Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05]

by The Blue Viking

  “Not yet,” he replied.

  Is he trying to punish me? She eyed him suspiciously, then entreated, “Make love to me, Rurik.”

  He held her eyes and answered, “Convince me.”

  Aye, it’s punishment he’s after. But no rack or whipping post for this rogue. Nay, he has a more devious torture in mind. “I am not experienced in the love arts … you know that. How would I convince you?”

  “Use your imagination.” He let go of her hips and leaned back on his elbows. The brute was going to make her initiate all the moves, when she didn’t even know what the moves were.

  “Rurik, we don’t have much time.”

  He shrugged. “Then you’d best think quick.”

  She tried clenching her inner muscles again, and holding them taut. That was an exercise he’d seemed to like before.

  Rurik bit his bottom lip as if stifling a cry.

  Aha! A small victory, I spy. She repeated the maneuver, this time engaging a rhythmic hold-release, hold-release pattern. “How was that?” she asked.

  “A start,” he choked out.

  A start? Just a start? Hah! I’ll show you, Viking. She spread her legs wider and glanced down to where black curls blended with red, both glistening with her woman dew. When she looked back up, she saw that Rurik had been staring at the same spot… and he liked what he saw … oh, yes, he did! His face might remain impassive, but a part of him he could not control flexed and swelled, filling her even more.

  Even so, the man still did nothing to initiate the undulations that her body craved. What could she do that would knock the complacency out of him?

  Her gaze fixed on the chain shirt that came to a vee in the front under his tunic. Some soldiers pulled the mail all the way down and between the legs, with padding underneath, to protect the genitals. His lay open. That gave her an idea… a wicked idea.

  Did she dare?

  Did she dare not?

  She pulled back slightly so that Rurik was still embedded in her but the base of his staff was exposed. Then she spread her legs even wider so that nub of woman pleasure Rurik had introduced her to was clearly visible to him.

  She was too embarrassed to let her gaze connect with his. She thought she heard a hitch in Rurik’s breathing, though, which she took for a good sign.

  Then, garnering every bit of nerve she had, Maire took the flexible mail by its pointed front tail and ever so lightly stroked the base of Rurik’s column, back and forth, side to side.

  “For the love of Frigg!” Rurik roared.

  There was no doubt in Maire’s mind now. She was on the right route. Still, she asked, pretending uncertainty, “Dost want me to stop?”

  “Bloody damn … bloody damn … whffffffff.”

  “Oh,” she said coyly, stroking him again with the cool metal. “Does that mean you like it?”

  “Yea, I like it.”

  “How much?” she teased with the metal poised a hairbreadth away.

  “Immensely.”

  “I wonder if you would like it more or less if I did the same with my tongue.”

  He let loose with a strangled laugh. “Unless you are as double-jointed as Ivar the Boneless was said to be, I would say that is an impossibility in your present position. Perchance you could save that sex feat for another time.”

  Would there be another time? Would Rurik come back, alive and whole? Would he then mention the “bride gift”? Would he stay in the Highlands? Nay, Maire could not think of those questions now.

  “But, yea, witchling, I would enjoy having your mouth on me there,” Rurik continued in a low, husky voice. “More than you could ever imagine.”

  While she was pondering what to do next, the V edge brushed across her woman hair… just a feathery pass, but the fiery sensation it ignited was exquisite. Tentatively, she let the metal edge make a return pass … this time just barely touching the distended bud that held such prominence there. ’Twas like lightning striking her most sensitive body part. Or warm honey spreading out to all her intimate folds.

  Maire was utterly shocked at the wantonness of her act, and the pleasure she took from it. Though her hand still held the supple metal fabric, she jerked it away, lest she be tempted to repeat the sweet torture.

  Rurik grabbed her by the wrist and gently placed her hand back at the joining of her thighs. In a voice thick as the warm honey she’d imagined, he urged, “Do it again.”

  Sacred Saints, she did, and almost swooned at the intensity of searing heat that pooled there.

  “Again,” he prodded.

  She had no choice but to comply, so far gone in arousal was she now. And the point of this whole exercise had been to arouse Rurik! This time, the warm honey and searing heat sensations were joined by an interior spasming… one, two, three sharp clasps of the thick spear on which she sat.

  Rurik groaned … a long, lust-ridden, male sound. Even so, he pleaded, “One last time, sweetling. Come to the edge … just the edge of your peak for me … just a little higher.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Do it, Maire… one last time.” His command brooked no argument.

  Maire stared down at herself and Rurik where they were joined. As if she were a puppet and Rurik were pulling her strings, she held the pointed fabric slightly above them. Then she let it swing from side to side like a rapid pendulum, creating a vibration against the ridge of her femininity.

  She was keening almost continuously now, tears streaming down her face, as wave after wave of escalating excitement hit her. “Oh … oh … oh … oh … oh …” She must have swooned into unconsciousness for a brief moment, because the next thing she was aware of was being on her back and Rurik attempting to reassure her with soft crooning words, “Hush, now, pretty. You did good. Very, very good. There is naught to be ashamed of.” His soothing words were contrary to what he was doing … creating new waves and new spasms with long, slow strokes of his hard staff. As his strokes became shorter, he hammered against her, driving her body from one side of the mattress to the other. And the only sounds were those of Rurik’s panting and their slick parts hitting one another. Then, finally, the explosion of every nerve ending in Maire’s body as Rurik pounded into her one last time with a delicious male shout of triumph. Then silence.

  “I have to leave, dearling,” Rurik said a short time later, kissing the top of Maire’s head.

  “I know,” she murmured, but made no effort to move from where she lay cradled at his side, her face resting on his chest, which had finally subsided from its passionate heaving.

  And he was no better. His braies were still draped about his knees in a tangle. Holy Thor! The last time he’d been so anxious to have a female that he’d taken her with his braies about his boots he’d been an untried boy, not an experienced man. But that was how Maire affected him.

  He looked down at his lady—and, yea, that was how he regarded her… his lady—and ran a hand over the mass of hair that was spread out over his chest, down to his waist, and over his upper arms. Like a massive skein of blazing silk, it was. “Amazing how I’ve developed a taste for red hair,” he commented idly as he rubbed several strands between his thumb and forefinger. “I always thought I misliked flame hair on a woman.”

  “You do not like red hair?” she inquired, lifting her head to regard his face.

  “I never did afore. I recall the first time I saw Tykir’s wife, Alinor. I could not understand how my friend saw beauty when I considered her nigh homely.”

  “Because she had red hair?”

  “Well, because she was covered with freckles from head to toe, as well.”

  “And now?”

  He shrugged as if only mildly interested. “Now, I concede Alinor has a certain attraction.”

  He kissed Maire lightly on the lips and made to rise. “I really must go. If I do not, we may find a troop of Vikings and Campbell clansmen barging through yon door.”

  “Give me one more moment,” she said, pressing him back down.

&nbs
p; I’d like to give you more than a moment, witch. I’d like to give you some memories that would sizzle the hair off your skin and put a permanent blush on that pretty face. “That is what you said a short time ago, afore you bent me to your will and seduced me to your bed.” He chucked her under the chin playfully to show he had not been all that upset over the way things had turned out.

  Her face turned bright red with embarrassment. How a woman could retain a speck of modesty after what she’d just done was beyond Rurik, but then, who could understand the workings of a woman’s mind?

  “The seduction was not all one-sided,” she protested.

  “It was at first.”

  “I beg to differ, not when … but that’s neither here nor there. There is something I need to tell you… something important.”

  He tilted his head in question. “Let me dress whilst you talk, then. I really do need to go soon. I would like to arrive at the MacNabs afore it is full dark.”

  She nodded and moved aside so that he could rise. Almost immediately, she covered a good part of her body with the bed linen. Still visible above the cloth were her bare shoulders and the amber necklet, which suited her so well. How could he have ever thought of giving it to anyone but her?

  While he drew on his garments, Maire tried several times to tell him something that was apparently bothering her, if her wringing hands and stammered speech were any sign.

  “I should have told you long ago …,” she began and halted. Then she tried another route, “I hope you will control your temper till I get to the last because …” She abandoned that pathway as well. “It’s about Jamie, you see, and how …”

  “Jamie! All this nervousness is about Jamie! What has he done now?”

  “It’s not what he has done. It’s what I…”

  “I know… you found out about him watching through a peephole in the scullery as Dora took a bath.”

  Maire’s jaw dropped open. “He did that? Oooh, I do not need you to warm his bottom. I will do it myself.”

  Hmmm. If it wasn’t that incident, what could it be? “Oh. Surely you’re not this distressed because he and his friends spread honey on the garderobe seat?”

  He could tell by the angry glint in her green eyes that she hadn’t been aware of that misdeed either. Jamie’s arse was going to be hot, not warm, Rurik would warrant.

  “I am not the one who brought up the subject of his dinky,” he asserted, refusing to take the blame for that foolishness.

  “His … his dinky?” Maire sputtered.

  So, it was not that either. “Well, the only other thing I can think of that might have you this upset is his asking me if he could go a-Viking with me.”

  The anger quickly disappeared from her expressive eyes and was replaced with hurt. Why hurt? “My Wee-Jamie asked to go away with you?” Her voice was barely a whisper and carried myriad emotions, mostly pain.

  “Yea, he did … the rascal… but, of course, I told him it was out of the question.”

  She breathed a visible sigh of relief, which struck Rurik as rather odd. Why would she think he’d even consider taking her young son away from his homeland and his mother?

  Maire inhaled and exhaled several times, as if to calm herself. “Rurik, you might not come back from this mission tomorrow. I cannot let you go into danger without telling you … something. You need to know.”

  He was already fully garbed and putting his sword in its scabbard. “Is this news something that will upset me?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Cause me to lose my concentration?”

  “Probably.”

  “Change my life in any way?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Rurik couldn’t imagine anything involving her son that would affect him so. The scamp must have done a deed that was really, really bad for his mother to be so distressed.

  She was about to say more, but Rurik put up a halting hand. “Nay, save it till I get back. Bad news going into battle means bad news coming back.”

  “But—”

  “Nay, Maire. Leave be, for now.” He leaned down to give her a good-bye kiss. When he was done, he murmured against her mouth, “When I come back, I promise to reciprocate for you the events of today. Mayhap I will demonstrate what I can do with a piece of chain mail.”

  She nodded, not really hearing his words, he could tell. He made for the door, opened it, and was about to leave her chamber when she called out, “Rurik, there is one thought I would have you take with you … something I never would have believed just a few days ago. I don’t think this will upset you.” She paused briefly, then said, ever so softly, “I love you.”

  He just nodded at her words, and left. Oh, he knew she’d wanted him to say the same phrase back to her. He could not.

  Maire was wrong about the effect her declaration would have on him. Rurik was upset.

  How had his life become so complicated?

  How was he ever going to explain to Maire that, once his mission here was completed, he had another mission to accomplish?

  His wedding.

  Rurik was in the lead, riding his horse down the narrow path from Maire’s mountainside castle. When they got to the bottom, they rode in a tight veeformation, with Stigand and Toste on one side, and Bolthor and Vagn on the other. A half dozen of the Campbells fell in behind them. Although these ten accompanied him, Rurik would be entering the MacNab clanstead on his own, unarmed, while Toste and Vagn snuck in wherever they could. The others would stand watch outside.

  “We’re running late,” Toste pointed out, as if that weren’t obvious from the darkening sky. “Did you have to or-gaz her again?”

  “Who says I did?” Rurik replied. That was the trouble with Norsemen. When they were not a-Viking or a-battling, they were meddling in other men’s business.

  Stigand untied the red yarn from his middle finger, ripped it in half, then handed a piece to Rurik. “Best you commence measurin’ yerself if yer gonna be lyin’.”

  Rurik started to tell his berserker that he hadn’t precisely said that he hadn’t or-gaz-ed Maire. Damn, I can’t believe I’m using that ridiculous word now, too. But he was too dumbfounded by Stigand’s cutting his yarn in half.

  He had no time to chastise Stigand because Vagn launched into him. “ ’Tis obvious you or-gaz-ed yourself boneless. In truth, we could probably fold you up and put you in a saddlebag. I doubt there’s a drop of man seed left in your body. If the lady didn’t share in the pleasurin’, then shame on you.” Vagn grinned mischievously. Good thing he was two horse widths away, or Rurik would have swatted him aside the head.

  “There’s an odd gleam in his eye… have you noticed?” Toste asked his brother. “Rather like incredulity. What do you suppose the witch did to him in the bed furs to cause incredulity?”

  Everyone looked at Rurik.

  Rurik pressed his lips shut and stared straight ahead. He was saying nothing. He could feel his ears turn red, though.

  “Your ears are turnin’ red,” Stigand accused Rurik with a hoot of laughter.

  “Uh-oh,” Toste and Vagn remarked. “That good, huh?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Bolthor said. Everyone groaned.

  “This is the story of Rurik the Greater…” Bolthor began.

  “Who is getting greater by the moment, if his red ears are any indication,” Stigand added, ducking to avoid the swing of Rurik’s fist. “And, by the by, why is your chain mail sticking out from under your tunic? Did you forget to lace the ties?”

  Rurik glanced down at his groin and, sure enough, the vee end of his chain mail was sticking out. Now, his face and neck were no doubt turning red, as well as his ears. “Why must you men always be poking into my personal affairs? I am a single Viking, unattached by wedlock to any woman … as of yet… so what is wrong with me or-gaz-ing my brains out, if that is what I want to do?”

  Everyone grinned, knowing they’d provoked a reaction from him, which had obviously been their objective from the start. He t
urned away with a snort of disgust… mostly at himself.

  “Methinks I have a good title for this saga,” Bolthor announced enthusiastically. “Sex and the Single Viking.”

  The Viking man

  Had much conceit.

  Especially in the bed furs,

  Excessive charm he did secrete.

  But came a lady witch

  With a complaint she did bleat.

  Turns out the Viking’s skills

  Left her incomplete.

  But do not issue a challenge

  To a Norseman’s male meat,

  As this lady soon learned her lesson

  Beneath the bed sheet.

  The Viking man

  Will ne’er retreat.

  So much or-gaz-ing

  Did he to her mete

  That now the fair lady admits defeat,

  And says her female parts

  Are beat, beat, beat.

  Thus the Norseman

  Proves once again

  That he is all man.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The events of the night went surprisingly well. Rurik was permitted to enter the MacNab keep, alone and unarmed, while Toste and Vagn somehow entered in a clandestine manner.

  The castle and grounds were prosperous compared to the Campbell holdings, which prompted Rurik to wonder why some men in their greed never had enough. On the other hand, he noted in the background another MacNab brother, Graham, and his wife and numerous grandchildren; so, ’twas likely that the ever-growing extended family felt the need to sprawl out and swallow up its neighbors. Rurik had also been told that Duncan entertained a convoluted notion that he was entitled to the Campbell lands through his dead brother’s marriage.

  At first, Rurik outlined the demands of the Campbells with the threat that, unless the MacNabs immediately ceased their threats upon the Campbells in deed and word, spirits would overtake their land.

  Duncan and his men could scarce prevent themselves from falling over into the rushes with laughter. It was the expected initial reaction.

  Rurik was invited to join them for a cup of ale before he departed … although he wasn’t entirely certain that the unscrupulous Duncan would allow him to leave.