A warm shower, that was what she needed. Then she was going to crawl into bed and sleep till noon. Only then would she feel rejuvenated enough to contemplate with a logical mind all that had happened to her tonight.
Carefully she eased herself off of Joe. He was in a deep sleep. She attempted to stand, but her legs gave way. She sank back to the floor, on her knees, and giggled. Then she clamped a hand over her mouth and glanced guiltily at Joe. He snored softly. Well, good. There was some small gratification in knowing she’d worn him out, too.
It was an ignominious posture, but Maggie began to crawl from the room on her hands and knees. When she got to the hall she would stand, with the support of walls and stair rails.
“Going somewhere, wench?” a silky, male voice inquired. At the same time, an iron hand snaked out and grasped her ankle.
Maggie peeked over her shoulder and groaned. Joe was approaching her, on hands and knees, too, like a big, stalking cat. That image was only reinforced when he came up and over her from behind, covering her with his massive body, and purred into her ear. Already she could feel his erection against her leg.
“No, Joe, not again. Haven’t you had enough for now?”
“Did I not say afore that my biggest talent was my stamina?” he boasted. She didn’t look, but she suspected he was smiling.
“Is that like the Viking version of understatement?” she remarked dryly, and tried to crawl away.
He swatted her on the behind and yanked her back. She could feel the heat of his skin as he undulated over her, like a cat, though he barely touched her skin.
“It’s too soon,” she protested. “I couldn’t. Really. Oh, my goodness!”
In one sleek, feline move, he lifted her hips and entered her from behind.
And Maggie soon discovered that, in fact, she could.
While his male member stroked her inside with long, leisurely plunges, his fingers and his whispered words praised her breasts…then the wet folds that she had thought were too sensitive to be touched again so soon. But—oh…oh…oh—they were not.
Maggie realized then, if she had not already, that this was not a modern man who did things according to politically correct rules. He was a Viking warrior with savage sexual appetites and barbarian ways of seduction. An uncivilized lover.
She would have him no other way.
This time a sated Maggie lay flat on her stomach on the floor, with Joe splayed top of her, laughing in her ear. “So what do you think of Viking lovemaking, m’lady?”
“I’m afraid to ask what you do for an encore,” she said with a strangled laugh.
“Aaahhh, I am so glad you asked. Have I not told you about the famous Viking S-spot?”
It was midnight. They were lying nestled in each other’s arms on the sofa bed in the den, watching a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show, which Joe adored, for some reason.
They were sated…for the moment, anyhow. One never knew about Joe. Just a little while ago, she had inquired of Mr. Hornier-than-Thou, “Do Viking women walk around bowlegged all the time?”
He’d tilted his head at her, baffled by her question. Then he’d laughed. “Nay, just the lucky ones.”
There were no lights on now, but the Christmas tree in the corner was twinkling brightly, and Joe had built a fire in the fireplace, even though there was enough heat in the room to fire a nuclear station. Sexual heat, that was.
Joe had carried her here after they had taken a shower together. Words didn’t begin to describe that experience, involving hot water, liquid soap, and a loofah.
Afterward they had sat at the kitchen table in nothing but oversize bath towels, scarfing down beef Stroganoff over buttered noodles, and an entire half-gallon of orange juice. Joe had wanted a beer but she’d suggested o. j., as being more regenerative. Hah! Little did she know!
Then they had made love again, this time with her sitting on top of the vibrating dishwasher, and that was where she discovered the secret of the Viking S-spot. Holy cow! Joe could write a book about the phenomenon, if he stuck around this century long enough, and if he was unable to find a job as a warrior. It certainly put the G-spot to shame. She knew for darn sure he’d be a hot ticket on the talk-show circuit.
Then again, no. Maggie didn’t want to share this man with anyone else. That was selfish of her, of course, but she regarded him as her special secret.
Joe had then carried her to the den. Now she wondered why he was so quiet.
“What are you thinking, Joe?”
He chuckled. “Already you are back to the sigh-colic-jest questions.”
She slapped him playfully on the chest, and he playfully winced as if she’d hurt him. When she tried to shrug out of his arms, he tucked her more closely into the cradle formed by his arm looped over her shoulder.
“I was thinking that I must be more virile than I thought if I can make a woman peak twenty-five times in a matter of”—he glanced over to the mantel clock—“four hours.”
“Oh! That is such a lie. I never climaxed twenty-five times.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her.
“Were you counting?” she accused.
“Are you daft, wench? I was too busy trying to catch my breath.”
She buried her hot face against his chest as all her old insecurities slam-dunked into her brain. Was she a slut at heart? Too sensuous? Too uninhibited? “Was I too…too…?”
Her words were muffled, spoken as they were against the warm skin of his bare chest, but he heard her. Tipping her chin up with a forefinger so he could see her face, Joe finished for her, “…wanton?”
“Yes. Was I too wanton?”
“Oh, Mag-he! How can you ask such a question?” He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. When she sliced him a glare, he gave her lips a quick, smacking kiss. “Your woman-joy is my man-pleasure, silly lady. I was teasing you, but in essence I was puffing my chest out with pride at my good fortune.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“So what were you thinking about so seriously then?”
“I was thinking that mayhap living in this godforsaken country and time might not be so bad. I was thinking that perchance my mother was right when she said home is where the heart is. She was answering my question at the time as to how she—a highborn Saxon lady—could adapt so easily to the harsh northern climate and a vastly different culture. And finally I was thinking—and this scared me mightily—that your home is becoming too much like home to me.”
Tears welled in Maggie’s eyes. “Oh, Joe, that’s the nicest thing you could have said.”
“So you think, but how will I ever be able to depart this land if my affections grow so strong? All this time, I have been heeding your cautions not to let your daughters get too close, for fear of the hurt they would suffer once I leave—which I must do inevitably—but not once did I realize that I was being pulled into this selfsame net.”
My affections…Maggie homed in on those words of Joe’s. What did he mean by that? Suddenly she recalled blurting out to Joe, in the midst of their lovemaking earlier tonight, that she loved him. Had he heard her? Did her words bother him? Was he trying to tell her, indirectly, that he returned her affection? She couldn’t help herself. Maggie asked, “Are you in love with me, Joe?”
“Pfff! How would I know? I have never been in love afore.”
“Some men claim that if you have to ask the question, then you’re not.”
“Ha! Most men don’t know their manroot from a beet root.” He sighed deeply. “All I know is that I go breathless just looking at you. Is that love? I could swive you till my cock falls off. Is that love? When you leave a chamber, even for a few minutes, I miss you. Is that love? My heart swells almost to bursting when I watch you with your daughters. Is that love? I want to do things to you that no man has ever done or contemplated. Is that love? I want to protect you with my shield from all harm. I want to stop all men from gazing at you. I want to see…I want to see you…” He was una
ble to finish his litany.
Maggie was weeping openly now. “You want to see me what?”
He reached beneath the covers and placed a hand over her belly. “I want to see my babe growing in your womb.”
Chapter Fifteen
That afternoon, they decided to go yule shopping.
Mag-he claimed she needed to buy some last-minute gifts to put under the tree—Odd practice, that—but he suspected she wanted to get him out of her house, lest he try to teach her more tricks in bedplay. Smart lady.
He yielded to her wishes readily because he was thinking he should buy some gifts, as well. The Norse people did not celebrate Christmas, as such, though they welcomed any opportunity for feasting and gift giving. But mostly Jorund agreed to go shopping with Mag-he because he did not want her to become bowlegged—Ha, ha, ha, he thought. A little Viking humor. Quite frankly, he did not want his manpart to fall off from overuse—Ha, ha, ha! A lot of Viking humor.
She was driving her car, and he was sitting in the passenger seat, strapped in. He was going to have to learn to drive if he stayed in this land much longer. Driving a car was a necessity here, much as riding a horse or a longship was in his time.
“Did you hear me?” she asked.
Oh, she must have been talking while he’d been humoring himself. Too much swiving must turn a man’s brain to gruel. On the other hand, was there such a thing as too much swiving?
“I said, I think we’ll skip the mall.”
“Methinks we should skip the shopping and stop at McDonald’s. My stomach is growling.”
“Your stomach is always growling. We are not going to McDonald’s again. If you eat many more Big Mac’s and french fries, you’re going to turn into a clown…a Ronald McDonald clown.”
“Shopping is women’s work,” he grumbled.
“And a man’s work would be…?”
“War.” Then he waggled his eyebrows at her. “And swiving.”
“Why did I ask?” She shook her head at him, as if he were hopeless. “Anyhow, we’re going to the Strand historical district. Besides, you already went shopping at the mall with Beth and Suzy the night I had a staff meeting at Rainbow.”
“And ne’er did my feet hurt so much in all my life. Those girls must have stopped at every blessed trading stall in the entire mall. And I swear, if I hear ‘Jingle Bells’ one more time, I may just throw up the contents of my stomach.”
“The girls told me you had a good time,” she pointed out with a smile. “They said you even had a long conversation with Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus! Oh, I am glad you brought up the subject. That fat, old, white-bearded fraud! You’d never catch me wearing a red suit, not even if I owned a set of flying reindeer. Do you really believe in the Santa Claus myth? Do you?”
“Well, I certainly believe in the spirit of Christmas.”
“That is a nonanswer if I ever heard one,” he scoffed.
“If time travel exists, why not Santa Claus?”
He saw the grin she was trying to stifle and realized that she jested with him. He made a harrumph of disgust.
“Anyhow, you won’t have to worry about Santa Claus downtown. Oh, he’ll be there, by the dozen, I’m sure, but the Strand is much more Christmasy in a traditional, old-fashioned sense.”
“What is the Strand?” he asked, gazing at Mag-he’s lips, which were swollen from his numerous kisses. He rather liked the idea that she carried his mark in some way.
“The Strand is the district at the heart of Galveston. In its heyday, which was the late 1800s and early 1900s, Galveston was even called the New York of Texas.”
Jorund thought about letting Mag-he blather on, but he had to refute that last preposterous statement of hers. “How could a city in Tax-us be the new York? Everyone knows that York—or Jorvik, as we Norse call it—is in England. Even I know they cannot move a city across the ocean.”
Mag-he turned toward him, taking her eyes off the roadway for a brief second. “Not that York. I’m referring to New York City. Oh, never mind. It’s not important.”
She was correct: it was not important. What was important was that his attention had snagged on her red Christmas sweat-her, which had a green tree on the front…a green tree with colored balls, two of which were stationed right about where her nipples were-nipples for which he had developed a particular fondness. He was also fond of what was beneath her black silk braies on the bottom.
“Are you wearing undergarments?” he asked all of a sudden.
“Joe! What a question to ask!”
“Are you?”
“What would make you think that I’m not?”
“A man can be hopeful, can he not? Methought you might have wanted to surprise me, since I must go celibate today.”
“I think celibacy refers to a longer period than three or four hours.”
“’Tis a long time for me,” he grumbled. Sighing with disappointment, he stared out the window on his side at the passing scenery.
“I’m not,” she said softly, “wearing underwear.”
His head swerved to the left. She was blushing profusely. Suddenly he decided shopping would not be as boring as he had contemplated.
Mag-he returned her attention to her driving, and went on talking, probably to cover her embarrassment. “Many of the spectacular buildings erected then are still in existence on the Strand, surviving even a devastating storm in 1900. I think you’ll like it.”
He thought he would like to go home and practice some more oral sexing, or mayhap he would just polish Mag-he’s belly button ring for her…with his tongue. And he still wanted to try licking her toes, which he had discovered were very ticklish.
“What are you grinning about?” she asked.
“Toes,” he said, and winked at her.
She blushed again. But she did not turn the car around. Apparently she was bound and determined to go shopping.
He slumped down into his seat, disgusted. Oh, it would be interesting to watch Mag-he today, knowing she was nude for him beneath, but there were dozens of sexual exercises he wanted to experiment with, and only a limited number of hours left till the girls came home tomorrow night. And what did the feckless wench propose? Shopping!
In truth, women were the same throughout the ages. It mattered not if it was a shopping mall in a city or a trading stall in a market town. He didn’t doubt that the first Christian man, Adam, was as beleaguered by his woman, Eve, as all men were. It would not have mattered to Eve that she had everything she could possibly need, living in the Garden of Eden. She would have wanted to go shopping, he would warrant. For apples.
“Did you see that?” He sat up straight, undid his seat belt, rolled down the window, and leaned his head outside.
“What? What?” Mag-he asked, swerving her car over to the side of the roadway, then turning off the motor.
“Out there.” Jorund pointed over the water. “I thought I saw a killer whale jumping into the air. Do you think…Yea, it must have been Thora.”
The Strand area was located on the opposite side of the island from the Gulf near a thriving commercial port. Surely a whale would not swim into those congested waters. But then, this was not a normal whale.
Much as he and Mag-he peered over the water, there was no sign of Thora. Perhaps he had been mistaken, but he did not think so. There had to be a reason for her showing herself now. What could it be? Was it a sign, or a warning?
“You’re not going back to your time now, are you, Joe?” Mag-he asked him in a tear-filled, panicky voice.
He brought his head back inside the car and stared at her, horrified. That thought had never occurred to him. It was too soon. Oh, he had been complaining for weeks about not being able to go home. But now that the possibility loomed on the horizon, he realized that he did not want to go…not yet. Conflicting feelings battered him. He had to go, for his brother Rolf’s sake. He had to stay, for Mag-he’s and her daughters’ sakes.
He could not think about
all this now. Instead he made a tsking sound and put his arms around her, kissing her face and neck and lips. “I am not going anywhere, sweetling,” he assured her.
But a whaley-like voice inside his head clicked and squealed in orca language, adding to his words an ominous Yet.
“Hey, Dr. McBride. How’s your belly button?”
Maggie’s head jerked upright with surprise, but then she noticed the young man with purple spiked hair. He was standing in the doorway of the tattoo parlor where she’d had her body piercing done earlier this year.
“Just great, Orvis,” she answered. Orvis was the son of the owner, Herbert Dupree, a long-haired, graying, sixties hippie who had never really grown up.
Before she could turn and introduce Joe, he set their overflowing shopping bags on the ground and stomped forward, grabbed Orvis by the front of his raggedy T-shirt, which read, A Hangover Is the Wrath of Grapes, and lifted him off his feet so that the young man was at eye level with him.
“Troll, do you dare speak of my lady’s intimate body parts?”
The kid appeared as if he might pee his pants, so surprised and terrified was he. Even worse, they were garnering attention from the shoppers and tourists in the busy Strand district.
“Put him down. Right now,” she ordered Joe as she tugged on his arm to pull him back. “He’s just a college student who works in this shop, where I had my belly-button ring put in.” In fact, as Maggie recalled, he was a prelaw student at UCLA.
“Oh.” Joe looked from her to the dangling boy in his hands. “I thought perchance your braies had dropped down a bit, and he could tell you were not wearing undergarments.” He snaked out a hand to palm her behind then, and squeezed. His other hand was still holding Orvis up in the air by his T-shirt.
She yelped and jumped away.
“I was just checking,” he said, and smiled widely, apparently satisfied that she hadn’t lied. Then he turned back to the boy, inquiring, “You meant no insult?” He was still not convinced the kid wasn’t some dire threat to her reputation.
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