The Dare Collection October 2018. Nicola Marsh

at her, but Margot hadn’t wanted to say anything to break the spell. She couldn’t say she’d enjoyed that fierce look of concentration on his face so much as she’d thrilled to it.

      It had made her feel whole and even cherished in ways she didn’t know how to process.

      And there was something wrong with her. Something terribly wrong, down into her wiring. She understood it, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to analyze it the way she knew she should. But her wrongness glowed there, deep in her gut and splashed all over her skin.

      What bothered her was that she didn’t care about that, here with Thor, as much as she should have.

      For one thing, she’d liked it far too much when she’d been on her knees in that shower, Thor’s cock in her mouth. She’d wished that Thor had used that hand of his in all the dark, dirty ways she would have hated if anyone else had tried. She’d wanted to feel what it was like to be under his control, no matter how problematic.

      He hadn’t done anything with the hand in her hair except hold it there, and Margot had found herself entertaining wild fantasies, what-ifs... What if he held her head where he wanted it? What if he controlled the pace, the depth of each thrust?

      What if he...took her over completely?

      Her pussy ached even imagining it.

      And she knew she ought to be ashamed of the way she melted more and more at each dark and dirty little what-if that she could come up with.

      Letting him wash her had been much the same. This is the ultimate objectification, her brain had argued, but the rest of her hadn’t cared. He’d tended to her as if she was his possession. Something precious to him, something he needed and cared for.

      Something he owns, a voice in her had supplied.

      And she knew that she should have been sickened by the very idea.

      But instead, she had felt soothed. Adored, even. Thor had washed her everywhere. He’d even washed her hair. His hands were so big and she knew all the things they could do to her body, but there in the shower he had gently, carefully washed her clean as if doing so was his responsibility. His privilege.

      And when they’d gotten out, he’d bundled her in a huge towel and dried her off as if that, too, was a part of this ritual he needed to perform. And despite all the words that crowded into her head—infantilizing, condescending, daddy issues, problematic—Margot had stood there and basked in his attention.

      And that humming in her had continued.

      Now she sat with her legs crossed on the low-slung couch to one side of the fireplace in his bedroom that should have been too big to feel cozy but somehow managed it despite its unwieldy size. He had exchanged the big, fluffy bath towel for this almost unbearably warm and soft wrap she wore now, and Margot told herself that she was merely drying her hair by the fire. That there was nothing to it but that.

      That she wasn’t watching Thor as he moved around the room. That she wasn’t marveling in the things firelight did for a man as sculpted as he was. He was all muscle and sinew, cast in liquid gold thanks to the crackling flames.

      “Are you in a trance?” he asked, and she realized with a jolt that he had been standing there, waiting for her response, for some time.

      Margot cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said, striving for that same overtly polite tone, the sort she’d have used if a waiter had caught her daydreaming in a fancy restaurant. “I think I’m starving, actually.”

      “I will send down to the kitchen for some food.” She didn’t know when he’d pulled on those athletic trousers he wore now, but they rode low on his hips, making it impossible for her to do anything but marvel at that ridge shaped like a V that pointed down beneath his waistband.

      “Why are you taking care of me?” Margot asked.

      And then wished she hadn’t.

      Thor’s gaze found hers, something like affront in all that blue. He held up a finger, then spoke into the phone at his ear. Margot caught only the odd word here and there as he spoke in rapid Icelandic, never dropping her gaze.

      When the call was finished, he dropped the hand holding the phone to his side as he regarded her for another long moment that seemed to scrape through her.

      Maybe that was why she kept talking, when every word that spilled over her tongue made her feel more exposed. “I just mean that none of this is necessary. You’re treating me like some kind of treasured guest when I’m not. It’s supposed to be an experiment—”

      “Yes, yes. Only an experiment. So you keep telling me. I was unaware that meant I should fuck you and then throw you out in the hall like rubbish.”

      There was an edge to his voice that Margot didn’t understand. But she didn’t particularly want to acknowledge it, either.

      “I want to make sure that we’re not blurring any boundaries here, that’s all,” she said coolly, and hoped that he couldn’t see that she was blurry all the way through. So blurry she could hardly see straight.

      That edge in his voice seemed locked on his mouth then. “Because I wish to eat? Because sex can work up an appetite? These are hard boundaries of yours that cannot be crossed?”

      “You said yourself that Icelanders prefer sex to dinner dates.”

      “Think of it as fuel.” His blue eyes glittered. She had the strangest notion that she had offended him, somehow. “After all, the blizzard rages on. And inside, it is warm and safe and the night is young.”

      “You can’t possibly...” She drifted off, her gaze following that tempting V all the way down.

      Where, if she wasn’t mistaken, his cock was stirring yet again.

      “How old are you?” she asked in disbelief.

      And whatever tension had been building there between them, it shattered when he laughed. That same mighty laugh that reminded her where she was, tucked up here on the top of the world in this land of trolls and dark and men who were named for very old gods, she wondered if she could see in his face.

      “Are you worried that I’m an adolescent boy?” he asked. “I regret to inform you that I haven’t been anything like an adolescent in a very long while.”

      “If you say so.”

      “Adolescent boys have erections as easily as breathing, it is true.” Thor was still laughing, and it was unfair, the things that did to his already too-beautiful face. “But it is like a summer storm. All that noise and carrying on, yet they do not have any control.”

      “But you do.”

      Another laugh, and it was just as dangerous as before. “Do you doubt it? I’m sorry. I must have lost track of how many times I made you come.”

      She felt her ears get hot. Some part of her wanted to curl into a ball and hide under the couch, but he’d told her about this. Icelanders talked about sex. With a frankness that made every last bit of Margot’s Midwestern soul curl up and want to die.

      But she told herself this, too, was part of the experiment she was conducting.

      She inclined her head. “I counted.”

      His smile was delighted. And infinitely wicked. “I am pleased to hear that. I did, too.”

      “I suppose it could be the novelty,” she continued, frowning a little. “As you said yourself, there’s no such thing as a sex god. There’s chemistry. But that always wears off, usually pretty quickly.”

      “Here is what I do not understand.” Thor moved to sit down, and he didn’t choose the chair across from the couch like a civilized person might have while discussing this research project they were undertaking together. Instead, he settled himself on the other end of the same couch where she sat, making it that much smaller in an instant. And he did it in