“You know closing your eyes is cheating?”
She opened them and met his gaze.
Tyr must have seen the sorrow because he dropped all pretense of play and gathered her into his arms. “My love, what is it?”
Scarlet shook her head until he pressed around her, and she burrowed into his bare chest. There was no way she could hold it back now. She cried, sobbed, and broke apart as he held her.
Not once in her life had she cried. Not once. Yet she sat in her husband’s embrace, a witness’ embrace, and tears streamed down her cheeks in hot waves. They came forward as if the dam inside her had broken allowing them to finally fall. She sobbed against his shoulder, and he held her singing a ballad that lulled her into sleep. His rich deep voice comforting her, telling her she was safe.
Chapter Eight
TYR WOKE WITH SCARLET in his arms, the single happiest moment in years. She’d cried herself to sleep, and at first he didn’t know what to do. She’d never once cried. Even when she’d been stabbed in the stomach by a crazy Valkyrie just after their wedding, she hadn’t shed so much as a tear.
This new sensitive side of Scarlet scared him, but at the same it brought a sense of relief. She always guarded that part of herself, even when they’d met. She never once let him in, and he felt like finally she might.
He didn’t move for fear of waking her even though his arm had lost feeling long ago. Sunlight bounced off nearby buildings and streamed in landing softly against her cheek. She was so beautiful it made his chest ache to look at her. The last time he’d held her like this, they lay exhausted across his bed, the night breeze blowing through the curtains. They’d made love with a furious intensity that night. Had he known she would be gone the next morning, he would have chained her to his bed until he’d talked some sense into her.
She stirred in his arms then sat bolt upright and looked around. When her eyes rested on him, his heart seized for a moment. He sat up beside her and shook out his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.” Scarlet nodded looking around the room and then over at the alarm clock beside the bed. She turned back and then jumped up, throwing the covers off her naked body and racing toward the bathroom. “I’m late for work.”
Why she wanted to go work, he had no idea. She didn’t like her job or her colleagues, and he was more than willing to provide for her.
In the meantime, he could help relax her. He stood and divested the rest of his clothing into a pile on the floor moving toward the bathroom. She stood naked in front of the mirror brushing her teeth furiously.
He leaned against the doorframe and let her wide gaze travel up his body. “Why are you going to work?”
She shook herself back to her task. When finished, she spit the foam from her mouth and turned on the shower. “I have to make money and survive here. I have to.”
“You say it as though people doubt your ability. Why do you torture yourself in such a way when I’m more than willing to care for you?”
“What am I supposed to do? Sit around and let you feed and clothe me? I can’t do that.”
“Then do something else. I would be more than happy to unclothe you and feed you, but at least you could focus on other things like trying to find something you’re passionate about. You could try something new at your own leisure that would make your life more full, make you happier. I know you don’t want to work at Katherine’s café, and that is fine. But you also do not want to work for that dreadful, squat little human either. I know it.”
He watched Scarlet war with herself. She hung her head and clutched the side of the sink. Tyr allowed her the time. She’d done the same thing the night he’d asked her to marry him. That time she didn’t say anything for twenty minutes after he’d asked. She liked to think things through, and he possessed the patience to let her. This time she didn’t make him wait quite that long.
“You’re saying you will take care of me. Ensure I want for nothing while I search of a pastime I enjoy?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“Have you lost your brain, woman? I’m your husband, and I love you. I took an oath to care for you, and you have deprived me of that ability for far too long.”
“Fine,” she said with a short pause. “I’ll allow it. For now.”
He smiled and swept her into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he gripped her ass with his one hand and held her waist with the other arm. When her lips met his, he savored the taste of the mint toothpaste on his tongue because hers had delivered it there. She broke away breathless, and he set her down.
“Want to shower?” she asked stepping into the glass enclosure with a saucy look. Oh how he missed that gleam in her eye when she was up to mischief. To his disappointment she really did want to shower and quickly finished the task leaving him wet, hard, and alone.
She wrapped a towel around her upper body and dried her hair with another. “Do you want to try this sparring thing again?”
He watched her as he lathered up his chest. “Don’t you need to make a call?”
Her eyes flew wide. “Right.” He could hear her in the other room. “Mr. Ericks, this is Scarlet. Sorry I was not in on time this morning. I’m just calling to say, I quit.”
“What did he say?” Tyr shouted as he rinsed the rest of the soap from his skin before stepping out of the water and turning it off. He exited the bathroom to hear her reply.
“He planned on firing me today anyway.” She shrugged and dropped the wet towel over the chair before grabbing some lotion and slathering it on her arms. He watched enrapt before she stopped and glared at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, sitting down on the desk chair to watch her.
“Even harbingers of the apocalypse need to moisturize.”
“Of course they do.”
She narrowed her eyes at him again before continuing her ministrations. He didn’t get up for at least a few minutes after she’d finished because of the ache in his balls. He feared he would be unable to walk.
Tyr picked up the hotel phone and called the concierge. “We are going to need a personal shopper. Yes, we have a list. Male and female. Thank you.” She turned to stare at him. “What? You need clothes; I need clothes. As much as I would love to keep you cooped up here naked and in bed, I figured you might have something to say about that.”
“Indeed.” She stretched then climbed on the bed and situated herself to braid her hair. He joined her and kissed the top of her head which she brushed away. “Stop, you’ll mess up my hair.”
He chuckled and settled back. “We don’t have to be dressed to spar.”
“You want me to hit you while you’re naked? What if I...hurt you?”
“Like that will happen.”
“I have done nothing but train for the last three years,” she said with a smirk.
“Well, then maybe you have caught up to me.”
Scarlet glared at him, got up, and walked to the open space between the living room and the dining room. Watching her settle into a fight stance while naked was the biggest turn on of his life. “You know I can’t fight you while you have a huge erection. It is too distracting.”
“Distractions are everywhere. A good fighter learns to ignore them.”
She pursed her lips but remained silent. He set up a fighting stance despite the deep throb in his lower region. He remembered his own words, distractions are everywhere.
Scarlet threw the first punch as usual, and he blocked it with his forearm easily. “Don’t play with me.”
“You very much want me to play with you.” He grinned before stepping to the side and sweeping his leg out to knock her down. She didn’t fall for it and danced gracefully away but not before jabbing him in the kidney with an uppercut. He groaned but shook it off before facing her again.
Scarlet beamed at him, and he saw the woman he’d married. So confident she believed even naked she could win a fight against a god. She threw a right hook which he batted awa
y. She moved to knee him, but he blocked it and took her to the ground. If distractions were a problem before, it proved even worse as he lay between her open thighs. Naked flesh met naked flesh, and he almost groaned aloud from the contact.
“Ah ah ah, distractions,” she teased.
He made to flip her so he could gain the dominant position, but she anticipated it and shifted so he did little more than grind his erection into her belly.
“Holy hell, woman. There is only so much distraction I can take.”
She smiled and swiftly boxed his ears with her cupped hands. He shook it off, but in that second she gained the upper hand to wiggle out from under him and into a crouch.
He dropped face down onto the floor and spoke into the carpet. “I concede, woman.”
“Ha ha!” she shouted and jumped up to stand before crouching back down and looking at him from the side. “Are you alright?”
“My balls ache for wanting you, woman. You tease me mercilessly.”
“There is no mercy here.”
“I figured.”
The doorbell sounded through the apartment, and she ran to put on a robe while he rolled over onto his back to free his rock hard erection from the confines of the rough carpet. She laughed and tied the robe before answering the door. He heard her speaking to the person on the other side before closing it again.
“Are you going to stay there all day?” she asked after a moment.
He looked up at her and smiled. “If you come down here with me.”
“Not a chance.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes, I’m afraid you will peel this robe from my body and make love to me on the floor until the hotel receives a noise complaint.”
“I paid well enough that a noise complaint should not even be an issue. I think we own the floor.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Why is that a bad thing, my love?”
“Because I’m not going to go back to Asgard or the void, and I don’t think you can stay here. I think you will miss home, and I’ll be left here to fend for myself. I don’t think I’m capable of giving you up a second time.”
Hearing the truth from her lips felt like an out of tune piano finally hitting the correct note. “Finally, you tell the truth. Why was that so difficult?”
Scarlet shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard for me to admit my feelings when I have to keep them bottled up inside. I don’t know what to do with them. I feel them for a moment and then shove them away. I think that’s what happened last night. They grew too great and exploded into a very embarrassing display. I could be the poster child for why adults should go to therapy.”
Tyr chuckled and climbed up to crawl across the floor on his knees. He touched her thigh and then kissed it gently. “You don’t need to feel embarrassed with me. You don’t need to feel shame with me. You only need to feel wanted and loved and happy. That is all I ask of you. To want me, love me, and be happy to be with me.”
“Those don’t seem like terribly hard demands.”
“And they should not be,” he said as he twirled his finger in a circle around her kneecap. He knew in a moment she would be reduced to feminine giggles when the sensation began to tickle. Tyr craved to hear her laughter. When it did not follow, he looked up at her concern.
It was a long standing fact Scarlet was only ticklish in that one spot. He knew something bothered her further when she pulled away from his touch. The woman always confounded him. Every time he though he was gaining ground, she found a reason to push him away. Was it all for nothing?
Chapter Nine
SCARLET TURNED HER FACE away to keep the tears from falling. Last night they’d sprung free as if they’d been waiting all her life. She’d broken down, and luckily he’d been there to hold the pieces together until she could get up again. She absolutely wasn’t a weepy woman. “I don’t know how we can be together.”
“If you don’t stop making these outrageous declarations, I’m going to punish you.” Tyr climbed to his feet with a groan.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would bend you over my knee and spank you until you stop saying you’re going to leave me. I would rather enjoy it actually.”
He said he would, but Scarlet knew him well enough. He would never dare touch her like that.
“My dear, right now you’re thinking I would not dare hurt you like that, but I have news for you. That was the man you used to know. That man did not scour all the realms searching for you. The man you imagine me to be no longer exists. I’m a new man, and this one will bend you over his knee and spank you until your screams summon the human law enforcement.”
She still doubted it, but a tiny part of her didn’t want to push it. “Well, my decision stands.”
“Why do you feel the need to tell me what I will or will not do? What I do or do not want? I’m a grown man, a god, and I can make my own decisions. If that means living here for the rest of eternity so I can be with my wife, so be it.”
“You say that now,” she said. “But you don’t know how you will feel in a few months or six months or five years.”
“And neither do you.”
Scarlet grew weary of the conversation. They needed to get out of the room before she did allow him to make love to her on the dining room floor. The doorbell rang again, and she appreciated an easy escape from the argument. She opened the door careful as to not show Tyr in all his glory to the wait staff, accepted the clothing, and tipped the concierge.
“Clothes.” She laid them across the back of the couch. Scarlet picked out a cream sweater, jeans, and short brown boots. The materials were expensive, leather and cashmere. More than she’d ever imagined wearing in her life on Earth. He put on a pair of black pants and a blue button down shirt. If it were possible he looked even better clothed than unclothed.
“Well, we are dressed as you wished. What do you want to do?”
She smiled and thought about what they could do. For the first time in a long she had the day before her like a blank, open book to write what she wished. “How about we start with breakfast?”
He shrugged. It was a daft suggestion, as he could always eat.
They left the hotel wrapped in luxurious wool and fur before hailing a taxi, something at which he was growing quite adept. Inside the cab, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to press his cheek to the top her head. She swallowed the swell of emotions threatening to choke her.
Is it too much to hope for a happy ending? She wanted there to be one, but the world showed her over and over that it couldn’t happen. She’d witnessed countless human lives cut short from one thing or another. Hell, even the gods were incapable of happy endings. Why should she have one?
They arrived at the White Horse Café and climbed out. When she entered, Katherine stopped short behind the counter and stared at her with her mouth hanging open. “Honey, is there something wrong with you face? It looks like the possibility of a smile.”
“Stop.” She waved her friend away and sat at the bar counter on the other side of the register. Tyr followed, sitting on the side closest to the door.
Katherine handed Tyr a menu. “I know what you want, Hon,” she said to Scarlet with a wink.
She waited as Tyr looked over Katherine’s small menu. She thought about what he would possibly want and decided in her mind, but he surprised her.
He slid the menu toward the opposite side of the counter. “May I have a bacon and egg sandwich and some coffee, please?”
“Coming right up,” Katherine said.
“You’re eating bacon and eggs on a sandwich? Where is your side of bacon and your bacon entrée?”
He tilted her chin up with his hand and leaned in to kiss her, but at the last second he leaned over and bit her neck gently making her squeal out loud and squirm away. The room went silent while Katherine and Bianca stared openly at the pair.
She didn’t mind the staring. Scarlet even felt a little happy a
bout it as she often spent time sitting alone at one of those tables glaring at happy couples touching and flirting with each other.
When Bianca placed the plates before them, she stared until Scarlet glared at her.
“What?” Bianca blinked innocently. “I want to see how he is going to eat a sandwich with only one hand.”
Scarlet rolled her eyes and started eating. Tyr laughed, picked up the sandwich in his one big hand, and placed almost half of in his mouth at once. When he pulled the rest of the sandwich clutched in his hand away, he gave Bianca a huge smile around a mouth full of food.
“Oh, I like him,” she said before slipping off to refill their mugs.
After he finished chewing, Tyr watched her eat her own eggs. “It seems I have already won over one of your compatriots.”
“Nope, you won them all over when they learned you were crazy enough to actually marry me.”
“Is it truly that hard to enter your heart?”
“Apparently not for surly gods of justice with a mythical hand.”
He laughed out loud this time. “Gods I have missed you.” Tyr kissed her head gently and took another swig of coffee.
Scarlet pushed at his chest to dislodge him even though she didn’t want to, but she still wasn’t sure about her PDA boundaries. Bianca returned to refill cups and take plates away.
“Where do you want to go now?” he asked.
“Nowhere.”
“You want to stay here all day?”
“I want to stay here with you and watch the humans run to and fro. I miss the old days sometimes, and that was one of the ways I felt a connection to home even though I’m here now.”
He leaned back to settle in while draping an arm across the back of her chair. They used to play this game in the void. They would sit on the chasm and stare into the glass of Earth to watch the people. Humans held great capability for love and wonderment, but they also had great capacity for the maudlin and disturbing. Everywhere on the planet there was something different, and that was always something Scarlet envied about humans. They could be anything, go anywhere, and forge their own destinies. They were not bound to end the world at a moment’s notice and ordered to take countless lives.
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