prefer if you keep things professional,” she said, but for the first time in her academic life, she wasn’t sure that was true.
“I know all about your research, Dr. Cavendish,” he said, and Margot was certain she detected a mocking inflection to the way he said her name. Because, of course, Icelanders did not use titles or even surnames for that matter. “I’ve been receiving reports of you almost from the very moment you set foot on our little volcanic island.”
Margot frowned. “Reports?”
“If it had appeared that your questions bothered my customers, I would have had to encourage you to conduct your experiments elsewhere. You understand.”
Margot’s frown deepened. “You can’t think—”
“But all you have collected are stories.”
There was something in the way he said that that made her stop protesting. She found herself leaning forward, as if compelled against her will, except that couldn’t be right. Margot made it a point never to do a single thing she didn’t want to do.
Did that mean she wanted this? Him?
Because when Thor smiled at her, all thunder and heat, she just wanted to melt.
“Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if you stopped recording secondhand stories and found out for yourself?” he asked idly.
Though there was nothing idle about the way he looked at her.
She sat straighter, because it was that or succumb to the madness coursing through her veins, making her imagine...all kinds of things. Operas and perversities, decadent and lush, and his hands all over her while they did them. “Let me guess. This is where you offer to get into my pants, for the good of my research.”
“Icelanders fuck, Dr. Cavendish.” He lounged there, as intent and watchful as he was boneless. “They do not waste all this time talking. Fuck first, then, if it is any good, perhaps talk a little. Haven’t you already discovered this in all your research?”
She nodded, trying to pull herself together. “It’s that exact permissiveness that interests me.”
“There are some things that intellect cannot help you with. I think you’ll find that sex is one of them.”
Margot sat back in her chair. “I see no one has told you the most powerful sexual organ in a woman’s body is her brain.”
“You say that,” Thor said, a rich vein of laughter in that deep voice of his. “But I’ve had a remarkable amount of success with the clit.”
Which meant she could do nothing but feel that laughter in hers.
“Exactly what are you offering?” she asked, perhaps more harshly than necessary, crossing her legs against the intense throbbing sensation where she least wanted it. “If you wanted to hit on me, you should have said so from the start.”
“This ‘hitting’ on you,” he said, as if he was unfamiliar with the term. “As if attraction is an assault. Is that how you see sex? Is that an American thing—or is it you?”
Margot didn’t like that his comment landed, hard. It made her feel a little dizzy. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“Surely an academic such as yourself loves nothing more than to dig her claws into figures of speech.”
“Because you have a vast interest in academic pursuits, of course.”
“In pursuits, yes. Not necessarily of the academic variety.”
“They told me at the reception desk that I was trapped here for at least the night,” Margot said crisply. “Possibly more than one night, if the storm rages on. Is this the price of a room? Sex with you?”
The amusement in his gaze shifted, growing darker and more focused at once. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. He only watched her, and she thought she could see a muscle tense in his lean jaw.
Holding her gaze, Thor reached into the pocket of his jacket and drew out a key. It was an old-fashioned key with an exuberant flourish on its end. He placed it on the table between them with a decisive click.
“This is your room key,” he told her quietly. She was riveted by the thunder that stormed around beneath those seemingly soft words. “There is no price. You may stay until the storm blows itself out, with my compliments.”
“Did I... Did I offend you?” she asked, not certain why that possibility seemed to tilt madly inside her, as if she was on some kind of roller coaster.
“It is my mistake,” Thor said with a faint smile. “This is a cultural thing, I think. Icelanders talk very openly about sex. Having it, not having it. Who they wish to have it or not have it with. Offers are made, accepted, rejected. This happens all the time. I would have thought you’d know this, given your field of study.”
Once again, Margot felt off balance, and she hated it. “Is this the part where you try to make me feel bad, as if I’m somehow unsophisticated and repressed for calling you out?”
“You can call me whatever you wish,” Thor said, his voice deeper, somehow. Or maybe that was just how it felt inside her, where her body was acting as if it belonged to someone else. Someone who wanted sex to be a whole lot more than enjoyable. “I do not require payment for kindness. It insults me that you might think otherwise, but I understand. You come from a place where sexual politics are significantly more adversarial. You cannot help but fight, no matter what it is that you want.”
Margot didn’t know which was drier, her lips or her throat. Especially when he shrugged as if she was that easily summarized. That easily understood.
“And I suppose you’re here to tell me what it is that I want?”
“I don’t think it’s accidental that you chose to come to my sex hotel.” And the way he said those words, sex hotel, was like sharp blades. “On the day of a storm.”
“You think I planned to strand myself in a snowstorm?” Margot laughed and told herself it wasn’t the least bit forced. “For this? For you?”
He didn’t laugh. “I like sex. I’m not afraid of it.”
“I’m not afraid of sex.”
But there was something in the denial that made her wish she could snatch the words back. Especially when his blue gaze seemed hotter. Wilder.
“Maybe you are and maybe you’re not.” He shrugged. “What I know about you is that you have done nothing but watch. What I can offer you is the opportunity to do a little fieldwork.”
“Fieldwork?” She blinked. “Is that a joke?”
“I never joke,” he said, deadpan. “I’m far too perverse. Do you need to get to know someone before you sleep with them?”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“Not at all,” Thor said. “But in Iceland, that’s back to front. I could sit here and tell you my life story or you could come to my rooms with me and
