Sandra Hill (24 page)

“Dost want me to touch your breasts?” he inquired solicitously.

She averted her face to the side, her eyes scrunched tight. The traitorous hitch of her respiration and wildly beating heart gave her away, though, not to mention the hardening of her rosy nipples and the swelling of their surrounding aureoles.

He delayed giving her that satisfaction…yet. She needed to be punished. He needed time to control his
raging urge to consummate the marriage here and now, afore the vows.

When he’d massaged everything except for those most erotic spots he’d saved for last, he sat back on his haunches and stared at her. She was so beauteous to him. The fierceness of his passion for her both frightened and exhilarated him.

He ran an oily forefinger over her parted lips and she cried out softly, as if in pain. Turning her head, she looked at him directly, her eyes green pools of desire.

Holding her gaze, he poured a dollop of oil over her breasts and massaged them in wide circling sweeps, moving the entire mounds. Each time his callused palms passed over her hardened peaks, her eyes grew wider and her breathing more shallow.

He shimmied lower and poured the remainder of the fluid into her woman hair.

She gasped.

He allowed himself a brief exploration of that territory, fingering the oil into the curls, then between her legs where its slickness mixed with hers. He could bring her to her rapture now, but he knew from past experience that she would resent that. So, with a long sigh, he stood and helped her to her feet.

Clasping her by the shoulders, he said, “I love you, Merry-Death. Will you wed with me?”

Her face went soft for a moment before she whispered, “Will you take me with you when you go?”

He groaned inwardly at her unwavering insistence on the impossible. He shook his head sadly.

“Then, I will
not
marry you.” Her eyes had become flat and unreadable as a North Sea mist, and rancor sharpened her voice.

“You have set the course of my actions by your words, Merry-Death. So be it.”

“So be it? Does that mean…does that mean you’ve given up?”

He could see conflicting emotions on her face. She wanted him, but she didn’t want him. But how could she ask such a lackwit question? He gave her a disbelieving look—the type he and his brothers had been practicing on thick-headed females since boyhood—mostly those who’d doubted their prowess.

And all he said was, “Hah!”

A short time later, Dr. Meredith Foster stood in a Viking longhouse, wearing her crimson-and-white wedding finery. She was about to exchange nuptial vows, against her wishes, with a magnificently garbed Viking nobleman. With restless energy, Rolf was laying out ritual items on a small table.

Although it was mid-afternoon, the interior of the longhouse was dim, having only one glassless window and a door. Rolf had set a fire in the central hearth where smoke escaped through a hole in the sod roof. The structure was built in the Viking rectangular style, with the sides curved inward slightly. In the early days, this design was favored because it would have been roofed with an upturned longship. This one was a small dwelling by any Norse standard, only twelve-by-twenty feet, and far too confining when a virile, tightly coiled male Viking was taking up too much of the space.

Meredith wasn’t gagged, but her hands were restrained behind her back around a support beam. She hadn’t come willingly. A dark cloud of determination had settled over Rolf as he’d dressed her himself and carried her outside, unmoved by her screeching threats.

“’Tis time, Merry-Death,” Rolf said, carrying the small table over to her side. On it he’d arranged a goblet of wine, an ornately jeweled knife, a gold-braided cord, a hammer, a polished stone, and a bowl of wheat seeds.

Standing before her, he was hardly recognizable as the man she’d come to love. And it wasn’t just the jet-black richness of his tunic and slim trousers, with the talisman belt and the incongruous fanny pack defining the trimness of his waist. Nor was it his golden brown hair spilling over his shoulders, unbound. No, it was his whole demeanor. He was commanding, rigid, his square jaw visibly tensed, his muscles bunched with a fury that she feared would soon be unleashed on her.

He was very, very angry that she still resisted him.

He was pure Viking warrior now, not the gentle shipbuilder she’d come to know. Raising both arms above his head, he began to chant some primitive words in Old Norse. The whole time, he stared blankly through the window, out to sea.

Then he relaxed, and translated for her. “I call out to God and man, family and friend. Come witness today the marriage of Geirolf Ericsson and Merry-Death Foster.”

“Why didn’t you call out to the police, too? Maybe they’d come and rescue me from a maniac.”

“Your willfulness will only make it harder for you,” he said tautly. “Heed my warning, you stubborn wench. Every second you waste this day in thwarting me will be paid for tenfold.”

She wasn’t afraid of him. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her…not physically, anyhow. Not that she didn’t believe he had some punishment in mind. “Rolf, don’t do this.”

He looked pointedly at her mouth, and she knew that she risked being gagged if she kept on protesting.

Now his long fingers cradled the goblet of wine. Speaking in English, he prayed, “Odin, we draw this nectar from your well of knowledge. May you bring us the wisdom to deal well with each other in this marriage journey we begin today. Especially give Merry-Death the wisdom to know when to give up the fight.”

“Hah!”

He took a sip of the wine, then turned the goblet, pressing it to her lips so she could drink from the same spot. The cold metal seemed to carry the seductive heat of his mouth.

After she’d sipped the ruby liquid, he gave her a satisfied nod, and picked up the hammer. “Thor, god of thunder, I take in hand your mighty hammer,
Mjollnir
. This I pledge: I will protect my wife from all peril. I will use the fighting skills learned at your feet to crush her enemies. Let it be known forevermore. Her foe are now my foe. My foe are her foe. The shield of the Yngling clan is now
our
shield.” With that, he raised the hammer and crushed the stone.

Meredith jumped and Dog jerked his head up. Dog gave them an inquisitive glance from his good eye, then went back to sleep.

Next, Rolf moved to the bowl of seeds, taking a pinch between his thumb and forefinger. “Frey, god of fertility and prosperity,” he began.

Fertility?
Meredith stiffened and tried to step away, but she was hampered by the beam at her back.

Giving her a reproving scowl, he sprinkled some of the seeds over her breasts, as well as his own chest, and continued. “We implore not fertility or great wealth in this marriage, oh, great Frey. What we seek,
instead, is that you bless us with the richness of love…and an abundance of passion.” His lips twitched at that last, though he remained unsmiling. She suspected passion wasn’t part of the traditional ritual.

The lout! Okay, the
adorable
lout, Meredith admitted to herself. She was melting with each word of the poignant ceremony, as he’d probably known she would.

After that, he took the knife, walked behind her, and ran the razor-sharp blade over the skin of her inner wrist. Peering back over her shoulder, she saw a thin line of blood immediately appear. She gaped at it in horror. “You
are
a barbarian.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Didst I e’er say otherwise?” He sliced his own wrist then and took the gold cord, binding their two hands together, wrist to wrist. He worked from an awkward position, having to secure his left hand to her right, behind her back—certainly not the way the ceremony was intended to go, she was sure. This position also caused him to be standing very close to her, hips and thighs touching. His warm breath fanned the side of her face.

“As my blood melds with yours, Merry-Death, so shall my seed. From this day forth, you are my beloved.” He took her chin in a firm grip and forced her to look at him. Seeing that her eyes were brimming with tears, he clenched his jaw, then jutted it out imperiously. He probably thought she cried because she was so unhappy. The dolt! “You will repeat the words after me now,” he charged.

Hmmm, We’ll see. I haven’t done what you’ve ordered so far
.

“With this mingling of our blood, I pledge thee my troth…”

Well, that wasn’t too bad. I guess I could concede that much
. “With this mingling of our blood, I pledge thee my troth,” she said. To her chagrin, her voice came out wobbly with emotion.

He sighed, as if relieved that she wasn’t going to make this any more difficult. “From the beginning of time, to the end of time…”

She repeated the words softly, “From the beginning of time, to the end of time.”

“…let it be known that I, Geirolf Ericsson, give my heart to thee, Merry-Death Foster.”

A little sob escaped Meredith’s throat at the beauty of his declaration. Could she say this? She’d be pledging a lot more than her troth. She’d be promising to love him forever. But that was a given. No matter how arrogant or overbearing his demand that she marry, then divorce him, she would never stop loving him. So she said the words, with her own interpretation, “…let it be known that I, Meredith Foster, give my heart and soul to the damnedest Viking in the world, Geirolf Ericsson.”

Rolf let himself smile now. “It is done.”

“What’s done?”

“We are wed,” he said, leaning forward to press a soft kiss against her lips.

“We are?” She wished he would kiss her longer, or deeper, but he probably feared she’d nip his tongue off. She just might. She realized belatedly that he’d won this battle of wills, after all. “Is it permitted for the bride to bite her husband?”

“Only in the bedsport.”

“Don’t think that I’ve surrendered.”

He grinned. “The heavens would collapse first, I warrant.”

“How about untying me, oh sarcastic one?”

“Will you still fight me, oh obstinate one?”

“Probably.”

“Good,” he laughed. “Every warrior loves a good battle. It makes the victory all the sweeter.”

“That was just a skirmish. Don’t think you’ve won the whole campaign.”

“Hardly.”

“We’re not really married,” she snapped when he wouldn’t argue with her. “There isn’t any court in the world that would recognize it.”
That was a mean thing to say. Shame on me. The ceremony felt very, very real to me
.

“Ah, Merry-Death, you should not have said that.” His nostrils flared with anger.

“Why?”

“Because now I will have to prove to you that we are wed, as well as punish you for all your transgressions this day.”

He bent over and removed his boots, threw his cape, talisman belt, and fanny pack to the hard-packed dirt floor. He was in the process of lifting his tunic over his head.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

He tossed the tunic to the floor, giving her an eyeful of wide shoulders, ridged abdomen, and tendon-delineated arms. But that wasn’t all. Without hesitation, he released the ties at his waist and let the trousers fall to his ankles. Stepping on one foot, then another, he kicked them off his feet and away. Apparently, his wedding outfit went only so far. No codpiece, breechcloat, boxers, or jockey shorts in sight.

Meredith’s mouth went dry. She’d known he had a good body. She just hadn’t known how good. The fire
light and the late-afternoon sun filtering through the window cast golden shadows on his tanned skin. And there was a lot of it. Narrow waist and hips. Flat stomach. Muscular legs and chest with their furring of brown hair. And…oh, my, my, my…Rolf had been justified in feeling overly confident about his physical endowments.

Slack-jawed, she repeated her earlier question in an embarrassingly squeaky voice. “Wh-what are you doing?”

He smiled then, a bone-melting, dazzling display of white teeth and raw sexual promise. He moved closer…so close she could feel his male heat. His answer came in a thick whisper against her parted lips. “Preparing for battle.”

“Battle? Ha, ha, ha!” A little shiver ran visibly over her. She wished Rolf would smile or do something to assure her he was just kidding.

He did smile, but he did it while kneeling in front of her. Oh, my God, she stood fully dressed and a naked man—a very aroused naked man—knelt at her feet. If she was a sexual fantasy kind of woman, this would rank as a real X-rated Kodak moment.

“Are you about to pray for my forgiveness?” she choked out.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you, wench? Best you fortify your ramparts, my lady of the running tongue. This warrior is about to lay siege to your every portal. And you have ne’er seen the likes of a Viking with the war fever, I wager.”

“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?…Oh, no, stop that.” He’d lifted the hem of her gown, reached
up and jerked the tap pants of her teddy all the way down and off.

She thought she heard him mutter, “There goes the moat.”

But who was paying attention? She was more interested in the fact that her gown remained hitched up to the waist, held by his hands on either side of her hips, leaving her bare to his view.

He moaned.

She moaned.

“Now you have done it, Merry-Death,” he gasped out.

“Me?” she squeaked.

“There should have been a prolonged bout of loveplay on our first nuptial bedding. You deserve gentle words and sweet caresses. But, bloody hell, you made me wait overlong,” he informed her in a guttural rush. “Too damn long!” He hoisted her by the waist, cupped her bottom, canted her hips outward, and plunged inside.

She screamed.

He stilled.

There wasn’t any real pain. She’d been ready for him since that blasted anointing exercise. But he was so big and she was so tight and she hadn’t expected his entry and, oh, God, it was Rolf, the man she loved who was filling her for the first time, and if he didn’t stir soon she was going to scream again.

His forehead, beaded with perspiration, pressed against hers. His eyes were closed, and he gulped for air. “Did you feel that? Oh, hell, did you feel that?”

“What?”

“A tingle. How can that be? I’m tingling
there
.”

She tried to focus
there
—an impossibility when so
many incredible sensations assaulted her everywhere. “Lord, I feel it, too. Maybe…maybe the talisman’s magic slipped and lodged—”

He started to laugh, but it came out more like a gurgle since his teeth were grinding with restraint.

“Untie my hands,” she whimpered as she lifted her legs, wrapping them around his waist, trying to adjust their position so her body could accommodate his size…and the tingling, which was really becoming…uh, disconcerting.

At first, she didn’t think he’d heard her, but he reached around and undid the silk cords. She curled her arms around his shoulders, and he walked her to the built-in bedstead against the wall. In one fluid motion, he tumbled her to the bed furs, still imbedded in her.

Every cell in her body tingled.

For several long moments, he just lay on top of her, panting. When he raised himself on extended arms, he studied her face. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“Am I too heavy?”

She shook her head again.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Another shake of the head, this one rather vehement.

“Why won’t you talk to me, dearling?”

She swallowed a nervous giggle. “I…can’t.”

He raised an eyebrow. When understanding dawned, he grinned.

So, he considers my overstimulation funny?
“Why aren’t you moving?” she grumbled.

“The same reason as you,” he clipped out. “I can’t.”

His words excited her. And her inner folds spasmed around him.

He groaned. “Betwixt the tingling and your pulsing, this will be a one-stroke coming if I move now.”

“I don’t pulse.”

Another spasm.

“You did that apurpose,” he accused.

Oh, geez, this was embarrassing. “No, my body is just trying to accustom itself…to your…to you.”

“Oh,” he said with sudden understanding. Then he broke into an arresting smile. “I can help you adapt to me, and take more.”

Take more? I…don’t…think…so
. “No, I don’t think…a-h-h-h-!”

He arched his upper body back on one extended arm with his hard penis motionless inside her. With his other hand, he reached down between their bodies and began to strum the slickness, back and forth.

She raised her hips up high, spreading her legs more. And wailed in one endless stream of “Oh, oh, oh, oh…” at the intensity of the sensations convulsing through her in ever-widening spirals.

To her amazement, her inner folds did expand, and Rolf grew inside her. And he still wasn’t moving, darn him.

He waited for her to open her eyes before he gripped her head in both hands and said fervently, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Don’t you dare cry now,” he ordered as he began to move at last.

At last, at last, at last
, she thought as he pulled out almost all the way, then slammed in. Three or four or ten times, he pummeled her with his long strokes. She couldn’t keep count. It wasn’t very many, but her body was climaxing over and over and over each time he hit
her pubic bone, and she was sobbing and screeching and hitting his shoulders each time he withdrew.

He might have been making noises, as well. In fact, she was pretty sure he was. He threw his head back, the veins in his neck almost popping, and lunged in one last time, spurting hotly to her womb. And in the end, he did cry out, and she caught his cry with her open mouth.

Oh, my God!
Meredith thought just before she passed out.

“
Guð minn góðpur!
” Rolf said just before he passed out.

Several minutes later, she awakened to feel Rolf’s dead weight on her. It wasn’t unpleasant.

The low masculine exhale he released with excruciating slowness could have been of pain, or exquisite satisfaction. She was betting on the latter.

He rolled over to his side and took her with him. Lifting her one leg over his hip, he remained inside her. Not hard, but not soft either. He kissed her tenderly, then savagely. Then he laughed with utter joy.

She hid her fiery face in his neck, belatedly embarrassed over her uninhibited behavior.

“Do you blush now, wanton witch? Odin’s teeth, you do!” When he saw that she was unsure of herself and the propriety of her performance, he added with a tweak of her chin, “Methinks the anticipation proved too much for both of us, sweetling.”

Gritting his teeth, he eased himself out of her, and chuckled when her hands fluttered with involuntary distress at his disengaging too soon for her taste. “You are a greedy wench, and overeager,” he teased, “but I wouldst try
all
your charms, and your garments impede my efforts.”

He murmured words of astonishment at what had just happened between them as he undid the shoulder brooches on her overgown and removed the gold-link belt. It was short work after that for him to maneuver her clothing off, but not too short, because he paused and whispered compliments to each body part he bared.

Oh, he was a smooth lover, this Viking was, knowing instinctively what many modern men still didn’t understand—that women need to feel good about their bodies to enjoy making love, even if their attractiveness is only in the eyes of their lovers.

By the time she was naked, her entire body felt heated by his torrid, worshipful perusal. She couldn’t stop herself from asking hopefully, “Again?”

“And again and again and again,” he promised, holding her down at his side when she would have leapt from the bed with mortification at having expressed her craving aloud. “But this time we’ll go slow. This time will be for you, sweetling.”

And who was the last time for?
But she decided to keep that revealing question to herself.

“You must needs be punished first,” he warned with silky eroticism as he trailed his fingertips from her knees to the joining of her thighs. She was lying flat on her back now, like a rag doll. “Hmmm. Mayhap your first penance—”

“Penance?” she said breathlessly. “First?”

He smiled. “—shall be honesty in the loveplay. You will tell me with words, as well as actions, what pleases you.”

And that’s punishment?
“You tricked me, Rolf. I never intended to marry you, or make love,” she stormed. “Maybe you’re the one who should be punished.”

“Hmmm.” He tapped his chin with a forefinger as if seriously considering her reproach, then agreed too quickly, “All right. But later.”

His callused fingertips brushed over the tight curls between her legs and he sighed.

A feeling of light-headedness flowed over her at that feathery caress. And Meredith thought there should be a dissertation written on the merits of calluses. And the carnal beauty of a man’s sigh.

“Drops of moisture from our first mating linger here,” he pointed out huskily, “like morning mist on seaside grass.”

Her eyes shot wide. Blood roared in her veins and her brain went blank at the seductive praise. She tried to roll over to hide herself, but he wouldn’t allow that modesty.

“Or wouldst you prefer I start here?” He placed his fingertips against her lips, and her neck arched for his kiss. But he was already skimming his fingertips lower, a straight tantalizing line from her chin, over her breastbone, down her abdomen and waist, over her navel, to her thighs again. A violent shiver passed over her.

His lips turned up appreciatively. “Where, Merry-Death? Where do you want my touch first?”

With a soft mewling cry, she took his hands and led them to her breasts. Although he hadn’t touched them since the anointing, the rose-hued nipples were still hardened into pebbles of arousal and the slightly paler aureoles were puffy with desire. She ached for him there.

Instead, he nudged her legs apart and braced himself on outstretched arms. His erection pressed against her thigh and his hips pinned her against the bed furs, but
a half-foot of space separated her breasts from his chest.

“Caress me with them,” he coaxed in a voice so thick she could barely comprehend his meaning. When understanding dawned, she wondered if she had the nerve.

She did.

With the support of her elbows, she bowed her back upward and moved her breasts, back and forth, across the bristly hairs on his chest. The magnitude of agonizing pleasure was so great it set off a chain reaction through her body. He couldn’t help but feel the thudding of her heart and the quiver in her thighs. Rolf had been right when he’d insinuated one time that there was nothing more sensuous for a woman than the friction of bed furs at her back and her lover’s chest hairs at her front.

He made a hissing sound through his teeth. “Don’t stop.”

Again and again, she swept her aching breasts across the abrasive hairs. When she dropped back, unable to stand the pressure building in her breasts for a different kind of succor, he raised himself to a kneeling position between her knees.

“You were serious about punishing me,” she said. “This is pure torture.”

“Ah, but have you not heard? There is no ecstasy without agony.” With that enigmatic Norse philosophy, he lightly fingered her nipples. She whimpered at the surge of sensitivity lodged in their centers. By the time he lowered his mouth and touched the tip of his tongue to her left nipple, she was clutching the bed furs in her fists and stiffening her legs. He did the same to the other breast, then leaned back to study her again.

“No,” he said disapprovingly. “Relax.” He forced her to unfist her hands and waited for her thighs to untense. Then he took her breasts, one after the other, into his mouth and suckled on her with a punishing rhythm.

“I feel as if I’m caught in the eye of a hurricane,” she confessed as waves of pleasure rippled out from the pumping of his open mouth encasing the whole of her nipple and aureole.

“Yea, you shall be as a ship on the roiling seas,” he said, laughing, “and I’ll be the gale wind that brings you tribulation, and the greatest thrills.”

His words frightened her a bit, and she tried to push him off. She scratched his back. She flailed her legs. But he wouldn’t stop. Then the hurricane broke, and she was hurtled into a frenzied climax under the onslaught of the tempest.

When her vision cleared, she saw him sitting on his haunches between her outspread legs, watching her, and waiting.

“You make me blush when you look at me,” she protested weakly.

“You make me tremble when you look at me,” he countered hoarsely.

Her cheeks burned under his all-seeing scrutiny, and she suspected that her “punishment” had barely begun. Although his whiskey eyes shimmered with passion and his ragged panting was a testament to his excitement, she sensed that the maddening man intended to torment her much, much more before he gave himself relief.

He arranged himself on top of her, a flat weight of domination. His big hands framed her face, and he
murmured against her lips, “And dost my lady favor kisses, as well?”

“Yes.” She smiled against his parted lips.

At first, his kisses were slow and thoughtful. A tactile exploration of molding lips and gliding tongue. But soon the kisses took on the character of controlled aggression as he bit her bottom lip, then sucked it into his mouth for soothing. He tunneled his fingers in her hair and held her firm as he took her mouth with a savage fervor, prodding her lips open with his thrusting tongue. Wet and clinging, she succumbed to his forceful seduction.

“I can’t stand any more,” she pleaded finally.

He tore his mouth from hers, fighting for air. Sitting back on his haunches again, he surveyed her, then nodded his approval. “Be strong, my lady, for the invasion has scarce commenced.”

She paled but had no time to consider his implied threat, because he was already moving to another erotic territory. He hooked his arms under her knees and spread her legs wide and high with a rolled bed fur under her hips. Legs draped over his arms, she was open and vulnerable to his eyes and fingers and mouth.

“I would taste the pearl of your arousal,” he whispered, and even his breath against her there caused the distended bud to swell and unfold. He kissed it softly, and she bucked upward. From then on, she keened a continuous dirge of sweet agony as he plied that center of sensation, its surrounding slick folds, even inside her, with his tongue. Probing. Fluttering. Laving. Stabbing. Sucking. So abandoned was she that she didn’t even realize when the rolled bed furs had been removed from under her hips or that Rolf was poised to enter her.