“To hell for all you care!” She rose up in the water, unconcerned by her nudity, and was about to go put on some clothes . . . and hopefully a bit of common sense, as well. Really, what had she been thinking?
But then, swiping tears from her eyes, she fell backwards into the pool. Not of her own volition. Brandr had her by the hair and went under with her.
Sputtering to the surface of the waist-deep water, she turned and lashed out at him with fists and voice. “Let me go! I’m not going to stick around and make a fool of myself again.”
“Shhh! I am the fool!” They were standing now, and he had her in such a tight grip, she couldn’t move. She struggled and called him every foul name she could think of, and there were quite a few she’d learned while being around Navy men. Only when she went still, exhausted by her efforts, did he lift her by the waist with her feet dangling about a half foot from the bottom. Eye to eye, he told her, “I want you. More than I have ever wanted any other woman. I have never been in love, nor do I think I am capable of that kind of love. But know this: when you said those words to me, my heart bestirred with a yearning I cannot name.”
“You’re scared.”
He bristled at her accusation, but then he shrugged.
She could feel his erection pressing against her in just the right spot. She could see the languorous, sensual fluttering of his lush eyelashes. She could hear the panting of his breath. “If you ask if you can tup me, like a barrel of beer, or swive me, like the last of the peanut butter in a jar, I think I might just scream.”
He laughed, but then, in a voice so sex-husky a nun would melt, he said, “Wouldst make love with me, wench?”
What wench could resist?
Older women, younger men . . . she was the ultimate cougar . . .
A triumphant joy filled Brandr as he stared at her, knowing without a doubt, as Viking men have known through the ages, the wench was going to yield to his brutish urges.
He did not bloody well care if she was a thousand years old or a nubile sixteen. In truth, older women brought more to the bed furs, in his opinion.
“Joy?” he asked, his voice already thick with growing enthusiasm.
She lowered her emerald eyes with shyness under his steady gaze.
Shyness? From the wench who is turning my life, and all at Bear’s Lair, upside down and inside out? From the wench who claims to be a warrior, healer, and time traveler? From the wench who barrels in where others fear to tread? From the wench whose bravery defies good sense? Hah! I do not think so!
“So, milady, wouldst demonstrate for me something uninhibited?”
“Huh?” Her eyes shot upward to meet his.
“You told me that women
of your time
are uninhibited in sex play.”
“Aaah.” He could see the shyness seeping out of her to be replaced by a sultry, teasing demeanor. “Do you mean like this?” He still held her by the waist, her feet dangling in the water, which was waist-deep on her, thigh-deep on him. Even so, she was able to put her hands on his upper arms and move her breasts from side to side across his bristly chest hairs, causing her nipples to harden. The surrounding skin, right up to her neck, bloomed with the sex-flush.
She gasped with shock.
He choked on his own gasp.
“Precisely like that,” he said, though how he got the words out was beyond him. His enthusiasm licked through raw nerves and hot blood, turning him mindless with his need to plunge into her depths. But slaking his lust to the inevitable end was a long way off, he cautioned himself.
Raising her even higher so that her breasts were level with his face, he kissed one taut nipple, then the other, then scored the sides of each with his teeth, tugging ’til she mewled her protest. Nay, not a protest, he soon learned.
“Don’t stop. Oh, God, don’t stop now.”
“As if I would!”
Or could.
Brandr cupped her bottom, forcing her legs around his waist, and walked her across the pool and up the steps. Without releasing her, he bent and picked up his cloak, tossing it down onto the stone floor, fur side up. Only then did he lay her down and arrange her the way he wanted.
Her lips twitched with a little smile. “Fur again?”
“And why not?” He came down over her, wedging his legs betwixt hers, then kneeling to see her body better. “Dost have something against fur for lovemaking?”
“Are you kidding?” She opened her arms to him.
“Not yet.”
Her gaze shot immediately to his shaft, which reared up from his thatch of man hair, veins standing out in readiness, belying his “Not yet” message. “Oh, really?”
He chuckled and snatched her hand away when she reached for his manpart. “We play the game my way.”
“Oh, really?” she said again, raising her hips so that her nether hair caressed his ballocks.
He about saw stars and almost spilled his seed way too early, like an untried youthling with his first maid. Joy would no doubt then be expounding on his need for those little blue pellets.
Knowing full well her effect on him, she lowered herself and grinned. “I guess it’s okay for you to lead . . . the first time.”
“Vixen! I wonder if you will deliver all that you promise.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“Is that a challenge? Did you ne’er hear that there is naught a Viking man relishes more than a challenge?”
“Oh, yeah? You should know that my brothers have been playing the dare game with me for ages. As long as you don’t double-dog dare me.”
Double-dog dare?
He was about to ask, but decided now was not the time to dwell on the odd words of her language. “I want to look at you first.”
And that is what he did.
“I like to look, too,” she said.
And that is what she did.
They examined each other hungrily.
“I like your hair.” He rubbed a wet strand between his thumb and forefinger. “Like threads of red silk.”
“Why do you wear braids on either side of your face?”
“War braids. Men with long hair wear them thus to keep unruly strands out of their eyes, or in one long braid tucked under a helmet, so the enemy cannot grab onto it. Do you not like them?”
“I like them all right. Especially with those colored beads.”
“Mayhap I will braid your hair with them. Later.”
“Not exactly appropriate for a thrall, is it?”
“Why do you keep jabbering on about that?”
“Because it’s important.”
“But not now.”
“You’re right,” she purred. “Not now.” In fact, she took hold of both braids and tugged him downward till he lay atop her. “They
do
come in handy.”
He laughed, which was not all that easy with his manpart nestled betwixt her thighs, his chest pressing down on her breasts, his mouth within breathing space of her parted lips.
“I am too heavy,” he said, brushing his lips across hers.
“No, you’re just right.” She brushed back.
Gripping her head with both hands, he molded her mouth to his in ever-changing patterns of soft coaxing to hungry hardness. Her pliant lips met his silent demands and satisfied her own needs as well. They were partners in every sense, anticipating what the other wanted.
He drew back and put his fingertips on the pulse point in her neck. “I can feel how much you want me.”
She laughed and rubbed herself against his rampant erection. “I can feel how much you want me.”
“Witch!” he said and nipped at the soft curve where her neck met her shoulder.
She put her mouth to his ear, flicked it with the wet tip of her tongue, then whispered, “I have never wanted a man the way that I want you.”
Brandr wasn’t sure whether to be complimented or upset over the men in her past. He shouldn’t have asked, but he did. “Have there been so many?”
“No. Just a few. I’m twenty-seven years old, after all. Were you thinking there would be none?”
“Nay.”
I just do not want to think about them.
He began a slow, leisurely exploration of her body then, or as slow as he could, ignoring the driving pulse of a need-some cock. Her breasts especially he gave detailed attention. Shaping them. Massaging them with his calloused palms. Flicking the tips. Then kissing and suckling her ’til she cried out for him to stop.
“Brandr, you’ll make me come if you keep doing that, and I want the first time to be when you’re inside me.”
Those tempting words prompted him to continue ministering to her breasts, in fact, intensifying his rhythmic suckling.
And then . . . and then, caught in the throes of an overwhelming passion, she arched her belly up to meet his abdomen. Her legs went rigid. And she began to keen out her peaking. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oooh!”
Fascinated, he watched and felt her belly spasm against his skin.
“You rat!” She swatted him on the shoulder when her body was limp and flat against the furs once more.
“You were magnificent.”
“I was?”
He nodded.
“Well, then, I guess it’s okay.” She eyed him through half-mast lashes. “Are your nipples as sensitive as mine?”
“Nay,” he said, then flinched as she put her mouth to his flat nipples. Licking them to bigger nubs. Nipping at them with her teeth. Kissing them better. Much more of this, and there would be no actual intercourse.
He pushed her away, gently, then moved down her body. Kissing her belly. Stabbing her navel with his tongue. Rubbing his mouth against the tight curls that already exuded her musk of arousal. Only then did he separate her nether lips with his fingertips and let her anoint him with her honeyed dew.
“You are wet for me, dearling.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,
darling
.”
“Always the smart mouth.”
“Keep it up, and you may find exactly what a smart mouth can do.”
Does she mean what I think? Surely not!
“Is that a promise?”
“Brandr! I want you. Inside me.”
When his fingertips meandered forward in her slickness to touch the pearl of her desire, she almost shot up off the furs. She would have knocked him aside if he had not been holding on so tightly.
“Now!” she demanded.
“Whate’er you say.” He moved into position while she observed him closely, braced as she was on her elbows. Never had he met a woman so eager for the coupling, willing to watch up close what he would do. But, wait; he thought of something. “Joy, I must needs spill my seed outside your body when I peak. I would not breed a child on you.” That is all he would need, his first son born of a time-traveling thrall, possibly taking him away to some unknown future place.
“Do you have any idea how unreliable coitus interruptus is?”
Coitus interruptus? Holy Thor! The woman has a word for even that. And an opinion on every bloody thing in the world.
“But that’s okay. I’m protected for almost a year.”
“Huh?” He could not believe his cock was at her portal, dripping his man-dew, and they were engaging in a conversation. Did the wench ever stop talking?
“I have a birth control implant.”
“What?”
“See, there’s an implant under the skin here.”
He checked the thin skin inside her upper arm, and there was indeed a shaded area. “Another metal weapon?”
“No weapon. A birth control device.” She took matters into her own hands then, reaching down to enfold his cock and guide him home. A hot, moist, pulsing slide to home.
He closed his eyes to savor the moment and gather his self-control for the long ride to come.
“Birth control implants are ninety-eight percent effective,” she said then.
His eyes shot open.
Oh, my gods! She’s going to talk again.
He was about to shut her teeth with a kiss but had to ask, “Percent?”
“Yeah. Like if you have sex one hundred times, the birth control would work ninety eight times.”
“You intend to have sex with me a hundred times?”
She started to laugh, and he felt her laughter all the way to her inner muscles, which had already stretched to accommodate his size and were now convulsing with laughter.
“Who knew a woman’s sheath could have a sense of humor? Amazing!”
That caused her to laugh even more.
But then the time for laughter passed.
Chest heaving with restraint, he began the long, slow strokes, almost leaving her body on each backstroke. Her muscles inside were tight and tugged at his cock in passing, coming and going.
Joy was thrashing and tossing her head from side to side, making small sounds of growing arousal that fed his male ego. Slowly he drove her to the point of madness . . . and himself as well.