Not the Bride He Wanted novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: His Study Door

I didn't knock.

I opened the study door all the way and let it hit the wall.

Kirsten was standing at the end of the desk, close enough to touch him.

Magnus stood behind it with both hands flat on the maps, gripping the edge so hard his knuckles were white.

The fire had burned low.

The whole room smelled of my sister's vanilla perfume.

"Out," Magnus said.

He wasn't looking at me.

He was looking at Kirsten.

She put a hand to her chest.

"You can't just..."

"Out. Now."

His voice didn't rise, but the glass in the window behind him hummed.

Kirsten walked past me to the door.

She stopped close enough that I could see Aksel's mark on her neck, still pink.

"Ask him what I asked for," she said softly.

Then she was gone, and her heels clicked away down the passage.

I shut the door.

"Well?" I said.

Magnus let go of the desk.

He flexed his hands.

"She wants her marriage to Sund annulled," he said. "She wants my word for it. I said no."

"That's what you were holding the desk for?"

"I was holding the desk so I wouldn't throw her through the window."

I crossed the room and stood on the other side of the maps.

"I was standing next to you on that stone," I said.

He looked at me then.

"I saw your face," I said. "So don't tell me I didn't."

"I won't."

"Then tell me what it was."

He was quiet for a long moment.

"My wolf didn't like her," he said. "That's what I'll give you tonight."

"Tonight."

"Yes."

"I said I wouldn't lie to you."

"And I haven't."

It wasn't the whole answer.

I knew it wasn't, and he knew I knew.

I could have walked out and slept in the cedar room with the door locked.

I thought about it.

Magnus reached into his jacket and took out the strip of gray wool the eldest had tied around our wrists.

He laid it on the maps between us.

"Whatever I'm not saying tonight," he said, "I meant every word I said over this."

I picked the wool up and wound it around my fingers.

"There's a room upstairs with my things in it," I said. "I'm not sleeping there."

Something went dark and careful in his face.

"You don't owe me a wedding night, Brenna. Not because of the treaty."

"I know I don't."

I reached behind my neck and found the first pearl button.

"The seamstress did up forty of these," I said. "I can't reach the middle ones."

He came around the desk slowly.

He stood behind me, and I felt the heat of him down my whole back before he touched me.

His fingers found the second button.

Then the third.

"You cut your father's cord with a steak knife," he said against my hair.

"It was the closest thing."

"I've never wanted to kiss a woman so much in front of seven packs."

"You didn't."

"No. I was waiting till nobody could see your face but me."

The tenth button gave.

The silk slid off one shoulder, and his mouth came down on the bare skin there, hot and slow.

I turned around in his hands and kissed him.

He tasted like smoke and whisky, and he kissed me like he'd been holding still all day.

His mouth came back to mine before I could answer.

Not the slow kiss from a minute ago.

This one took.

His tongue pushed past my lips and I made a sound I didn't recognize.

My hands went into his hair and held.

He made a low noise in his chest and walked me backward until my back hit the edge of the desk.

The maps slid.

I didn't care.

His mouth left mine and went down to my collarbone.

"Say it again," he said against my skin.

"What?"

"That you're not sleeping in that room."

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