Viking Heat (31 page)
Authors: Sandra Hill
At first he could not speak over his fury and, yea, his fascination with the tempting picture she made. Chest heaving under the tunic, which was belted, thus outlining her female assets. Hips, buttocks, and long legs clearly defined by the slim braies. Her red hair was braided and tucked under a fur hat, which drew attention to her creamy skin flushed from the cold, or more likely, embarrassment over his treatment of her.
He shook his head to clear it and said, “What gave you the idea I would countenance your engaging in military exercises?”
“I’m a soldier. Bows and arrows are not my weapons of choice, but, hey, I’ve got to practice with something to keep in shape.”
“Keep in shape?” he sputtered.
“Military shape. Readiness.”
“Readiness for what?”
“Battle.”
He threw his hands out in disgust. “See. You prepare for fighting like an enemy. And you wonder why I say we have no future.”
“What makes you think I wouldn’t fight
for
you?”
for
you?”
“Would you?” he asked, then immediately regretted his question. “Who asked you to?”
“You’re impossible.”
“
I
am impossible?
I
am impossible?”
I
am impossible?
I
am impossible?”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“Why can you not sew or do normal things like other women?”
“I sewed yesterday, and you didn’t like the result.”
“What am I going to do with you?”
A wily, siren expression crossed her face then. “I have a few ideas.”
“Would any of them involve this?” He lifted her by the waist, pressed her against the wall, then moved betwixt her dangling legs. With his raging erection pressed against her woman’s folds, he nigh exploded in his braies, so high was his enthusiasm.
“Brandr . . .”
“Nay, do not talk.” He lowered his mouth to hers, hungrily. Meanwhile his hands moved everywhere over her body, settling on her braies, which he soon tugged off, along with his own, never breaking the kiss. Without further foresport, he slammed himself into her slick sheath.
She was in no better condition as she closed her eyes and moaned her own enthusiasm. Was there ever a prettier sight than a woman in heat? Already her inner muscles were clenching and unclenching him, goading him to spill his seed. But not right now. Not if he could hold off. The wench had been torturing him for days. Time to wield a little of his own torture.
Because her braies were caught in her boots, as were his, and she was unable to lift her legs around him in this lackwitted position, he controlled the action. It took every bit of holding power he had, but he managed to employ long, slow strokes on her unending peaking. A remarkable feat, since her woman’s channel was fighting a muscular tug of war to keep him in. He had never experienced anything like it in his life.
“Please . . . now . . . oh, Brandr!” She was mindless in her throes of ecstasy, her hands flailing, then tunneling in his hair. Kissing him with mouth and tongue and teeth. Once, she even bit his shoulder.
In the end, when he was pounding into her, hard and fast, she let loose a loud, keening howl of bliss. He might have roared himself, so great was his sex pleasure.
Once the madness had passed, he withdrew from her with sweet pain and yanked up his braies. Only after he’d laced them did he allow himself to look at her.
She was on her feet now but still braced against the wall. Her braies were still down to her ankles, but her legs were spread slightly, and he could see his man seed glistening on her inner thighs. Why that should touch him so, he did not know, but it did.
“A wall banger . . . I cannot believe I engaged in a wall banger with you.”
An appropriate expression, he decided, because for a certainty his knees were still trembling. “This was a mistake,” he said, wanting to reach for her and hold her through the aftershocks of her peaking but knowing it would be a sign of further weakness. After all, he had already given in to her temptation, despite his best efforts.
Through limpid green pools, her eyes met his. “Why?”
“Are you willing to stay here in this land?”
“Forever?”
He laughed. “A lifetime.”
“I’m not sure I can, but I want to . . . I think.”
She thinks? And I am to lay myself open to a woman who thinks she might like to stay with me?
“As my concubine?”
“As my concubine?”
“What? No! I mean, I don’t know.”
He arched a brow at her.
“If we were in my time, we would be lovers . . . in a committed relationship.”
“Committed relationship? What is that?”
“Exclusive. No other partners. Possibly leading to marriage.”
“Joy! I cannot wed with you.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . because . . .”
She sighed heavily and turned away from him and pulled up her pants, taking time to lace them tightly. “Because I’m a thrall,” she finished for him. Then she raised her head and turned to stare at him directly. “Here’s a news flash, buddy. Unless you’re willing to be open to that possibility, I am no longer going to have sex with you.”
“You dare to offer marriage to me? Even if you were a freedwoman, a high jarl does not wed that far below himself.”
“No, you idiot! I wasn’t asking you to marry me. I was saying that it has to be a possibility. We have to be equal playing partners.” She thought a moment. “Below yourself! In what world?”
“What is wrong with being a concubine?”
“How would you feel, if I were a free woman of rank and you asked me to marry you, but I said that I only want you for sex?”
“Huh? What kind of dumb female argument is that?”
“Suffice it to say: the candy store is closed for now, until you come up with the key.”
“Does that mean you will no longer be torturing me by flaunting yourself?”
She smiled, and it was not a nice smile. “No. Actually, it means that I will be ramping up the torture.”
“So be it,” he said, but what he thought was,
I cannot wait. She will see reason in the end. She has no choice.
There are wars . . . and then there are “wars” . . .I cannot wait. She will see reason in the end. She has no choice.
Joy was running out of ideas.
So it was a surprise to her when Brandr turned to her at the dinner table that night and asked why she had such an odd expression on her face . . . and was flushed. “Have you finally given up the fight and now accept your lot in life?”
He actually had a gentle expression on his face. No, not gentle. Self-satisfied. Overconfident. The jerk!
At first, she was going to say that, yes, she surrendered. He won. She wouldn’t be pursuing him anymore. Not that she was going to fall into his bed as a freakin’ concubine until someone better, more suitable, came along.
Then something occurred to her. Maybe she was giving up too quickly. “I’m practicing my exercises. Kegel exercises.”
“I do not want to know what you mean by that.”
But she told him anyhow.
And, although he said nothing, that vein in his forehead looked like it was about to pop. She wondered if something farther down was about to pop, too, but she wasn’t going to push her luck by actually looking.
But then the louse turned the tables on her. “Didst know we Vikings have a secret sex trick that we employ on special occasions?”
He was probably kidding. “The times we were together weren’t special enough?”
“I was saving it.”
“Lucky me! Sounds like you saved it too long. So what is this super sex secret?”
“ ’Tis called the Viking S-Spot.”
“You mean, like the G-spot?”
“I know naught of a G-spot.”
She thought she would get him off balance by explaining, graphically, what it was.
Instead, he said, “Nay. The S-Spot is down in that region, but much more intense and pleasurable for both partners. And it cannot be found with the fingers.”
She stared at him for a long moment, waiting for him to explain more. When he didn’t, she got up in a huff, stepped down off the dais and, without even being asked, began her nightly skald duties.
“Last night I told you about Hitler and the Holocaust and what we refer to as the Big War. Tonight I am going to tell you about 9/11, one of the worst terrorist attacks in history, which led to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, what you call the Arab lands.”
Having the total interest of her audience, Joy talked, but as she talked, she cast a glance Brandr’s way every once in a while. He was as intrigued as the rest, but she knew instinctively that part of the attraction for him was herself. The question was how to win this inner war he was waging . . . a war in which she could only be the loser.
This last cut was the deepest . . .Joy was sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, several days later. It was a cozy setting with the warm fire, the puppies asleep in the corner, including Liv’s growing Fenrir, who was already earning his name. The hectic morning’s work was done, and dinner was many hours away.
The women were intrigued by the practice of tea drinking she’d introduced them to. The raspberry tea she’d brewed yesterday, made from dried raspberries with some leaves still intact, sweetened with a little honey, went over big. Today, they were not so sure about the gingerroot tea. But she loved that they were game to try all the new things she tossed their way.
She was making apple dumplings
again
, the Vikings not yet tired of that dish, though she’d tried to entice them to puddings, to no avail. Liv was sticking cloves into a smoked ham, which would be baked after the dumplings were done. Kelda was stirring a venison stew in the cauldron, which had been scrubbed this morning, as it was every morning, to Kelda’s chagrin but acceptance. Ebba was chopping vegetables.
again
, the Vikings not yet tired of that dish, though she’d tried to entice them to puddings, to no avail. Liv was sticking cloves into a smoked ham, which would be baked after the dumplings were done. Kelda was stirring a venison stew in the cauldron, which had been scrubbed this morning, as it was every morning, to Kelda’s chagrin but acceptance. Ebba was chopping vegetables.
“Eeeew! That eel is turnin’ me stomach,” Ebba said, staring at the concoction Inga was preparing with chopped pieces of eel swimming in cream, dill, sliced onions, salt, and pepper. Ebba got up and rushed for the downstairs garderobe, the one off the great hall. When she returned, everyone watched as she went over to the bench to wash her hands and gargle out her mouth, spitting into the slop bucket.
“Are ye breeding?” Kelda asked bluntly once Ebba sat down.
“Methinks so, but ’tis a miracle how it could happen now and not all those years I was with Osmund back in the Saxon lands.”
Maybe because the baby isn’t her husband’s.
Joy’s thoughts must have shown on her face, because Ebba quickly said, “I be four months along. It be me husband’s bairn, that is for sure. Unfortunately.”
Joy’s thoughts must have shown on her face, because Ebba quickly said, “I be four months along. It be me husband’s bairn, that is for sure. Unfortunately.”
“Why unfortunately?” she asked.
“Well, the child of a thrall is a thrall. That goes without sayin’. Now Osmund will not only have ta earn his own freedom and mine, but our child’s as well. It will take many years more.”
“That’s horrible.”
Everyone glanced her way.
“Well, it is. Babies born into slavery . . . how barbaric is that? Explain this whole class system to me.”
“There be jarls or high chieftains, like Brandr. The Saxons call ’em earls,” Kelda explained. “Then karls, which be wealthy freemen, like Tork. Then reg’lar freemen. Then freedmen. Then thralls.”
“What’s the difference between a freeman and a freedman?”
“A thrall can buy or earn their freedom, or have it gifted fer some service,” Kelda told her. “Then they become freedmen.”
So I could be freed.
“But even then, a freeman has higher status than a freedman,” she continued.
“How so?”
“Let me explain,” Liv said. “For every person, the law levies a wergild, or a man’s worth or a woman’s worth. The amount to be paid in the event of murder, for example. For those higher up, the wergild is significant. For those lower down, it is a pittance. But for everyone there is a wergild. Even animals are assessed a wergild.”
“Oh, my God! You’re saying that thralls have the same worth as a cow or a horse?”
Liv’s face bloomed with color. “I did not mean . . .”
“Sometimes less,” Ebba said. “Sometimes more if they have special talents, like a blacksmith.”
Joy was stunned and crushed. How many cuts was she going to suffer before she bled to death inside? “Liv, is your child going to be a thrall? I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have asked that. Really, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Liv waved a hand to show she wasn’t offended. How far the girl had come! “Nay. Erik is free, as am I.”
As was his father, whoever that was, Joy surmised. “And if Ebba’s child’s father had been one of the Vikings here”—
like Tork
—“would the child be free?”
like Tork
—“would the child be free?”
Everyone at the table shook their heads and glanced at her with sympathy.
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