The Norse King’s Daughter (14 page)

He framed her face with both his hands and moved his lips over hers, slanting and pressing, licking and moving from side to side until he got their alignment right. And then, praise gods and goddesses, he kissed and kissed and kissed her until she was open and ready for his tongue, which he used like an instrument of sexual assault.

“You are too good at this,” she murmured during one of his brief breaks.

“Kissing?”

She nodded.

“I practice a lot.”

“I’ll bet you do,” she said, and nipped at his bottom lip.

He laughed and nipped her back.

Her entire body felt as if it were humming, waiting for something momentous to happen. “Are you going to tup me now?”

He made a gurgling sound. “Nay, Drifa, sex is like a good boar stew, best left to simmer and simmer.”

“I have simmered enough. Do it. Now.”

“Nay. First, I am going to bring you to peak, with my fingers alone. Do you know what peaking is?”

“Not exactly.”

“Remember the time in your garden?”

“Oh.”
How could I forget?

“Have you ne’er brought yourself to peak with your own fingers?”

“Are you demented?”
Get on with it, for gods’ sake.

“I guess I will just have to show you then.”

“Wait. Are you going to be peaking, too?”

“I hope not. Leastways, I will try to forestall my pleasure until you have had yours. That is why I am keeping my
braies
on. Otherwise, I fear you would cause me to lose control.”

Drifa rather liked the idea of her being able to make Sidroc lose control. She eyed him speculatively.

Sensing her thoughts, he chuckled. “Put your hands on my shoulders, Drifa.”

She could do that, though she wasn’t sure why.

She soon found out.

“Lean back. More than that. Ah, just so.”

If she hadn’t been holding on to his shoulders, she would have fallen backward.
Acrobatic sex? The man really is perverted.
But she was unable to think after that. About manure. Or acrobatics. Or anything else.

He was touching a part of her body between her legs, a spot where all the nerve endings in her body seemed to be centered. She began to keen with the mounting tension filling her from head to toes to the tips of her fingers, but especially
down there
. If she hadn’t been so focused on what the fingertip was doing, she would have realized that the middle finger of his other hand was stuck up inside her. She yelped and tried to rise up, but he would not let her.

“Press downward, dearling. Lift and press. That’s the way. What a good learner you are!”

And then she screamed. She actually screamed with the pure white-hot flames of bliss that overtook her in wave after wave after wave. It was the most horrible/wonderful thing she had ever experienced in all her life. Better even than the time she’d managed to grow a bloodred rose.

When she came back to her senses, she was slumped against him, her face pressed into the curve of his neck, his hands caressing her back in a soothing manner. She was mortified, not by what Sidroc had done to her, but by how she had reacted.

He drew back slightly and kissed her softly. Then he said the last thing she wanted to hear right now.

“That was a good start, sweetling.”

Chapter Thirteen

He was a regular Marco Polo . . .

W
hen Sidroc had first “coerced” Drifa into coming to his bedchamber, he doubted that he planned to carry through with his threats, just give her a bloody damn scare into revealing her secret. But now . . . Holy Thor!
Now
. . . He couldn’t stop now if he wanted to.

Not only had she caused him to spill his seed in his
braies
like an overeager youthling with his first maid, but his enthusiasm was at high pitch again. He was almost afraid to show her the size of his cock lest she go running for the gates.

Fortunately she was in a daze as he carried her into his bedchamber and laid her on his bed. He’d already lit an oil lamp when he’d been readying for her visit.

He went back out and got the wine and goblets. When he returned, she was no longer in a daze. She stood at the foot of his bed, wrapped in his bed covering like a shroud. She was holding the cloth together with one hand, and in the other she had his broadsword dragging on the floor. The weapon was heavy for a man. A woman, especially one of her weight, would scarce be able to lift it with two hands, let alone one. Of course she could drop her shroud. That was a picture he’d like to have in his memory . . . a naked Drifa wielding a sword. “I fulfilled my part for tonight,” she said.

“Oh nay, you little schemer. That little bit of diddling did not count for one night.”

“ ’Twas sex,” she argued.

“ ’Twas foresport. Do not think to get off so easily.”

“Easy?” she nigh shrieked. “That was not easy.”

“Put the sword down, Drifa, afore you hurt yourself. And have some wine to calm your nerves.”

“My nerves are just fine, but this charade is ending. You’ve had your fun, and now ’tis time—”

“Drifa, Drifa, Drifa, does it look like I have had enough fun yet?” He gave a meaningful glance downward. “They have contests in the Hippodrome for every blessed thing. If they start having them for the man with the biggest cockstand, I would win easily.”

“This is beyond embarrassing.” She was staring at his bulge.

She’s embarrassed?
I’m the one who should be embarrassed.
Well, not really.

“I feel like a small child who wet the bed, and you are a rude dolt for calling attention to it.”

“Huh?”

She dropped the sword with a loud clank on the marble floor. He hoped she didn’t put a crack in the stone. He would check later. Then she waddled along, almost tripping over the dragging bed covering, to the stand where he’d placed the goblets and took several big sips out of one of them, hoping to get brave with drink, no doubt. Only then did she explain by motioning with her goblet toward the dark spot on the crotch of his
braies
. “I dampened you.”

She’d dampened him, all right, but not in the way she imagined. “Pfff! That is mostly from me, not you.”

Tilting her head to the side, she watched as he lowered his
braies
, gingerly, and began to wash himself with a small cloth he’d moistened in the pottery bowl of water.

She gasped.

He glanced over and saw her eyes riveted on his manpart that, if anything, was even bigger. But really, was there ever a greater compliment to a man than a woman’s gasp when he dropped his
braies
?

“Why is it red on the end? Does it hurt?”

He started to speak and choked. After a short bout of coughing, he said, “It hurts good.”

“What kind of male illogic is that. Oh! You mean like that sweet torment you just inflicted on me.”

Sweet torment.
He liked the sound of that. “Precisely.”

“Give me a cloth so I can cleanse myself.”

“You would have to drop your shroud to do that,” he pointed out.
Please do.

“You could turn your head.”

“Or not.”

“Give me the damn cloth.”

He laughed and held the cloth away from her. “I like seeing the woman dew glistening on your curly hairs.”
Come closer, my little bug. This spider would like to spin some more dew in you.

“I don’t have curly . . . Oh, good gods, that is perverted.”

“Not even nearly.” He walked over to the bed and lowered himself to lie with his arms folded under his head.

“You look ridiculous,” she said.

“So do you.”

“I meant you look ridiculous because of that . . . that thing standing up in the air.”

“Dost think so?” He gazed down at himself. It looked mighty impressive if you asked him.

“Surely you do not think it would fit.”

“I know it would fit.”
Come closer, little bug, and I will show you how.

She shifted uneasily from foot to foot, probably wondering if she should run.

That would be a sight to titillate the jaded courtiers.
A naked Varangian chasing a naked Viking princess down the halls. Mayhap we can try it later. Or not.

“There is still time to end this farce, Sidroc.”

Thor’s breath! She is still talking.
“Only if you tell me your secrets.”

“I cannot. Not yet.”

He shrugged. In truth, he would rather have her than her secrets at the moment. “Come to bed, Drifa, and fulfill your bargain, or could it be you have some special entertainment planned for me?”

She made a snorting sound that should have been disgusting, but, on the contrary, was rather adorable. “Like what?”

He shrugged again. She made being a spider so easy. “Nude dancing. Nude acrobatics. Nude self-pleasuring.”

Her jaw dropped with each of his suggestions.

Hmmm. Those ideas sounded pretty good to him, if he did say so himself. Mayhap later.

Suddenly he reached out a long arm and yanked on the edge of her covering, thus causing her to lurch forward. He caught and lifted her all in one motion, ending up with her lying atop him, her shroud on the floor. “Got you!” he crowed.

She gasped and tried to squirm out of his embrace, to no avail, of course. Instead he adjusted her so that her breasts nestled in his chest hairs, and his favorite body part nestled in her nether hairs. A perfect fit, in his opinion.

He was caressing the soft skin of her back, from shoulders to buttocks, over and over.

A full-body shiver rippled over her.

He was fairly certain it was due to his touch and not distaste.

In one last-ditch effort to change his mind, she said, “You will hate yourself in the morning if you do this thing.”

How little you know!
“On the contrary. I will hate myself in the morning if I do not. Now, sweetling, like all good Vikings, ’tis time for us go exploring.”

She perked up at that suggestion. “Where? What are we going to explore? The palace? The garden?”

“You.” He flipped the foolish woman over onto her back so that he could lean over her.

He could see that she wanted to argue, that she waged a silent war within herself. Sex or secrets. Sex won out, thank Odin, Thor, Frey, and every other god in the Norse universe.

“Oh. If you must.” She closed her eyes and laid her head back on the pillow and her arms at her side, like a corpse, or a martyr.

Not for long, he vowed.

“Get it over with quickly, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. This exploration is going to be long and slow with many discoveries along the way, that I assure you.” For now he was enjoying a visual exploration. Drifa had aged well, he observed. He had expected more softness and sagging, but she was nigh perfect, curves in all the right places. And no signs of childbirth that he could see, but mayhap not all women showed outward signs.

“Why? Why can’t we hurry?”

Blather, blather, blather. She asks more questions than a boyling on first learning about sex.
“You would not want me to rush my voyage and miss something important, would you?”
Where to start? Where to start? ’Twas like sitting before a feast and not knowing which delectable dish to try first.

“Gods forbid!”

“Dost think sarcasm is wise at this point, lily of my heart?”
I have no idea what she is gods-forbidding about. Pfff. It does not matter.
He caressed her jaw with a fingertip.

“Please, don’t start with the flower nonsense again. I can take only so much torture.” She was still in her corpse pose, but the hands at her sides fisted when he used the same fingertip to draw a path from her collarbone down her chest, all the way to her navel. He interpreted the fisted hands as a good sign that she was getting aroused. On the other hand, perchance it was just a sign that a pottery pitcher would be welcome to her about now.

Enough with talking. Time for action. “The first thing a good explorer does is map out his territory.”

And he did.

“Ah, the North Star,” he said, tracing her lips with the tip of his tongue. The top, the bottom, the seam. When she was glistening and parted for him, he edged his tongue inside. At first he just basked in the pleasure of filling her, thankful that she hadn’t bitten him, but then she sucked on him—a reflex, no doubt—and he groaned into her mouth. Drawing away slightly, he remarked against her lips, “Methinks I have discovered a new fjord. Its waters are wet and warm and delicious.”

She murmured, “Fool!” but then she belied her insult by sighing.

An invitation, if he ever heard one.

“Look here what I found, you clever woman. Two islands. One on the east, and one on the west. They’re pretty and not too small, either.”

“They’re too big,” she said, cracking one eye open.

“Nay. Just right.” In truth, her breasts were big for her slim body, but that’s what made them so attractive. To a man, leastways. To him, especially. “And here is the best part. There are berries on your islands, and I am very hungry.”

Her hands were still fisted at her side, her eyes scrunched tight, and her body braced for the assault she expected him to launch. Silly maid! He was Lord of the Bedplay. There were no defenses.

He blew against one breast, then the other.

Her eyes opened with surprise. “What in bloody hell are you doing?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk! Such language!” He blew again. “A strong north wind is crossing your islands.” And that’s all he did for a while. Just blowing. But then he licked around each areola, never touching the nipples, just the rosy circles, which he then blew dry. Lick and blow. Lick and blow. “A rainy north wind,” he explained.

When she began to arch her chest slightly, as if seeking the wind, he knew he was succeeding. But it was still too soon, in his opinion. So he added another feature to his island exploration. He lifted both breasts from underneath, and continued to lick and blow.

Finally she swore under her breath, grabbed his head, and yanked him down. “Eat the damn berries, you slime-sucking son of a troll.”

“Endearments will get you everything, sweetling,” he said, laughing against her breast where she had planted his face. Time to give his teasing a rest, he decided, and concentrated on her lovely nipples, already hard as pebbles . . . or berries . . . and begging for his attention. Without warning, he began to suckle her hard, then drew away through puckered lips so that a moist, popping sound echoed in the room. Before she had a chance to smack him for the vulgar sound, he did the same to the other breast. “Your berries are sweeter than honey.”

She was breathing heavier now. In fact, her arms were raised above her head in a relaxed position of readiness. Too easy! This was supposed to be a “punishment” of sorts. He rolled off the bed and walked to the bottom.

“Wha-what?”

There was no headboard or footboard; so, before she could say,
Wha-what?
again, he grabbed her ankles and tugged until her buttocks and the bottoms of her feet rested on the edge of the mattress. “Are you ready for a different kind of exploration?”
Best you agree because, ready or not, you are getting it.

“What kind?”

Thank you for asking, little bug.
“Well, my fingers are getting rather tired, and I thought I would use another body part for my discoveries.” He paused for a moment so she could imagine the worst.

“Your palm?” she guessed, hopefully.

Think more “perverted,” my innocent flower.
“My tongue.”

She was slow in understanding his meaning, which gave him the opportunity to quickly kneel on the floor and spread her legs wide.
By thunder! Was there ever a sight prettier to a man on a mission? A seduction mission?

She yelped and tried to sit up, her arms flailing.

He shoved her back down. None too gently, either.