The Viking Wants Forever (20 page)

“Oona.”

Frowning, Reese sat down next to him, and took his hand. His lean fingers curled around hers and she felt a warm rush of pleasure. “Her loss is my gain,” she gushed.

His gaze slid to hers. “You think I have much to offer a woman?”

“You’re a walking fantasy.”

“Fantasy?”

Reese wracked her brain for a definition. “A fantasy is everything a woman could wish for.”

“Am I what you dream of?”

An emphatic ‘yes’ was on the tip of Reese’s tongue. She almost laid her heart on the line, but something in Eirik’s gaze stopped her.

“You baited me!” she cried. “You’re simply fishing for compliments.”

“
Nei
—” He couldn’t finish for laughing.

Reese punched him in the arm, and earned herself a few sore knuckles, which caused him to roar even louder. “Laugh all you like, Viking. I’m onto you.”

“No harm done.” Chuckling, he held up his hands. “I was simply getting you to admit what we both know.”

Of a sudden his expression was fraught with longing, not merriment, and it triggered a like response in Reese. Still, she decided to hold her cards close. After she procured the black tourmaline she would be gone, and telling him her true feelings would not benefit either of them.

Before she caved to sentiment, Reese jumped from the bed. “Anything else in that trunk I can wear?”

Eirik leaned back on an elbow. “You can have whatever you want but do not touch the nightgowns.”

Ignoring him, Reese walked over and peeked inside. Several gowns lay neatly folded, as well as a couple pairs of soft slippers, and a silver brush set. Everything was quite lovely, but a blood red and midnight blue garment arrested her attention. 

“Look what I found at the bottom.” Standing, Reese shook out the costume she’d made for him.

Eirik, expression darkening, sat up. “It is there because it will never be worn.”

Reese bristled, but dropped it. She just wasn’t in the mood to argue. The last time she’d trying coaxing him into the Thor costume, they had a row rivaling World War II.

“Thank you for the gloves and coat. They’re beautiful.” She slid the gloves from his grasp and struggled to tug them over her trembling fingers before he intervened. When she stood, he draped the cloak over her shoulders. Before letting her go, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her gently on the lips.

“Have you ever seen snow?” he asked against her mouth. Her mind so befuddled by being near him, Reese shook her head. “Good, then I’ll be the first man to tup you in it.”

“You are impossible.” Laughing, Reese stepped away from him. “You’re also the main reason why I can’t walk straight now.”

His finger traced the column of her throat then made a detour down the valley of her breasts. “I will try to be a good boy, today.” He stepped back and held out his hand. Reese took it and followed him from his private bedchamber and through the main hall.

Compared to when she arrived, the nights had grown longer, the days almost devoid of sunlight. By Reese’s guesstimate, it was probably the tail end of fall. She glanced up at the sky, overcast with billowy clouds, and concluded that winter—one of her favorite seasons—had to be depressing around these parts. Good thing she wouldn’t be here to see it. And yet, a part of her wished she could. Suddenly heartsick, her eyes drifted to Eirik’s broad back and a vise clamped around her heart. He was the only reason why the prospect of a long, harsh winter didn’t seem so bad.

Unaware of her sudden downturn in mood, Eirik led them north toward the inlet. He then turned east, in the direction of the stables. Seeing she had trouble navigating the slippery pathway, he slowed his steps.

“Is that for us?” she asked, struggling to catch her breath in the cold air. Breathing became an afterthought, however, when they drew closer to the wooden sled sitting in front of the stable doors. Thoren stood waiting for them, trying to rein in a pair of harnessed geldings.

Grinning, he helped her into the sled and then settling in next to her. “How else are we going to enjoy the snow?” he asked, accepting the leather reins Thoren handed.

Reese grabbed the hood of her cloak as they flew over packed snow. Her laughter must have been infectious, because Eirik joined her as he drove them through a shallow valley and a forest recently harvested for its timber.

Fifteen minutes into their journey, he brought the sled around and stopped it short of a small rise overlooking the Sognafjord. “This is one of my favorite places in the world.” He nodded his head toward the cliff. “What do you think?”

So she could see over the top of the sled’s safety bar, Reese stood. “It’s breathtaking,” she whispered, taking in the vertical drop, the white cliffs rising high above the river below, and his settlement in the distance. It was postcard perfect.

“It makes me happy that you recognize the beauty of this place.” His voice had deepened to a husky pitch. He reached out and grabbed hold of her cloak and pulled until she fell in his lap. “I have a surprise for you,” he whispered against the hollow in her neck.

“
This
isn’t a surprise.” Her own voice had dropped a couple of octaves. “You woke me with it this morning,” Unable to deny him, Reese wrapped her arms around his neck. But she gasped when he flicked the lap blanket aside, revealing a large wicker basket.

“You planned a picnic!” she exclaimed when he drew back the linen covering and started pulling out a wine kidney, a slab of cheese, flatbread, dried dates, and several hunks of smoked meat.

“Only the best for Eirik Sigurdsson and his wench.” He winked as he popped a date into his mouth. Without warning, he leaned over and captured her lips. His mouth, sweetened by the dried fruit, tantalized her senses, and she could not summon a token resistance when he nudged her backward.

“I thought you were going to be a good boy.” Reese reined kisses down the column of his throat. Her thighs quivered as he fumbled with the hem of her woolen dress.

“I will be. I will be very, very good,” he murmured, offering sex in a caressing tone.

Despite the chill, Reese’s body blazed with feverish desire. And it didn’t abate even when he briefly exposed her sex to the elements, before covering her with his weight.

“Put me inside you.” He gripped her hair, his mouth locking with hers as her fingers circled the root of him. Reese, legs parting to receive him, guided him between the juncture of her thighs. When the head of his cock, brushed against her core, he rose up on his forearms, and propelled his hips forward, driving his cock home.

Mad for him, Reese moaned, wiggling on his rod fighting to send him deeper. “You’re good...ohh so good!”

Grunting, he rocked between her trembling thighs. He pinned her arms over her head, his face just above hers. He circled his hips, grinding his thick shaft against her. “I want to always be good to you, for you. I can be what you need. Always.”  

During his change in position, the black tourmaline necklace fell through the opening of his tunic. Reese instantly stilled. The precious stone swung back and forth with each deep thrust, mocking her, reminding her that this beautiful thing they had was doomed. In an attempt to block out the dark omen, she squeezed her eyes shut.

Eirik, somehow sensing her distress, kissed one lid, then the other. “Whatever has caused you unrest, put it aside and think only about this place, this time, us.”

Reese wasn’t sure if it was his impassioned plea, heated kisses or the rhythmic plunge of his cock that made her head swim. Unsteadily, she anchored her heels into the small of his back and lifted her hips, meeting his downward thrusts, her body stretching to accommodate him.

“Take all of me.” He lay atop her now, forehead to forehead, his hands snaking around to cup her ass. More thrusts, more grinding. Another orgasm was slowly building. That dizzy intensity kept mounting until she was whimpering, bucking against him.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God!” Reese groaned.

“I want to be deep here...” he touched her mound, “...and here, as well,” he enunciated, his hand sliding up her body, stopping to rest over her heart.

Already there
! Reese averted her face from his intense scrutiny less he see into her soul. Unfortunately, Eirik wasn’t going to suffer any of her usual evasiveness. He shifted to a sitting position and brought her with him.

Reese clung to his shoulders, her legs still locked around him, her thighs stretched wide to even deeper penetration.

“Please don’t,” she whispered when he cupped her chin in the curve of his fingers, and exerted just enough pressure she was forced to look at him.

“So beautiful and yet so stubborn.”

“It’s a two way street, Viking.” A touch of sulkiness colored her tone. “What’s holding you back?”

A smile quirked his lips, and a hint of teasing gleamed in his sky-blue eyes. “Did you have an Oona as well?”

“More like Clyde, Thomas, Shawn and Kareem.” Reese inwardly groaned. Loose lips just sunk her ship.

“
Four
fools have abused what I covet?” he asked, his deep voice velvet soft like the quiet before a very, very bad storm. “No wonder you hold your heart close.”

In all honesty, she rarely thought of those clowns over the years, so the after effects of several disastrous relationships no longer lingered. More pressing matters prevented her from wearing her heart on her sleeve. Like the fact that they were doomed.

Why did I have to go and fall in love with him?

Irritated with her present circumstances, Reese lashed out, “Why do you keep barking up this tree?” Without warning, she slid from his lap and stood up. Emotions at a fever pitch, Reese jumped from the sled and landed in a foot of snow. “Less you forgot, you have the upper hand.”

Huffing, puffing and wanting to knock Loki’s teeth in, Reese only made it about ten feet and then found herself flat on her back.

“Get off me,” she screamed. Reese, lashing out, swung her arms wildly. In the struggle, she lost both gloves. Still, he easily overpowered her by taking both her wrists and planted them over her head. When she gasped at the sudden contact of snow against her skin, he pummeled her mouth.

“We’re good at just this,” she panted between kisses. “Stop asking for more.”

His free hand snaked up her throat and then back down again. “I do not want to share you.”

“You’re hardly doing that now.”

“Do you not see?” He asked very deliberately, a hot look in his eyes. “I do not want to share your affections. I can chain you to me, but I cannot sway this,” he touched her temple, “nor this.” His hand settled against her heart.

For the longest they stared into each other’s eyes. As if already knowing her answer, he sighed.  

“I am a patient man,” he rubbed his thumb against the rapidly beating pulse in her throat. “I will bide my time, fuck you senseless, until I have truly own you. All of you—your body...your heart...and your spirit.”

His words hit her like a Mack truck, slamming through her with all its force. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath as if she were suffocating, and said in a heated rush, “I’ll hold you to that promise.” Leaning into him, she pressed her mouth over his. She refused to say it aloud but she conveyed her desire and love through a kiss.

* * * * *

H
ow quickly his life had changed. From that first morning on the shore of the bay his fate had been sealed. After having roamed the world plundering and taking pleasure with intemperance, scornful of love or any kind of permanent attachment, a mere slave had bewitched him.

Eirik stared at the crux of his present madness. Eyes at half mast, bottom lip trapped between her teeth, Reese moaned and writhed and flowed wet around him. He drove deep and deeper still, each stroke unchecked and merciless, fierce. He needed to put his mark on her. Wipe away any memory of all the men before him. He could not change that but he could be the last man she would ever be with.

With a single-minded purpose, his hands gripping her hips, he slammed into her so she couldn’t move, couldn’t get away. Like the marauder he was, he wanted to invade her, conquer her, make her his.

Powerless against his hot-blooded urgency, she whimpered and quivered helplessly.

He increased his momentum.

There was no rational thought, only a resolve to curb this insatiable craving for more than just physical gratification.

Long hardened to the concept of love, he’d initially called it other things. True, he couldn’t get enough of rutting between her thighs, and did so as often as possible.  But it was so much more than that. More often than not he caught himself thinking about her or seeking her out to steal a caress or simply be in her presence.

And his time with her had been the best of his life, something he had not experienced since knee high to his grandfather’s knee. He was so content, he’d put off his men’s incessant questions regarding the spring raids. How could he make plans to leave Reese behind for an entire season?

Mood blackened, bordering on violent, he bunched up her skirts, nudged her legs apart. He briefly gazed at the dark curly hairs covering her mons and her pink cleft, and marveled at how his priorities as a warrior had changed. His desire to die on the battlefield and earning a place in Valhalla had waned, replaced instead by fucking himself to death in her sweet body.

“Eirik.” He recognized the pleading entreaty and moved to satisfy them both. His hands gripping her waist, he entered her and submerged himself to the hilt. Always wildly eager, she met him, her body swinging back and forth impatiently, whimpering in satisfaction with every thrust.

She flowed wet and fiery hot around him, and he adjusted his grip on her with a restless, volatile suddenness. Hands pinning her into place, so she couldn’t move, he rammed into her. Wanting to put his mark on her, he drove deep.

Attuned to her body, he felt the faint flutter that always preceded her release, and shifted closer.  He moved by instinct, a savage awakening overwhelming his senses, each stroke driven by the entire force of his lower body.

He heard her first small cry and then the bite of her nails in his back. Sitting up, he pushed her knees up and back. The new position helped him prolong the release of his seed and augmented hers. In three stokes, she shattered around him.