The Viking Takes a Knight (14 page)

And thus began a sexual journey the likes of which he had never experienced, not since he'd learned the full extent of his father's insanity by age fourteen. He only hoped it would not end in tragedy.

Y
ou could say it was a sexual healing…

Ingrith still intended to leave Hawk's Lair in the morning, as planned, but when the gods plopped a gift in your lap, you did not say them nay. And making love with John,
really
making love, was a gift, to be sure.

At almost thirty and one, she was a strong woman, accustomed to the loneliness of a single life. She would be strong again, despite the soul wounds she was bound to carry, but not for anything would she deny herself this one night of bliss.

For now, she was lying on her back in the straw, watching John as he watched her. Then, levering himself on his elbows and nudging her knees apart, he settled himself over her. Raising her eyes, she saw him scanning her face, intently.

“I want you.” His thick voice was like a velvet caress.

It was a heady feeling, having this particular
man want her. “You make me feel beautiful and special.”

“You
are
beautiful and special.”

At first his lips coaxed a reaction from her. A kiss of persuasion, that's what it was. Little did he know, she was already persuaded.

With her fingers gripping his shoulders, she opened her mouth to him, welcoming the bite of his teeth and slide of his tongue. She could smell the musk of arousal on his skin.

When his kisses moved to her neck and shoulders, she sighed. “My easy surrender should shame me.”

“Never! Your ardor is my pleasure. Surely God meant for two people to share bedjoy. Why else would He have made it so exciting?”

“Methinks Adam said the same thing to Eve.”

“Or Eve said to Adam, since she was the one tempting him with the forbidden apple,” he corrected.

They smiled at each other, sharing the humor and the intense physical awareness that always resonated between them, more so now. Squirming a little, she enjoyed the sensation of skin on skin, male on female, rough on soft.

“Temptress,” he chided, and rolled over onto his back.

At first, she felt off balance and embarrassed, but he arranged her legs so that she kneeled astraddle his belly, with his erection nestled
against the crease of her buttocks. “Oh, I do not know about this,” she protested.

“For me, Ingrith,” he coaxed. “Do it for me.”

With a sigh of surrender, she settled her rump on him. “I do not know what to do, precisely.”

“I'll show you. Remember how I taught you to ride my finger? You will do the same with my…member.”

If she had not been blushing before, she was now, in remembrance of that wicked activity.

“But that will come later,” he said. “We have roads to travel afore reaching that destination.”

His first stop on that road was her breasts, which seemed to fascinate him.

“They are not very big.”

“They are perfect.

He palmed her breasts in a circular fashion, and she could feel the nipples prodding his skin. When he touched her nipples with a forefinger each, then began vibrating back and forth, she tried to jerk back, but he grabbed her hips and held her in place. “No trying to escape now, sweetling.”

As if she could! As if she would!

He continued fluttering the tips of her breasts, making them grow bigger, and there was an echoing flutter between her legs. In fact, she could feel moistness seeping from inside her onto his belly.

With a moan of equal parts embarrassment and ecstasy, she closed her eyes.

“Nay, do not think of shutting your reactions
away from me. Open your eyes, Ingrith. I want to watch your reactions. To see what pleases you. Do you like this, for example?” He tugged her forward a bit and he leaned upward so that he could kiss each taut nipple. Then his mouth closed over a breast which he had lifted from underneath while the other hand played with the opposite breast.

“Yiiiiiiiiiiiii!” she squealed.

He lifted his mouth from her breast and glanced upward. “Does that mean you like it?”

“Are you demented?”

“I take that as a yea.” He chuckled, and even his hot breath on her aureola drew an answering ache low in her belly. “If you like that, methinks you will love this.” And he began the serious business of suckling. Hard, then soft. Alternating with licks of his tongue and nips of his teeth, he soon had her keening out her agony of ecstasy. And then—
Holy Valhalla!
—he moved to the other breast. Soon she was rising to an imminent peaking, which she did not want to happen with her in this position, alone. She tried, futilely, to break away, and her thighs braced, fighting off the impending explosion of sensations too intense to bear.

“Relax, dearling,” he said, lying back to watch her.

“Relax? You really are demented. Dost enjoy torturing me so?”

“Delicious torture, I hope. I know it is for me.”
Laughing, he made her sit upright on him, even though she was inclined to hide her face on his chest. He did the most scandalous thing then. Cupping her buttocks, he lifted her slightly, and his expert fingers stroked her slick folds from behind.

“Let it come,” he urged.

And she came, all right. Wave after wave rolled over her, making her lightheaded and flushed all over. Her breasts had swelled and ached. The slickness down below felt like hot syrup surrounding a spasming bud of pleasure. Even her inside woman channel was spasming.

When the peaking ended, she opened her eyes, not having realized that she'd closed them. The look in John's eyes was worth the embarrassment. And Holy Thor! When had he rolled them over with him molded over her?

“Are you ready?”

“M'lord, I have been ready for years.”

He laughed and slapped her buttock. “That is for m'lording me.” Then he turned serious. Lying between her legs, he raised her knees and spread them wider. Then he twined his fingers with hers and raised their hands above her head. Slowly, so slowly she wanted to scream, he worked the knob of his phallus just inside her woman channel. To her embarrassment, she felt herself grasp him in a welcome peaking.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he murmured.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Do not apologize for giving me more pleasure than I have had since…since forever.” Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as he shoved in a little bit more, then almost pulled out. She wanted to grab hold of him and yank him in to stay. Instead, he took her a bare finger span at a time. In. Out. Each time, her inner muscles clenched him in an attempt to bar his escape. The friction was unbearable and blissful at the same time.

Finally, he was filling her. All of him penetrating nigh to her womb, which was a miracle to her. No one had ever told her that a woman's channel expanded with pleasure to accommodate a man's size. Or that the fullness of a man was a joy in itself. There was a oneness to the sex act that had a celestial aspect to it. Two people made one.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. “It only pinched for a moment.”

“You feel like the tightest, warmest glove around my cock,” he told her.

“You feel like hot, living steel. As if your manpart had a mind of its own.”

“It does. Believe me, betimes it does.”

She almost wished that he would stay unmoving inside her. To do otherwise would break the spell. She thought that until he began to move, and she entered another level of paradise. “Oh, my!” was all she said.

“I agree,” he choked out.

Then began the real business of sex. Like swordplay, it was. Lunge, then retreat. Lunge, then retreat. At first long and slow strokes. Then shorter and faster.

He whispered wicked words and promises into her ear.

She writhed from side to side with incoherent pleas for relief. His impatient hands were everywhere, discovering all her hidden erotic places. Who would have ever guessed that the backs of her knees were as sensitive as her breasts? He left her no secrets.

It was all too new and unbelievable for Ingrith to take in. Physical delights beyond any she ever could have imagined assailed her from all sides. And John was equally affected. She could tell by the violent shiver that overtook his body.

Her world narrowed to the scent and feel of her lover. The only sounds were those of their heightened breathing and the erotic, wet slap of sex parts. Only occasionally did a horse made a noise in a nearby stall.

And then he threw his head back and seemed to be counting silently. But, nay, he was waiting for her to peak first, which she promptly did. With mounting tensions, all of her insides were wound tighter than a ball of yarn, and then—Oh, thank you, gods!—it unfurled, sending sparks of relief to every part of her body, especially the thrumming bud between her legs.

Only then did John release a roar of satisfaction as he withdrew and spilled his seed into the straw. She could feel his chest heaving as he lay heavily upon her, his face buried in the crook of her neck. Instinctively, she caressed his back and the dip behind his waist, one of her favorite spots on his body.

Ingrith wanted desperately to tell John that she loved him because, of course, she did. But she had learned her lesson once. Those were not the words he wanted to hear from her. She had shown him, though, through her lovemaking. If he knew, he would probably run for the hills.

When he raised his head, finally, she thought he would grin and make a teasing remark about her wanton ways. Or he would make some cutting remark about how he wasn't going to marry her.

Instead, although the familiar silent sadness that entranced her was gone from his eyes, his expression remained serious. As he lightly traced her lips with his fingertips, he said, “God help me, Ingrith, but I feel as if I have long been sick, and now I am healed.”

 

First she churned his butter, then she milked his…

John couldn't believe he had revealed himself in such a pathetic way. He rolled them over onto their sides and studied her face. To his relief, there was no pity there. Just a wonderful satiety, for which he was proudly responsible.

He lifted her thigh so that it rested on his hip. After what they had just shared, there was no way he was letting her escape him now.

“I feel the same,” she said.

No one can feel the way I do right now. I am a god. I am Adam before he ate the apple. I am King Solomon and King David combined. I am an idiot.
“What same?”

“What you said about being healed.”

You cannot possibly know what it's like to carry insanity in your blood. Always on the alert that it will finally manifest itself.
“No offense, m'lady, but you are healthy as a prime horse on racing day.” He deliberately teased to lighten their conversation, and besides, what need was there for conversation when he was naked, and she was naked, and…

“Loneliness is a sickness of sorts. Even though I am often surrounded by people. Growing up with my sisters. A royal estate overflowing with Viking warriors, cotters, and household servants. All the children at the orphanage. Still, I felt alone without realizing it. It wasn't until I experienced all this”—she motioned a hand between the two of them—“that I realized what I was missing.”

“All this?” He grinned.

“You know.” She attempted to smack him on the chest for his teasing.

He grabbed the hand before it could do any harm and kissed the knuckles instead. “Nay. Tell me.”

“I feel fulfilled as a woman. Do you…I mean, since you didn't actually…does this satisfy you?”

Did I not shout my satisfaction there at the end? Am I not now as limp as a winter stale carrot?
“Unlike you, I am perfectly aware of what is missing from our joining, but it was still good, Ingrith. Better than good.”
I cannot imagine how it will be once you gain some experience. I may die of satisfaction then.

“Did I…did I do things right?”

“More than right. But…”
Time to put an end to this blather.

When he rolled onto his back and didn't immediately answer, she prodded, “But…?”

“But I have a need.”
Will she fall in with my game?
“A yearning, really.”
Mayhap I should bat my eyelashes.
“I wish…”

She braced herself on one elbow and leaned over him. “Your wish is my command, m'lord.”

Thank you, God!
“Ooooh, Ingrith, do not make such statements to a man with ideas.”

“Within reason,” she amended.

“I want you to touch me.”
Teasing aside, that is the truth. Forget want, I need her touch.

“All over?”

“All over.”
Please, please, please.

She winked at him mischievously. “That I can do. In truth, I, too, have yearned to touch you.”

Oh, Ingrith! You could not have said anything to please me more.

“In all the ways that you touched me.”

All the sated parts of his body blinked to attention.

“An exploration, really, since you are the first man I have seen naked up close.”

First
sounded as if there would be more. For some reason that bothered him. But he couldn't be too upset. The woman had promised to touch him. Intimately.

Before she even started, his cock was rising with enthusiasm. By the time she was done, the enthusiasm had bloomed into a full-fledged, let-me-let-me-let-me cockstand. And, oh, the pleasure in between!

“On your belly, knight,” she ordered with an exaggerated sternness.

He did as she asked, gladly, and laid his face onto his folded arms. That way he hid his grin of satisfaction.

“For a beekeeper, you have a well-muscled body,” she remarked.

“I must needs be a warrior for my king, as well. 'Tis the law,” he explained. “Do you like my body?”
How pitiful! Now I am reduced to begging for compliments.

She chuckled. “You know I do.”