A Viking's Peace: Futuristic Science Fiction Romance (Vikings in Space Book 1) (3 page)

“Your people couple quietly and in the dark. Alone.” His father raked his gaze down the officer’s body and Reinn thought about punching him in the face. His mother wouldn’t like that. Shame.

Ashleigh just smiled. “My people are your people, too, my lord. We share the same base human urges.” She winked. “We enjoy the same pleasures. Just because I prefer to take my mate alone doesn’t mean it’s quiet.”

Everyone in earshot froze for a moment, and the tips of her ears turned pink, but her face remained a smooth mask and after a beat his father burst out in raucous laughter. “Well played, Lieutenant. I envy that man.”

“Of course, my lord. He’s much younger and better looking than you.” Her voice was clear and light, and Reinn wondered why no one else picked up on the faint tremor. But then she smiled again and it was gone. “Perhaps I’ll tell you more about him later, over a glass of mead.”

This time no one tried to hide their laughter. Reinn doubted that anyone else could see that Lt. Tavistock was lying through her teeth. With a final wink to his father, she allowed Reinn to guide her down the receiving line. Next up was his brother. Rolf was still laughing, his long beard shaking almost as much as his big barrel chest. “Well played, Lieutenant,” he rumbled. “Reinn treating you well?”

“So far,” Ashleigh said, glancing in his direction but holding her gaze purposefully short of making eye contact.
 

“We’ll have to stay in touch then. So you can let me know when he starts behaving badly.”

“You don’t think I can handle him?”

“I’m sure you can. I’d just like to watch.”

Harsh possessiveness rose like molten steel inside Reinn. “There won’t be any watching.” He ground out the words, painfully aware that while they’d go over Ashleigh’s head, his brother would correctly parse his meaning.

“That so?”
 

He was acting like Ashleigh could be his next betrothed, mere hours after meeting her. Her mission almost certainly precluded that.
You’re being unprofessional
, he chastised himself. But his brother’s gaze didn’t carry any judgement, just a touch of concern. For him? Her? Both of them?

“Come along,” Reinn said gruffly. He was ready to eat and drink and stop thinking for an hour.

The last few remaining formal introductions went smoothly, then he escorted her to the table where the rest of her team sat with Aldric. His second acknowledged their arrival with a nod and a wink as he finished singing a song for the others.

Reinn glanced at Ashleigh as the ribald lyrics sank in, but just as before, she wore the mask well. And when Aldric finished, she was the first to murmur a throaty approval.

At a quiet break mid-feast, she leaned in close and thanked him for letting her handle his father on her own.

“You’re not so quiet after all, Lieutenant Tavistock.” His lips curved in pride. “I thought for a minute I’d need to intervene.”

“No,” she shook her head solemnly. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Perhaps we need some sort of code word, just in case.”

“You expect for me to be challenged like that often?”

Not by anyone who’d witnessed her deftly take on the king. “Perhaps I’m more concerned about your poor victims.”

She beamed at that, and he threw back his head and laughed.
 

— —
 

Good lord, she’d thought the man was attractive when glowering and serious. Happy and laughing, he was irresistible. He reached for his goblet and took a deep, long drink, and Ashleigh took the opportunity to eat him up with her eyes.

Unlike many of his brethren, his hair wasn’t that long. He tied part of it back behind his head, but what was loose didn’t reach his shoulders. The dark wavy pieces looked soft and touchable, and she had to twist her fingers together to keep from reaching out and looping an errant strand back behind his ear.
 

His face was an endless playground of interesting lines and planes. Carved cheekbones dropped into curving laugh lines which led to a hard, masculine jaw dusted with a light beard that framed his perfect mouth just so…

Yeah. She needed to be re-assigned. This was a disaster waiting to happen. The man had practically suggested she strip naked and wash in front of him. And if he’d offered to help scrub her back, she’d probably have gone for it. Her attraction to him was off-the-charts and seriously problematic.
 

Music had been playing since they entered the longhouse, a pulsing, electric beat that got under her skin, and when the lights dimmed further and a woman’s voice joined the instrumental swell, the hairs on the back of Ashleigh’s neck stood up. The voice was hauntingly beautiful. She craned her neck, looking for the singer, and almost fell out of her chair when she caught sight of the performer. Perched naked on a pile of furs at the front of the dais, the woman’s voluptuous beauty matched her voice. Golden hair tumbled over her swollen breasts and obviously pregnant belly. Two Debedian trolls sat at her feet, as if ready to deliver her every wish. They were the first non-humans Ashleigh had seen on Midgard and she turned to ask Reinn a question about that, but stopped herself because he looked
pissed
.
 

He caught her look and let out a heavy sigh. “That is my ex-wife.”

“Oh.” She looked at the head table where her CO and the King were both observing the singer quite…closely. They were staring. Blatantly. She rolled her eyes. “Would that have been your father’s doing, inviting her to perform?”

“Ylsa would have offered, knowing he’d say yes. My father has been infatuated with her since she was a teenager.”

Ashleigh’s head snapped against the tall padded chair back. She bit her tongue, but she was too close to Reinn for him not to see the truth in her eyes. And she didn’t want to hide her reaction from him.

“Right?” He laughed without humour.

“Are you obligated to be here?” She glanced at the side door. “Would you like to go for a walk? I didn’t see much of the sculpture garden in the square before we came inside.”

He looked over her shoulder. She had no desire to turn around and see what was going on. None of it could be more interesting than the play of emotions on his face. “Your commanding officer…?”

“It’s fine.” She stood and announced they were stepping outside for a few minutes. Aldric gave them a lazy nod. Navena and the goons were entranced by the entertainment and barely acknowledged their departure.

The night air cooled her heated cheeks and she was glad for a moment of quiet. One of Midgard’s two moons shone bright overhead. The other would rise shortly, casting even more reflection down on the surprisingly still city.

Reinn placed a hand in the small of her back and guided her to the plaque at the start of the maze-like statue garden. For a large man in heavy boots, he stepped lightly, matching her own quiet footfall. “This is the—”

“Rasmussen garden,” she murmured, interrupting him softly. “I know. I’ve visited the matching one in Copenhagen.”

“Really?” He shot her a surprised glance.

“Of course. I didn’t have much time to prepare for this mission, but I went for the weekend before departure. I’d also been as a child, of course. Junior school graduation trip to the Midgard Museum.”

He snorted. “Gods. We’re even a tourist trap on Earth.”

She frowned. “I wouldn’t say that.”

He pulled his lips into a thin, silent line.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m being rude.” Except it didn’t sound like he was sorry, or that he believed he was out of line. It felt like a dismissal, and rather unfair when she’d been nothing but pleasant to him.

“It’s no more of a tourist trap than the Space Exploration Center at Cape Canaveral.”

“My point exactly.”

“You’ve never been to Earth!” She shook her head. It was her turn to bite her tongue. The peaceful garden no longer held immediate appeal, not with her current company and his archaic, jaded opinions. She turned on her heel and headed back to the longhouse.
 

She could feel him behind her. Well, it was a free country, at least for him. The son of the King could probably stalk her for real without any recrimination. Simply walking back to a state dinner was no crime.

“Ashleigh.” She froze mid-step. It was the first time he’d used her first name, and the sound of it on his tongue flooded her body with heat. “I’m a wary man. I like the life we have here, and I’m loath to see that change.”

3

She turned slowly, hands spread. She wasn’t the enemy here. “You need medical equipment for your beloved settlements. Better education and travel opportunities for your youth. A connection to your past.”

“This is our connection to our past. All the best parts of our culture were outlawed—”

“You know that’s ancient history.”

“So I can carry this in Florida now?” He brandished a dagger, pulling it silently from the folds of fabric at his hip.

“Well, no, but—”

“How many independent farms remain in what used to be Denmark?”

“None, but—”

“The nastiness might be ancient history, but the iron fist is still clamped down hard.”
 

“I’m here to show you we want to understand. Support, even. Whatever you need to be comfortable with rebuilding our connection, I want to hear it.”

“So you can report it up the chain only to have your president do whatever he wants?”

She lifted her hands in the air. “That’s a bigger question than I could answer tonight. I don’t know. But we have a few months here. We’ll figure it out.”

He stepped closer. “Will you storm off again if I tell you how naive that sounds?”

She let herself smile. It was that or stomp and yell. “Yes, probably.”

“Don’t,” he rumbled, closing the gap between them. Her palms rested flat against his chest and she reflexively fisted her hands on the leather straps of his tunic.

“Don’t what?” she whispered, tipping her head back to look him in the eye. Her pulse sped up at the hungry look she found there.

“Run away from me.”

“I wasn’t running so much as setting boundaries.”

“And what boundaries might those be?” he murmured, dipping his head closer to hers. The second moon was on the rise, just over his shoulder, she lazily noticed.

“I’m really not sure.” Maybe the moonlight was like the water, she thought. She certainly felt drugged, like she was in an altered—and highly sexual—state. “Something about you can’t talk to me like that and sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.”

“Fortune favours the bold.” His mouth hovered right above hers but he didn’t press in closer.
 

“Not exactly true in diplomacy,” she drawled, her words slow and heavy.

“I wasn’t talking about politics.” His mouth covered hers, his beard tickling her cheeks and chin as his lips parted, willing hers to do the same, and because of the damn moonlight she did just that.
 

Kissing a Viking was nothing like kissing anyone else. His kiss, while seemingly innocent, seemed to reach deep inside her and licked flames at her most private parts. She opened for him, and the veil of innocence fell away. This kiss was anything but chaste. His tongue teased at hers, alternatingly firm and yielding, stoking her fires and promising he knew how to thoroughly make love.

She stroked her hands up his chest to his strong, corded neck. She eagerly ran her fingertips over his skin, hot and tight under her touch. But even as his flesh fed her desire, a warning brewed in the back of her mind. His hand slipping under her uniform jacket was the wake-up call she needed.

“No,” she whispered, then repeated the refusal a bit louder.
 

His palm stilled against her bare waist, and even as she pulled away, her insides tugged for him to stroke higher. And lower. Everywhere.

“We can’t,” she said, heavy with regret. “This is unprofessional.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he said dryly. When she gave him a doubting look, he laughed. “Not now, but earlier. I know it’s not…wise, to indulge ourselves like that.”

“You thought about kissing me earlier?”

“You didn’t?”

“Fair enough.” She licked her lips. “But we can’t do it again.”

“Not tonight, anyway.”

“Not ever.”

He dropped his gaze to her mouth then slowly dragged it back up to her eyes. “I’m not going to make a promise I can’t keep.”

They were standing just a few feet from the side entrance to the longhouse. Inside, the music shifted to a more twisting, sensual sound.

“Ylsa’s done,” Reinn muttered. Ashleigh moved to the doorway and watched as the trolls ambled away from the dais, following the swaying, naked back of Reinn’s ex-wife. She disliked the woman right away, which was entirely unfair.

Like a palpable wave, the energy in the room shifted. All the Midgardians knew what was coming and they couldn’t wait.

“We should go back to the garden,” Reinn murmured behind her.

“Why? What’s coming next?” She glanced back at him, her breath catching in her throat at the awareness of how close he was. He shifted again, and she could feel his heat against her back.
 

“A dance, of sorts.” He wasn’t touching her, exactly, but his lips were right behind her ear, and his narration of what was unfolding in front of her felt intimate and illicit. “There will be coupling.”

“We’ve read about this,” she said, her breath rising and falling rapidly in her chest. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t get lost in the spectacle of sex, but that was before Reinn wrapped himself around her as she watched.

“It’s just a show. This isn’t who we are.”

“You don’t want me to watch this, do you?” She glanced back at him again.

“No.” His blunt answer didn’t surprise her.
 

“You don’t approve?”

“Of dancing trolls and sex for shock value? Do you?”

“It’s entertainment. Maybe not my thing, but I don’t think you like
any
of this. The feast. The pageantry.”

He looked at her. “No, I suppose I don’t. It’s one thing if it’s for the court. Fantasy and fun. But as a tourism industry just to boost our economy? We came here to live authentically, Ashleigh.”