Authors: Sandra Hill
Sliding down the slippery slope of sin . . .
T
rond was caught in a whirlwind of sexual ecstasy.
Every cell in his body was aroused and sensitive to the lightest touch—and, holy clouds!—Nicole was hot damn, sure-as-sin touching him! Everywhere. Even her breath against his neck was like a feather sweeping the veins of an overhardened cock. And, yes, a woman had indulged him with that fantasy one time.
I wonder if . . . no, no, no! No wondering!
She pried his mouth open with her tongue and deep kissed him. He could swear she was tickling his tonsils.
And his tonsils liked it.
His knees, on the other hand, almost gave way.
In a desperate attempt to say something gay, the first time he came up for a breath, he told her in a falsetto voice, “I can taste your excitement. It’s like honey with a hint of clove.”
“I can taste your excitement, too,” the saucy wench countered, “like mint with a dollop of male pheromones.” She was smiling against his lips. Smile kisses. “You are incredible,” she said.
Wow! Gayness seems to have advantages.
“You have not experienced my incredible yet.” He gave her a smile kiss in return, discovering something new in the sex arts: A little humor added spice to lust play.
Maybe a little bit of fooling around wouldn’t hurt, the lackwit side of his brain decided.
It was dark.
Maybe she wouldn’t notice how excited he was.
He could let her do all the work.
Maybe she’d think he wasn’t straight enough to initiate anything.
Who was he kidding?
It felt too good to stop.
Not yet.
Just a little longer.
But then she thrust her tongue inside his mouth again, and he reflexively thrust his enthusiasm against her cleft.
Enthusiasm
, what a tame Viking word for the rock-hard erection he’d grown! And grown. And was still growing.
Did any man and woman ever fit together better than this? He doubted it. Their alignment, wet mouth to wet mouth, chest to breasts, cock to cleft, was pure perfection.
Something amazing and wonderful was happening here, unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. It was lust, of course, but more than that. He who had over the years faced demons and battle-honed warriors, even lions in the Roman Colosseum, found himself trembling. Surely, a sinner such as he did not merit pleasure of this magnitude.
Uh-oh! Is this yet another vangel test?
he wondered, not for the first time.
A vangel sex test?
Hah! Being a Mensa when it came to that kind of body sport, he would pass with flying colors.
Of course, that was not the outcome Mike would want from such a test. No, this was not a test. Trond preferred to think that what was happening between him and Nicole had come about naturally. Man to woman, even if he was not a hu-
man
.
Aaarrgh! I am supposed to be gay. What would a gay man do in this situation?
Not pant like a warhorse and tingle from his scalp to his toenails, that is for sure.
Her legs had somehow become wrapped around his waist, he noted, even in their dark space.
When had that happened?
And her hands were inside his shorts, cupping his bare behind.
When had that happened?
Steeling himself with resolve, he reached up and pulled the cord on the light fixture. It would last for only a few moments. Time enough to say what he must. “This has to stop, Nicole. I know what you’re trying to prove, but this has gone far enough. Whoa! What are you doing now? Oh no! Wait!” Then, after a telling pause, “God above!” He wasn’t sure if his inadvertent exclamation was a prayer or an expletive.
She had crossed her arms and lifted her T-shirt up and over her head, taking her sports undergarment with it. She was bare from the waist up, with her legs still wrapped around his hips.
He put his hands on her bottom . . . just to hold her up, or so he told himself. He turned so that her back was to the wall, for more balance, or so he told himself. And then he proceeded to look. And look. What harm could there be in mere looking?
Her beauty stunned him. Her arms and shoulders carried the muscles of a military woman. Her skin was the color of winter wheat, sun-kissed to a golden hue. And her breasts . . . ah, her breasts were pure splendor. Full. The size of halved oranges, with pink tips that begged for his attention by blooming before his eyes into hard pebbles.
“Take off your shirt,” she demanded in a sex-husky voice.
By the runes! She will be the death of me yet.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Can’t, or won’t?” she accused. “I want to feel you, skin to skin, dammit.”
Can a man faint from sex talk?
“I cannot have sex with you, Nicole. Nothing personal. Believe me, if I could have sex with any woman, you would be my first choice.” Of the moment anyway. “So, let’s just call an end to this, and . . . aaarrgh!”
As the light went out, she shoved his T-shirt up far enough that she could brush his chest hairs back and forth across her breasts, bringing the nipples to even harder points.
Once he was able to speak above a whimper, he said, “All this you would do just to prove a point?”
He couldn’t see her face, of course, but he just knew she was blushing. “To tell you the truth, it started out that way,” she admitted, “but now . . .”
When she didn’t continue, he prodded, “But now . . . ?”
“Now I just want you.”
Her admission had to be a blow to her pride. He could respect that. He was a Viking. He knew about pride.
But, really, it was the worst thing she could have said! Or the best.
He was going to surrender, he knew that now, consequences be damned. But before he had a chance to say so, she arched her neck, causing her breasts to present themselves even more for his sex play, and her belly to press against him, then undulate in a rhythm he knew good and well.
Even though it was dark again inside the closet, he closed his eyes for a moment, fearing his eyeballs would be rolling back in their sockets. Then he took over the master role in this game as old as time. He needed no light to find his way.
He took her breasts into his mouth, licking and biting at the nipples, playing the tips like a fiddle string with his tongue. “You like that, do you, sweetling? Some women do not.”
“How would you know, Mr. Gay Man?”
“I’ve heard. Anyhow, some women—”
“Shut up! Just do it!”
“Whatever you say.” He laughed. A man had to appreciate a woman who knew what she wanted.
In many ways, sex in this total darkness was more enticing than in a lighted room. It heightened all the senses to a screaming pitch.
Her body was stiffening, her legs around his waist gripping him tighter, a sure sign that her body was racing toward a peaking. He began to pound her lower half in the game of near-sex he had perfected long ago. A dry run, some called it. Half-arsed satisfaction, he called it. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and right now he was at the begging stage.
His ballocks were hard and high. A violent shiver passed over him as he tried to forestall his own peaking. The urgent need to bite her neck prompted him to bite his own bottom lip in restraint. Another reason to be thankful for the darkness; she couldn’t see his fangs that had a mind of their own at times like this, just like another body part.
Her long, unending stream of soft moans was his ultimate undoing. She showed her liking for each new thing he did to her by murmuring unintelligible words that he understood nonetheless, by sweet sighs that he shared, and then the type of breathy moan females make when they are ready for a man’s penetration.
Penetration!
The word zapped his dulled brain like a laser gun. No, no, no! He couldn’t be doing this. “Wait,” he said, or tried to say. “Wait, wait, wait!”
But it was too late.
“Nooot a chaaannnce!” she asserted. Her lower body was thrusting against him with short, hard strokes that hit him exactly where he wanted to be hit. And she bit his neck, probably to keep herself from screaming, but it resembled too much the way he would like her to feed on him. If she had fangs. Which she didn’t. Not that he would want her to. Or would he?
Aaarrgh!
Chest heaving, he surrendered then to the throes that whipped him into a frenzy of swirling, bone-melting ecstasy. She had already reached her peak, but he was by no means done with the tempting witch. He put his hands on her hips and held her just so, pelvis uptilted, and let loose with his own pounding rhythm, which caused her to begin another climb to orgasm.
He wanted to roar like a lion and charge like a bull. He wanted to penetrate her so deep and stretch her so far. He wanted to sink his teeth into her neck and drink her blood, just a taste. He wanted her to beg him to bring her to completion . . . again and again. He wanted so many things.
They came together then with his final thrust that pinned her to the wall. To smother his own triumphant yell or her cry of bliss, he kissed her deep, very deep, and stayed buried in her mouth until his racing heartbeat slowed to a mere gallop, and her finger grips on the back of his neck lessened. Finally, he withdrew his tongue, paused, then leaned in again and swept his lips across hers in a gesture of thanks.
When he reached for the light cord this time, they both blinked against the sudden glare, their eyes having become attuned to the darkness.
Her honey-colored eyes were hazy with arousal. A sex-flush pinkened her cheeks and neck. Even her breasts were a beautiful shade of rose. Her lips were wet and kiss-swollen.
His enthusiasm was rising again, just gazing at her.
As he let her lower her feet to the floor, he had a second peaking just from her body brushing against him. If he were a cursing man, as he had once been, now would be the time for him to say something in Old Norse, like “God Almighty, what have you done to me?” But instead he said in American English, “What have you done to me?”
“Me?” she shrieked, obviously coming to her senses, way too fast. Her undergarment and T-shirt went back on as fast as her shaking hands could manage. When he tried to help her, she slapped his hands away. “What have you done to
me
, that is the question here.”
He wasn’t going to argue with her. Even without real sex, he was feeling mighty good.
His brother Cnut had a theory that every once in a while a man needed to drain off some of his man-sap to relieve the pressure, rather like pulling the bung on a barrel of fermenting beer. His cousin Olga, the most opinionated Norsewoman to ever walk the earth, on overhearing Cnut’s remark one time, told him where she thought he ought to put his bung and it wasn’t in a barrel.
The light was starting to fade and Nicole yanked on the cord, hard, before it could go dark again. “I do not do this kind of thing.”
“And you think I do?”
That question seemed to give her pause, and he soon realized why. She shoved him in the chest with both hands. “You are so
not
gay!”
He had to think quickly, now that the fever of the moment was passing fast. “Do not be offended, dearling,” he said with as much consideration as he could muster, which wasn’t much, “I was thinking of Karl the whole time. It was the only way I could . . . you know . . . get it up.”
She unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway before turning to glare at him where he still stood propped against the wall.
Propped
being the key word. He was so sated he might melt down to the floor like a Popsicle in the hot sun.
“This is war,” she declared then.
Having your hand slapped Navy SEAL style . . .
“Lieutenant Tasso! You have crossed the line.”
Nicole was standing at attention before Commander MacLean’s desk. Having gone to his office immediately following her encounter with Trond, she was beginning to think she might have acted prematurely. In fact, she
knew
that she had by the stern expression on the commander’s face. She should have gathered more information before filing another complaint. “But I believe I have legitimate concerns about Sigurdsson . . . concerns that might affect the security of our operation, Commander, sir.”
“Because you think the man is gay?” he scoffed.
“No. Because I think he’s
not
gay, Commander, sir.” She was still standing stiffly at attention.
The commander rolled his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that the man used that as an excuse because he has no interest in you?”
“Sir!” Now she was indignant. The commander must think she’d been putting the moves on Trond. Well, she had, but with a purpose. Not because she had the hots for him. Well, not totally.
“Do you honestly believe that the Navy SEALs allow anyone onto our base without complete security clearance?”
“No, but—”
“Jaegers are as elite a group in Norway as SEALs are in the U.S. Do not for one minute think they’re lax in their requirements.”
“It’s not that, Commander, sir. There is just some secret that I know he is hiding. He’s a ghost. Honestly, I had an old police contact check him out, and he’s not in any database. He doesn’t exist.”
“Good Lord! Every man here has secrets. Don’t you?”
She was fighting a losing battle, Nicole realized.
The frustration on her face must have shown because the commander said, with less sternness, “I commend your motivation in wanting to ensure the security of our unit, but in this case, your concerns are misplaced. Now, let me tell you what
I’m
concerned about. Team unity. One of the things we emphasize from the very beginning in BUD/S as they do in WEALS training is the importance of teamwork. If you can’t work together with every single person on the OctoTiger Squad, perhaps you need to step back.”
“Oh no, sir! I assure you I’m a team player.”
“Including Captain Sigurdsson?”
She gulped several times before agreeing, “Including Captain Sigurdsson, sir.”
As she left the office, duly chastised, Nicole had to wonder,
Was I wrong? Are my instincts so rusty? Am I letting my hormones affect my judgment?