Valhalla Cupcakes (5 page)

“I don’t mind,” he said, working down the side of her neck with soft gentle breaths.

She would count to ten, and then command him to stop, but in the meantime, she got her hands under his vest and rough shirt, sighing not only at the exquisite feel of his hot, smooth skin against her palms, but at his lips trailing down her neck and along the opening of her top. It wasn’t technically kissing so she guessed he was strictly following her rules. Either way, it made her lose her tenuous grip on her self-control.

Pop the buttons, she mentally pleaded, exhaling to further strain the fabric. Just don’t stop. She wanted him to make it lower than he did, and considered counting to twenty, but at fourteen, she dug her fingernails into his back and sadly told him to stop.

“I thought you were hungry,” she said, feeling as bereft as he looked when he immediately stepped away from her.

“I am,” he said, stubbornly not taking his eyes off her.

“Just stay in the house. I’ll be back soon.”

“Take me with you,” he said.

She almost agreed. There was little harm he could cause, not when he had to do everything she told him to. She wanted to tell him to take off his clothes so she could touch him some more, and shook her head. His clothes. He couldn’t go out in his bearskin and tatty, skin tight breeches.

“Not until I get you something more appropriate to wear. What’s your size? Oh, you probably didn’t even have sizes back in your day did you? Somebody just made your clothes to fit?”

“My grandmother made my clothes,” he said, and she had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from making a yearning noise.

He looked, acted, and sounded so fierce, but when those words came out of his mouth, her heartstrings very definitely felt a tug. No, it was bad enough she couldn’t stop thinking about rolling around naked with him, she absolutely couldn’t develop feelings for him. But most of the lusty glimmer had drained from his eyes and she could see he thought about the past. All the people he loved had been taken from him when he’d been locked up and cursed to live silently and helplessly all those years.

“Stay put,” she said, rushing to her room. She found a tape measure in one of the dozen emergency sewing kits her mother constantly put in her Christmas stocking, and returned to find him standing in the same spot.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess if I say stay put or something like that, it really means move freely about the house. Except for my room,” she quickly amended.

Being in command of someone was turning out to be more difficult than she thought. She instructed him to hold out his arms and measured him around the chest and waist, not bothering to pretend she didn’t like getting up close to him again. As she knelt down to measure his inseam, he stroked the back of her hair and chuckled. She blushed at whatever thoughts he might have been having and tried to ignore what was directly in front of her.

“Can you just hold it?” she sputtered. “I can’t reach your ankle.”

He took the end of the measuring tape, continuing his laughter while she finished.

“You’re really big,” she said, leaning back on her heels to look up at him, miles away. “Quit making that face,” she said at his suggestive leer. “Now, don’t use any of the kitchen appliances, but you can eat or drink whatever’s in the fridge. Don’t answer the phone or the door. Stay inside, unless of course there’s a fire, but there shouldn’t be.” She paused to think if there was anything else she needed to put into her command, to make sure he stayed out of trouble while not risking his safety. “Don’t start a fire,” she said, feeling stupid but unable to keep from adding it, just in case he got any wise ideas.

He looked gravely offended and she quickly apologized, promising to be back soon.

She felt like a kid in a candy store, shopping for clothes for him as if he were a new, prized doll. Remembering her money woes, she ended up putting most of her carefully chosen outfits back, settling on a few plain t-shirts, two pairs of jeans and some undies and sweats for him to sleep in. Knowing she shouldn’t, she bought him some novelty Thor boxers, hoping to make him laugh, and thinking he’d look adorably sexy in them.

Except, you’re never going to see him in his underwear, she reminded herself. Still, she tossed them onto the counter, strangely giddy to be buying him things. At the grocery store, she bought some thick steaks and salad fixings, and after a lot of hesitation, added a nice six pack of beer. It wouldn’t get them dangerously drunk, and she knew that Vikings liked their ale, so hopefully it would make him happy.

As she drove home, she tried to decipher why she cared so much about his state of mind, when he really should have just been a means to an end. She felt sorry for him for the curse he’d endured, and guilty that she was now bossing him around, and guiltier still for partly enjoying it. If only she could figure out what to do about the huge sum of money she had to come up with, she could let him be on his way to seek his revenge.

She’d even offer to help, though she didn’t think it was possible to get revenge on someone who had to be long, long since dead. What did she know about it, though? She never would have thought it possible to trap someone in a painting, but she now lived with proof that it was. She smiled from ear to ear as she pulled into her parking space, eager to lay eyes on him again.

As he sat dejectedly in the glow of the cake display light, she felt awful for forgetting to show him how things worked. It seemed like he knew so much about modern living from observing and listening from the painting, but he explained he had a very small range of vision in it, and could only see directly in front of him. Many long stretches he’d been forced to stare at blank walls, or other portraits, leaving him to wonder if there were other sad souls trapped as he was. Once he was hung directly across from a mirror, making it the worst ten years of his life, as he had to stare at the mockery the witch made of him.

She listened to his story as she pan seared the steaks and tossed the salad, presenting him his dinner with a flourish, and watching eagerly as he took the first bite. As a cook, she loved watching people enjoy her creations, but there was something different about watching Erik sink his teeth into the rare meat, something almost primal she felt deep within her. His eyes drifted shut as he chewed, and a low moan rumbled up from his throat. He licked the juices from his lips and sighed happily as he took another bite.

She was a much better baker than she was a chef, and if he enjoyed the taste of imperfectly prepared meat that much after going centuries without food, she wondered what his reaction to finally being with a woman after so long would be. Watching him savor the steak with such intense fervor, she wanted to find out more than she considered safe, and excused herself to the kitchen, where she stuck her face in the freezer to cool off.

Resting her forehead against the frosty ledge, she determined to stop looking at him for a while. He was too attractive, that was the problem. She couldn’t look at his face at all, she’d just look at his chest. No, that wasn’t going to work, because looking at his chest made her want to touch him. She would only look at his hands. She sighed, recalling what those hands had made her feel. Not looking at him at all seemed safest. He’d think that she was weird, but she was going to keep her eyes firmly averted from now on.

Feeling better, she took one last deep breath of icy air and backed away from the freezer. Straight into a hard wall of Viking. Damn it. She wasn’t looking at him at all right now and her nerve endings started dancing feverishly anyway. How much frustration could a woman take without actually bursting? She felt very close to bursting.

He slid his arms around her and pulled her close to him, moving his hands up to rest below her breasts, his thumbs brushing tantalizingly close. She wanted to turn around and scream how unfair he was being before wrapping her legs around him and dragging him to the kitchen floor. Instead, she stood frozen, barely breathing, waiting to see what new, delicious torments he would inflict on her.

“Are you going to finish your steak, Audrey?” he asked, turning her around to look sweetly down at her.

She laughed, certain she was coming unhinged. “No, go ahead and eat it. We have to wake up early in the morning to get ready for the grand opening, so I’m going to go to bed.” She pulled away from him and looked resolutely past his shoulder. “Don’t worry about your dishes, but be sure to get some sleep, okay? I’m going to need a lot of help tomorrow.”

“Never fear,” he said, full of good humor now that he’d had his red meat. “I’m a morning person. Whatever you ask of me, I’ll do.”

He smiled so charmingly, she didn’t think he was making a sarcastic jab at the fact that she essentially owned his ass. It obviously caused him rancor, but he was being remarkably good-natured about it.

“Well, thanks,” she said, thrown off kilter once again. “Um, goodnight, then.”

“Sweet dreams.” He leaned down as if to kiss her, but remembered he couldn’t, and gave her a disappointed look before heading back to devour what was left of her meal.

She touched her lips and frowned, buzzing with frustration that not even climbing completely into the freezer would erase. She’d definitely have some dreams tonight, but she was certain they’d be anything but sweet.

Erik sat down and pulled Audrey’s plate over to him, smiling to himself. The steaks were exactly what he wanted, and it was kind of her to make them for him. It was kind of her to be so accommodating at all, now that she knew her power over him. She certainly didn’t have to be. He was as good as still locked up in the painting for all the control he had over his life, and it was only her kindness that kept him from falling into a deep despair.

The moment she first directed him to eat one of those sweet cakes and he’d felt the shimmer of helplessness wash over him, he knew his curse wasn’t ended. As much as he didn’t want one, he was compelled to eat it. He could almost hear the raucous laughter of that foul creature who’d damned him to this life. He’d tried to get out of the house without her realizing, but Audrey was as clever as she was beautiful, and she’d figured it out.

He ate more slowly, wanting the remaining bites of steak to last. She’d seemed concerned she hadn’t done a good job in cooking it, but he would have relished it just as much raw, he’d been so hungry.

Now that this hunger was at least a bit sated, his focus turned to another hunger. He was forced to wait to exact his revenge, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy his time in this new prison. At least he could walk around and speak, eat and drink and touch. As he swallowed the last juicy piece of meat, he thought of how much he’d enjoyed touching his new prison warden. He’d enjoyed her obvious reactions even more. It had been so long he wasn’t sure if his judgment was clouded, but he thought he could have actually liked her quite a bit as well, if it weren’t for the pesky fact that she controlled his every movement. He’d gone too long without his freedom to be able to accept it easily.

However, he couldn’t begrudge Audrey taking advantage of the situation as she had, especially after he learned of the three men who’d come into her house and threatened her. It would be good when they came back, he could work out some of his centuries of pent up aggression on them.

He stood up and paced the room. He had a lot of things pent up and glanced at the stairs, trying to figure out a way to get around her rule of not going into her bedroom. He laughed, thinking of how she so carefully worded her rules. It didn’t escape his notice that she didn’t make a blanket ‘no touching’ rule, allowing him to get away with quite a bit. And he was going to get away with whatever she allowed, because he found her to be even more delectable than all the food she’d given him.

He thought it was only a matter of time before he completely seduced her, and if he could keep his wits about him and not let an uneasy thing like finding her so very likable get in his way, he could have her in the palm of his hand, curse or no curse.

Right now he wanted her in the palms of both his hands, wanted the sweet release her luscious body could give him. Resigned to the fact that it wasn’t happening tonight, he figured out how to use the shower and let the hot water beat down on him until it turned frigid, continuing to stand under its stinging blast. It helped to clear his mind, something he sorely needed after being tormented all day by Audrey’s beautiful, trusting face, the way her body so eagerly responded to him, and the irritating fact that she kept making him laugh. He wanted her, it was undeniable, but he had to remain true to his one focus now that he was out of the painting. He couldn’t rest, couldn’t truly be free, until he’d made the witch who imprisoned him pay.

He lay down in the bed Audrey had seemed so embarrassed to offer him. If only she knew how grateful he was to lie down at all, she could have told him to sleep on the floor and he would have been happy. Flexing his ankles, bending his elbows, shrugging his shoulders— the witch had taken even those small things from him. The fact that being able to pull a blanket over himself felt like a luxury renewed his anger.

He rolled over, consumed with thoughts of his revenge, certain he wouldn’t sleep a wink. The soft blanket he had tucked up to his chin reminded him of Audrey’s kindness to him, something she didn’t need to show him. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking of her at all, let alone so fondly, but he ended up drifting off with her firmly stuck in his head.

***

Audrey’s alarm woke her just before four and she swung her legs over the side of the bed, still in a sleep daze. Having held various baking jobs since she was a junior in high school, she was used to getting up before the roosters, but she’d had so many vigorous dreams the night before it felt like she hadn’t got any sleep at all.