Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Come and sit down,” he says, standing up and pointing to the chair he just vacated.
My stomach sinks a little, but his tone is sort of deep and growly and disciplinary so frankly I also find this hot as hell. I wonder what I’ve done to get into trouble with him now. I have learned over time that Thor’s a good guy who follows the rules, so he has a real hard time adjusting to someone like me who refuses to follow any of them. That’s why I do him a favor and pretend to be a good girl too.
I sit down and look up at him with big eyes. I want him to know I’m taking him seriously, because that’s going to be important to him.
“What’s going on?” I ask the question in my cute voice, the one that usually makes him react with desire.
He leans down, his hands on the table in front of me, either side of the hot herring soup that is starting to go cold right in front of my eyes.
“Why aren’t you on the ship’s manifest?”
I try not to freak out. I knew he’d ask this question sooner or later. I haven’t been so delusional as to think this was never going to fall apart. I give a casual little shrug. One I’ve practiced more than once.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a glitch. Didn’t they say there was a personnel problem?”
“Yes, the computer thinks there’s an extra soul on board. They’ve assumed that the computer is wrong, but what if it isn’t?”
I pretend to be stupid. “What do you mean?” I inject what I hope is a good amount of confused excitement in my voice.
“I mean it’s possible that someone with an exceptional amount of audacity who has been raised to believe that the rules do not apply to her might very well have snuck onto the ship, not only putting herself at risk, but potentially everybody on board.”
“Wow,” I say. “But how would they find that person?”
He stands up to his full height, crosses his arms, and looks down at me sternly. “I am talking about you, Selene.”
“Me?” I hope my voice carries just the right squeaking note of surprise.
“Yes,” he growls. “You.”
I look up at him, doing a mental calculation of all the ways I can and will be fucked if he tells on me. I can’t imagine him betraying me that way, though. We’ve been intimate with each other. Over and over again. And he did some very questionable things in the hospital on the day of the fire, so I know he has the capacity to be a rule breaker too.
“What if it was me?” I temper the confession with a question.
Thor glowers at me with a fury reserved for men who have to deal with very disappointing mates. I feel myself cowering beneath his stare, as the handsome, loving, sexy officer I’ve been fucking turns into an instrument of a law I never agreed to obey.
“If this is true,” he says. “You will be charged. That’s for certain. And on ships like these, there is no civilian justice. I’ll be charged under military law. Maybe they’ll tack a spy charge on for good measure.”
I stare up at him, shocked.
“Well, there’s not much point confessing then, is there?”
“If I find out you lied to me more than you already have, then you will be punished twice as harshly,” he growls. “We are intimate, Selene. There is honor and integrity in romance.”
By the gods. We’ve been banging for a few days. He’s making it sound like we’re married and I’ve betrayed him. Worse, he’s making our really hot sex sound boring, though the prospect of imprisonment spices things up, I suppose.
I try staring at him with wide eyes in the hopes that he decides that means I am sorry. I’m not, of course. Well, maybe a little bit, but whatever guilt I feel for not telling him is being seriously outweighed by his reaction to the idea.
“Do you know why I looked at the manifest?”
“No,” I say. I have no fucking idea why he went and ruined the very good thing we had together. Maybe he just doesn’t like to be happy. Who fucking knows. It’s a mystery to me, that’s for sure.
“I want to marry you,” he says. “I want to stand before the ship and declare myself your husband. I wanted to see your stats on the manifest, in the hopes I could have a ring sized for you…”
I stare at him, and this time it’s not any kind of act. He wants to marry me? After sleeping with me for three days? Viking men like to move fast and claim their brides, but I made it clear to him that was not my style from the beginning.
“We’ve been fucking for like three days, guy,” I say. It’s not the most tactful response, but by the gods, he’s going to start thinking about marriage that quickly? And this, as proposals go, if this is a proposal, sucks. It’s laced with guilt, and I don’t know if it’s even real, or if it’s just his way of trying to force a confession out of me.