“If this is your idea of talking, spare me. And if you don’t stop prodding me with that . . . thing, I’m going to bite it off first chance I get.”
He froze. His cock
was
indeed poking at her, but most females would ne’er mention the fact, lest they be whores or of a wanton nature.
I can only hope.
Nay, I do not hope that she is wanton,
he argued with himself.
Liar!
Well, mayhap I am a mite tempted.
The mental voice just laughed.
He shook his head to rid his bemused brain of such unwelcome musings. “You would bite off my manpart? That should be interesting, since you would have to put it in your mouth first.”
“So?”
The wench shocked him. Continually. In truth, he had not heard such wicked speech from other than a strumpet. “Are you saying you have done such?”
“Are you saying you haven’t?”
“This is a ridiculous conversation.”
“Isn’t that the truth? Let me up. You said you wouldn’t hurt me, that you wanted to talk.”
“ ’Tis true,” he said, “but first I deserve a forfeit.”
“For what?”
“For denying your thralldom. For fighting me in front of one and all. For calling me a beast. For causing me to break a toe kicking your door. For saying you would ne’er be attracted to such as me. Is that still true . . . that you are not attracted to me?”
What an idiot I am! Begging a thrall for crumbs of affection.
“Well,” she said, licking her lips in a most seductive manner as she stared at his hair and face and mouth.
He’d shaved earlier today when in the hot spring bathing house, and he wore war braids on either side of his face, not for preparation to battle but to keep errant strands out of his eyes.
“In different circumstances, I might find you attractive,” she admitted.
His foolish heart swelled at the gleam of interest in her sparkling green eyes. “What different circumstances?” He could not help himself. He leaned down and nuzzled her clean hair. How long had it been since he’d savored a woman for her scent alone?
“If I hadn’t been kidnapped by your idiot brothers and you hadn’t behaved like an overconfident male chauvinist pig when you first saw me, and—”
“I’ve decided what my forfeit will be afore I let you up.”
“Goody, goody! I can’t wait to hear.”
“A kiss,” he said, and before she could protest, he placed his lips on hers. To his amazement, she did not resist or slap him aside the head or try to shove him off. In fact, she moaned softly and opened to him.
Brandr had kissed many a maid, though not so much of late. But this kiss . . . this he could do forever.
As far as kisses went, it was a mere shaping and learning, coaxing. It should have been nothing spectacular. But it was.
So sweet and tempting was her kiss, and, yea, she was kissing him back, that he wished he could burrow inside her, to be soothed by her softness and light. In that moment, he realized that the darkness had left him, if only for an instant, and was replaced with the most untenable thing: hope.
He tore his mouth off hers and stared at her with a mixture of wonderment and horror. With senses inflamed, ribbons of lust unfurled throughout his stunned body. Their hands were still linked above her head. “You are a danger to me, wench. I swear you are.”
She furrowed her brow in question. ’Twas hard to miss the slumberous haze of arousal in her eyes. She did not attempt to escape his hands holding hers.
He could not be tempted. He could not!
“That was some kiss,” she observed.
“Yea, it was, and, truth to tell, I am not all that fond of the lip-locking nonsense as foresport. Best to get on to the tupping.”
“Like dumb men everywhere! Think kisses are just a pit stop on the way to intercourse.” Then she seemed to think of something. “Now you feel differently?”
“As you say, it was
some kiss
.”
She studied him. “Why am I a danger?”
“You are a thrall; I am a high jarl. Methinks you would disdain being a bed slave to me or my men, not that your opinion will matter in the end. You are a stranger with odd ways, mayhap even one of our enemy.”
“Bull!” she declared.
He rolled off of her and arranged some pillows behind him so that he half sat. She did the same . . . and glared at him.
Even when she was glaring, she tempted him mightily. Apparently she did not realize that her night rail was thin and well worn, displaying her charms to his already lustsome survey. The hem had ridden up to expose long, well-formed legs, despite the bristles. They must have been shaved at one time, if he did not miss his guess, like a harem houri. He even imagined he could see the dark red of her fleece. And her breasts—praise the gods and pass the mead—but she had fine, plump breasts that would fit—
“Stop staring at my breasts.”
His lips twitched with a barely suppressed grin. “Your nipples are pointing at me like little arrows. Must be you find me ‘charming’ after all.”
“Hah! File that under the Department of Wishful Thinking.” Her face bloomed red.
’Twas a good sign when a lustsome man could make a woman blush in bed.
“You’re easy on the eyes in a Genghis Khan kind of way,” she admitted, “but it’s just that the rough fabric of your shirt abraded them. Don’t for one minute be thinking that you turned me on.”
He could guess what “turned on” meant. Aroused. When they had kissed, she had been “turned on” all right, or he was not a Norsemen with an eye for good sex. Just as he had been “turned on” and still was.
He took one of her hands and ran the palm over the fine,
soft
wool of his tunic, giving lie to her words. When she didn’t protest, he remained braced on one elbow and opted for another liberty. He ran the backs of the fingers of his free hand over one of said nipples, then quickly pulled his hand back lest she bite it off. But she was not biting. Nay, she stared at him, overwhelmed as he was by the shock of pleasure that hit them both. He had meant to taunt her, but instead the mock caress had come back to taunt him. The sap was rising in him at such a rapid rate it was surprising it did not ooze from his ears and nose and, yea, even his eyeballs.
“Are you a witch?” he asked in a sex-husky voice.
She shook her head slowly, still dazed.
“Who are you?”
“I told you already. I’m Petty Officer Joy Nelson in the Navy WEALS training program at Coronado, California.”
“I do not understand what you say by half.”
“You could say I’m a soldier. But I’m also a psychologist.”
“Sigh-call-jest?”
“Psychologist,” she corrected. “An expert on the human mind and behavior. A person who helps people heal from different mental maladies, like intellectual disabilities . . .”
“Dumbness?”
She clucked her tongue at him. “. . . behavior or mood disorders . . .”
“Grumpiness?”
“Stop interrupting me. Also, personality disorders.”
“Ah! Like me, I suppose.”
“Exactly.”
“What were you doing in Hedeby?”
“I wish I knew. Well, actually, I was on a mission there. I got hit on the head, and before I knew it, I was in this old Hedeby reenactment village, and you know the rest.”
Either the woman lied or she was demented. “Can you help my sister?”
“Maybe. Probably.”
It would be insanity to trust the witch. Still, no one else had succeeded. Why not give her a chance? “I will give you four sennights . . . a full month to try.”
“Gee whiz! Thanks. And if I don’t succeed?”
“I will chop off your head.”
He was jesting, but she regarded him as if he were a barbarian. Which he was, of course, but he did not lop off heads at will.
“Let’s make a deal.”
“Thralls do not make deals.”
“Aaarrgh!”
“My mother used to make that sound when I did something she deemed particularly lackwitted.”
“I think I’m going to like your mother.”
“She is dead. And do not ask how or when, or I will indeed lop off body parts, starting with your running tongue.”
“Okay, not that I accept that I’m a thrall or slave or whatever, but here’s my offer. I work with your sister for a month, and if I help her, you take this damn necklace off of me, then take me back to Hedeby to find my team.”
“You do not ask for coin?”
“No. I have plenty to live on back home. Why would I want your money?”
“All women want gold or silver or jewelry.”
“You’ve been hanging with the wrong crowd, buddy.”
“Buddy? That is a word you used about my sister. Friend, you said it means. Know this, I have no desire for you as a friend.”
“Whatever!”
“I do not accept your offer.”
“You don’t?” His denial of her deal clearly shocked her.
“Nay. Instead, here is my offer. You work with my sister for one month
as a thrall
. At the end of that time, we will discuss whether you merit freedom. Or not.”
“That’s no deal at all.”
“One more thing. You will share my bed furs during that time.”
The trick got tricked . . .
Joy stared at the brute, not believing what he’d just said. Then she glanced down at the furs on which they lay. A bubble of hysteria rose in her already befuddled mind. “If you mean what I think you mean, forget about it.”
“You have no choice.”
“Rape . . . that’s what it would be.”
“I have ne’er raped a woman in all my thirty years. I am not about to start with you. Nay, when we engage in bedsport, you will beg for it.”
“What an egotistical—”
“In any case, I did not say I would swive you, just that you would sleep at my side. For now.”
“What a crock! That’s the biggest line in the book. Right up there with, ‘Slip into the backseat with me, honey. I’m not going to touch you. We’ll just check out the stars.’ Listen up, bozo, I am not some cheap trick you can bamboozle into a one-night stand or two.”
“Huh?”
“What kind of deal is it where you get me as a bed partner, sex or no sex, and a free therapist for your sister, and I get sucky face nothing?”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know where I am or why I’m here. I suspect you’re connected with the Arab terrorists. But know this: the way to get a woman to have sex with you is not to give out ludicrous orders. In fact, my brothers would be the first to tell you that is tantamount to a dare in my book. ‘I dare you to deny me sex.’ Oh, yeah! We’ll see about that sharing the furs business.”
“What was it you said so eloquently earlier this evening? Ah, now I remember. Blah, blah, blah.”
She almost smiled. The oaf had a sense of humor, after all.
“Keep rattling on. I find your constant chatter tires me. I am a man for whom sleep comes hard these days, and I did not soak my brain with ale tonight, as I usually do.”
“Why can’t you sleep?”
“Demons.”
“What? I’ve heard the expression, ‘I see dead people,’ but never ‘I see demons.’ Wow! Real demons? You see real demons?”
“Of course not! I mean demons of the mind.”
“Ah! The berserker stuff.”
“Who told you that?”
“Your brothers.”
“Lackwits!”
“I was wondering . . . um, when you go berserk in battle, are you naked? Do you bite your shield? Do you howl like a wolf?”
“Holy Thor! I am a berserker. Not a dunderhead. What warrior would bare himself to the enemy?”
“I just remember reading—”
“The only time I am naked is when I am in the bathing house or in the bed furs. Wouldst like to know what I am biting then? Nay? I thought not. As for roaring . . . the only roar coming from me would be one of triumph at the peaking.”
“Jeesh! Don’t overreact. You know, I could help you, as well as Liv. With the dark demon business, I mean.”
“Please! Spare me your help. You would enjoy making me into a milksop, would you not?” He yawned widely, then rose, beginning to take off his clothes. First he undid his silver chain-link belt, then lifted his tunic up over his shoulders and off, leaving bare wide shoulders and a chest covered with black hair and a number of battle scars, old and new. Even while she gaped at him, he toed off one boot, then the other, then began unlacing his slim pants.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she squealed.