecting the second of a pair of the silkiest, flimsiest, most divine black silk stockings to the back garter that ran from the corset over my booty to the hose.

And I was thinking that the underwear in this world rocked in a big way because not only was all this hot, it was also impossibly comfortable and those silk stockings, even in a parallel universe nowhere near as advanced as mine, were the most extraordinary pieces of hosiery I’d ever touched.

And I was also thinking that any man, especially one who commanded dragons, would dig this underwear.

In a big freaking way.

Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking at the same time wondering how in the hell to find that man and then find the words to apologize to him in order to sort our shit out (and I was thinking the underwear might be useful) when the door opened.

“Hey,” I started to say, turning my head to who I expected to be one of my girls leading in the two dressmakers but instead seeing Frey standing statue-still, hand still on the door handle, eyes aimed at my ass.

I went statue-still too and took him in.

Okay, it was safe to say from the look on his face he definitely liked the underwear.

And it was also safe to say from the panic that seized my innards that I was definitely not ready for him to see me in it.

This was why I put my foot down, whirled and ran across the room to the screen that had my robe thrown over it.

I got there. I even got my hand on the robe. But the silk was soon gone from my hand because Frey got there with me and he jerked it right out of my grasp.

Ho boy.

I turned to face him, eyes wide, breaths coming fast like I’d run a two hundred yard dash and not across a room, my mind reeling for the right words to say to sort our shit out but with one look in his eyes, both heated and enraged, not one word came to mind.

“I think,” he growled, “don’t you, that at the very least I’m entitled to see the woman who is supposed to be my wife without cover.”

I stared up at him, close to panting.

Yep, definitely enraged.

That was when I did the smartest thing I could do.

I retreated.

Quickly.

And Frey advanced just as quickly, invading my space with every backward step I made until I slammed against the wall and he pushed right in, h*ps to my belly, he pinned me to the wall.

Oh shit.

I had to arch my back to tip my head to look at him which pressed my belly into his hips.

Shit!

“Frey –” I started and his name was breathless but I stopped saying whatever it was that was going to come out of my mouth when I heard gasps from across the room.

And I knew the dressmakers had arrived and I knew Frey heard them too but he didn’t release my eyes and I couldn’t look away as he barked an obviously impatient and equally infuriated, “Out!”

My body jerked with the noise.

Oh shit, shit, shit!

The door closed.

Shit.

“Frey –”

He cut me off this time by saying, “I’ve come to inform you,” he paused, his eyes moved to my rising and falling chest then back to my face, “wife,” he spat and my stomach clenched, “that I’m away in an hour. Business. I’ll be gone at least a month, likely longer.”

That was when my stomach wrenched searing pain up through my lungs and even in my throat.

And because of this, all I could manage was a whispered, “What?”

“I’m away in an hour,” Frey repeated.

He was away in an hour.

In an hour he was away.

Without me.

“But… but the Bitter Gales –” I started.

He interrupted me to bite off, “Is there reason for me to escort you to the Gales?”

“Uh…” Oh shit. Think Finnie! “Yes, you… you’re, um… my husband. A husband –”

“I’m not, Sjofn, there are many things I am but one thing I know I am not and that is your husband.”

That hurt, God, it hurt so bad, I had to close my eyes and turn my face away from the anger in his.

And it wasn’t him saying he wasn’t my husband.

It was him calling me Sjofn.

I was not Sjofn. I was Finnie. His wee Finnie. I was not the Sjofn he knew and hated.

I was not.

But I’d asked for that.

Shit. I’d asked for it.

I felt my throat clog as my breaths kept coming fast, my br**sts brushing his chest as they came.

Then I felt the tip of his finger glide along the dense ruffle at the edge of my camisole, light against my skin. Gentle, sweet and unbelievably sexy.

I closed my eyes tighter and my breaths came faster as hope budded at his touch.

Then his finger went away.

I missed it when it was gone and I clenched my eyes tight as the tears rushed up my throat.