Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 04] (12 page)

She’d combed her wavy red hair off her face and behind her ears, from which dangled gold hoop ear ornaments. Her lips had been painted ruby red and her cheeks rouged slightly. Her lashes were long and golden red.

Just looking at her made him feel good.

What kind of children would they produce? Red-haired girlings with green eyes like her? Black-haired boylings with blue eyes like him? Or different combinations, like red-haired boylings with green eyes, or black-haired girlings with blue eyes, or red-haired boylings with blue eyes, or black-haired girlings with green eyes, or. …

Aaarrgh! I must be losing my mind. Thinking about children! Holy Thor, I’m turning into my father.

While his mind had been wandering, something had been happening at Alison’s table. Doctor Fine-gold and the other lady got up to dance, and some fellow in light brown pants and a short-sleeved
shert
came over to talk to Alison. She seemed to know him. They talked for several moments, with the fellow leaning over the table, one hand propped on the back of her chair, way too intimately for Ragnor’s tastes. Then Alison stood and walked out onto the dance floor with him.

Ragnor’s feet hit the floor with a clomp. But he didn’t rise immediately. Instead, he watched as the imprudent fellow swirled her about to a fast song … “Honky-Tonk Something or other.” The man with the death wish who dared to touch Alison looked like an idiot. Alison, on the other hand, took Ragnor’s breath away, and he had already been breathless. She raised her arms, which lifted her small breasts. Swayed her hips. Showed off her nicely rounded arse. Swung legs that were sinfully long. Through two songs he watched, knowing that his three SEAL comrades watched him just as closely, worried that he was going to do something that would land them all in the brig.

He did not mind quietly observing the exhibition that Alison and her male friend put on to the rowdy songs, but once the musicians moved into a slow rendition of “Crazy”—
and wasn’t that appropriate for his mood of late?
—Ragnor could not sit still and allow another man to embrace his woman in such a familiar way, all in the name of that fornicating exercise they called dancing.

And, yea, he thought of her as
his woman
. No question about that.

He cared naught if Alison smiled invitingly at the rogue. No one should be allowed to hold her except him.

Standing abruptly, Ragnor stomped out into the middle of the dance floor and tapped her shoulder. She turned to look over her shoulder, then jerked with surprise. “Max! What are you doing here?”

“Dance with me,” he said without any preamble. It was not a question.

“Get lost, bozo,” the guy said. He lowered his hands from the back of Alison’s waist and turned to confront him.

Ragnor ignored the man, not even caring if
bow-sew
was an insult. Instead, he repeated to Alison, “Dance with me.”

She stepped in between him and the other fellow. “John, this is Ensign Magnusson. Max, this is Detective John Phillips, a local police officer.”

“What need have you of a police officer?” Ragnor asked, having learned from his SEAL comrades that police, including detectives, enforced the law in this land. Was Alison in some danger, as he’d originally thought?

“Ensign? You’re an ensign? What the hell are you doing approaching a superior officer, boy?” the policing man asked, and not in a pleasant manner.

The
bow-sew
he had been willing to accept, but
boy
from a man only a few years older than himself?
Hah! I do not think so!
Ragnor drew himself to his full height, which was a half head taller than the policing man, who, incidentally, had a retreating hairline Ragnor was pleased to notice. “Go away afore I have to rearrange your nose. Or pull out what little remains of your hair.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“A Viking never threatens. We just do.”

The fellow had the nerve to roll his eyes. “A Viking, for chrissake. You Navy SEALs are something else!” He probably knew Ragnor was a SEAL or a SEAL trainee because his
shert
proclaimed him so. “Not only do you SEALs think you’re God’s gift to women, but now you claim to be a friggin’ Viking besides. Give me a break!”

“I would be more than pleased to oblige you,” Ragnor said. “Which body part would you like me to break first?”

Out of his side vision, he saw that Pretty Boy, Cage, and Flash had lined up behind him, probably outraged over the SEAL slur. Turned out there were a few other actual SEALs in the bar, aside from the trainees, and they had heard the remark, too, and were not happy, if their clenched fists were any indication. Still others of the nonmilitary ranks moved toward the policing man.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Alison said, putting a hand against both of their chests. “John, back off a bit. Ensign Magnusson is a … friend of mine.” Her face
turned bright red at the word
friend
. “Go back and sit at the table. I’m going to dance with him. I’ll rejoin you shortly. Okay?”

John appeared reluctant to agree, but finally he nodded and averted a fight by walking back to the table and picking up a bottle of beer, which he emptied in one long, angry draft.

Alison turned her attention to Ragnor then. And she was nostrils-flaring, eyes-blazing angry. “You jerk!” she said, and took him by the hand, pulling him toward the far back region of the drinking hall.

“You are looking very comely tonight, Alison,” he said.

“Screw you!”

I’d rather screw you
, he thought but even he knew better than to say that aloud. He was watching her arse as she marched in front of him. One cheek up, then down, the other cheek up, then down. Very nice rhythm she had going there. He smiled.

Just then she glanced over her shoulder and noticed the direction of his gaze.
Uh-oh!
It had been his experience that women had a particular sensitivity about their arses, unlike men, who rarely thought of their backsides, being much more interested in their front sides.

She glared at him as if he were lower than a pile of dragon shit.

Reluctantly he lifted his gaze from her buttocks and inquired as sweetly as he could, “Where are we going?”

Not so sweetly, she replied, “Somewhere private … where we can’t be seen.”

Thank the gods, even if her voice is not dulcet-toned with welcome for me, she has something private in mind for us.

“Stop grinning.”

He pressed his lips together. “Whatever you say.” They’d arrived at their destination, which appeared to be a storage room. Boxes of beer, rows of toy-let parchment and nappy-kins filled both sides of the wide aisle.

She stopped, turned, and continued to glare at him.

“What now?” he asked when the silence went on and on.

“I’ll tell you what. You and I have got to come to an understanding. There is nothing between us, and never will be.”

He raised a hand to interrupt. “I must disagree. I am here in this land because of you. I sensed your danger … and your allure, truth be told.”

“Bull crap! I have no allure.”

“Oh, yea, you do. Just looking at you makes me breathless. Not just here tonight in your tempting attire. If I see you from across the grinder at the base, all straitlaced in your white uniform, my heart skips a beat; it truly does. When you run with the teams, I can barely stand for anyone to glance your way. I recognized you the minute I first saw you … not just from the near-death vision I had, either. I hate to say it—you are obviously not in a receptive mood—but I suspect you are my destiny.”

Her mouth dropped open. Speechless, she was.

But not he. He just blundered on. “My grandmother, Lady Asgar, may she rest in peace in her Christian heaven, always said that there is but one woman for each man in our family. She said we would recognize our destiny when we met her. I ne’er believed it before, but I do now. You should know, milady, that I lost my enthusiasm for the bedsport a
good long time ago, but it is back with a vengeance now that I have met you. You are my destiny, to be sure.”
I cannot believe I just said that. Where did it come from? I never thought that stuff about destiny before this moment. Is it true? Or is someone else speaking with my tongue, like mayhap the jester god Loki? I wonder if near-drowning affects the tongue? Or a man’s good sense?

She shook her head and laughed. “That is the biggest crock I have ever heard. Does that line usually work for you, Ensign?”

He shrugged. “I do not know. I ne’er tried it afore.” He could feel his face heat with embarrassment. Flowery words were not his normal style. Usually, he just looked at women, and they came to him.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, not mincing words.

Your mouth … your breasts … your womanparts … your body.
“A dance.”
Oh, good Lord, even I recognize how pathetic that sounds.

“You want to dance?”

For a start.
“Yea.”

“Why in God’s name would I do you a favor when you’ve behaved so badly?”

“I behaved badly? When?”

“Aaarrgh!”

“There are many words and sounds I do not recognize in this land, but
aaarrgh!
is not one of them. What have I done to make you
aaarrgh!
except ask you to dance?”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Let’s freakin’ dance.”

Fine. I won that argument. But not really.
“Uh, I should tell you something.”

“What now?”

“I cannot dance.”

She rolled her eyes again and added a laugh. “Then why did you ask?”

“I asked before because I did not want another man holding you. I ask now because I need an excuse to get you in my arms and melt that cold shield you have wrapped about yourself. You are mine, and the sooner you recognize that fact, the better.”

“What?” she shrieked. Some women liked a man to be possessive about them; others did not. Apparently, she was one of the latter. And she was as good at shrieking as Madrene. Mayhap it was a talent inherent in all women.

“I am a quick learner, though,” he said, holding his arms open for her to step into his embrace.

“One dance,” she said icily, “and that’s it. If we’re lucky, no one will see us. If not, we are both in big trouble.” She stepped into his arms and put her hands on his shoulders. Through the half-opened doorway, they could clearly hear the music—a song about love and misery, a universal partnership, he supposed.

“I meant no trouble for you,” he started to say.

“Shut up,” she said.

Well, that was certainly blunt.
“I love it when you talk rough to me.”

She growled.

Not a good beginning to our love affair
, Ragnor thought, but then he got lost in the pleasure of holding Alison and did not think anymore. He looped his arms around her waist as he’d seen other men do on the dancing floor with their partners. But that was not enough. Not nearly enough. He yanked her closer so that her breasts pressed against his chest, her face nestled against his neck, and her groin fitted itself against his groin. The scent of some floral
fragrance enveloped him like an aphrodisiac. Not that he needed any passion prodders.

Saints and Valkyries!
He almost swooned at the sheer wave of pleasure that rippled through him at that bodily contact.

He groaned.

She groaned.

He smiled against the top of her hair, especially when she shifted from foot to foot to the beat of the music, thus rubbing her breasts across his
shert
and her womanhood against his most appreciative manhood.

“Dance, dammit,” she ordered. Her voice was shaky, which could be either a good thing or a bad thing. Good, he decided.

He did dance, as best he could, trying to follow her rhythm, which pretty much amounted to swaying from side to side.

“This is such a mistake,” she whispered against his ear.

He wished she would say more because her breath in the whorls of his ear was akin to the most erotic touch, as if she had tongued him there, or somewhere even more provocative. “What?” he asked, even though he’d heard her plainly.

“This is such a mistake,” she repeated.

And he smiled as delicious spirals of pleasure rippled out from her breathy words. “Put your tongue in my ear, sweetling,” he urged.

“What?” she squawked, and tried to pull away.

He held on tight.
Bloody hell, I didn’t mean to say that aloud.
“Just teasing. Just teasing.”
Mayhap later.

They were both silent then as they swayed to the music. He liked this dancing, he discovered. He’d thought that at twenty and seven he’d learned
everything there was to know about lovemaking, but he’d been wrong. This was a new, more subtle form of loveplay, and he was enjoying mightily her unwitting tutoring.

She brushed her breasts across his chest.

He followed through on the return brushing.

She undulated her hips against him.

He saw stars, then returned the favor.

She gasped.

He took a deep breath in an attempt to slow down his burgeoning excitement.

She ran her fingertips over the back of his neck and up over his close-clipped skull.

He swept his open palms over her back from her waist to her shoulders, then back to her waist. Over and over, each time creeping lower till—
thank you, gods and goddesses
—she allowed him to cup her buttocks, to pull her even tighter against him.

The band moved on to a new love-and-misery song, but he barely noticed, so engrossed was he in the marvel of dancing with this woman …
his woman
.

Finally, when he could bear no more of this exquisite torture, he drew his head back and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed and her lips dreamily parted; he realized that she was only half aware of the emotions overtaking them both.

“Alison,” he whispered. “Open your eyes, dearling.” He wanted her fully aware when he took them to the next step.

Lazily she opened her eyes. Their green color was misty with arousal. “What are you doing to me, sailor?”

“What are you doing to me, siren?” he whispered back.