Battles Abroad: The Norsemen's War: Book Two - Tor & Kyle (The Hansen Series 2)

by Kris Tualla

  “Kyle, I’m not sure—”

  Kyle let go of his manhood and grabbed his head. She kissed him while she rolled on top of him.

  He gripped her waist and tried to hold her still, but she ground herself against him anyway, making him groan.

  “Please…” she whispered against his lips. “Please love me, Tor.”

  She reached down between them and took hold of him again.

  *****

  Tor reached the breaking point. His defenses were blown through and he was Kyle’s prisoner.

  “Let me,” he rasped.

  He lifted Kyle’s hips and aimed himself toward her, wiggling his tip into her. “Sometimes it hurts the first time…”

  Kyle lowered herself slowly, moaning as she did, until there was no space left between them. She held still and the heat of her body consumed him.

  “What now?” she whispered.

  “One of us needs to move.” He sat up and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Let me do it.”

  Tor lifted himself enough to roll them over so that he was on top. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Oh yes.” Kyle’s eyes closed. “This is… so good.”

  Tor moved slowly at first, though there was no problem sliding in and out. Kyle was as ready for him as she could be.

  “More,” she whispered.

  He obliged.

  Soon, he was completely lost.

  Lost in the woods. Lost in her body. Lost in their joining.

  Nothing existed for him but their point of intimate connection and the intense and lengthy eruption of pleasure that they shared as he emptied himself into her, heart and soul.

  Chapter

  Thirty

  Tor helped Kyle get dressed and gathered the blankets under one arm. He tucked her under the other and supported her as they walked back to the barracks’ door.

  Kyle pulled his head down to hers and gave him a long and sweet kiss. Then she rested her head against his chest and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Tor rubbed her back. “Go on now. Get some sleep. It’s Sunday so you don’t have to pick me up in the morning.”

  Kyle leaned back and smiled dreamily up at him. “G’night.”

  Tor watched her climb the stairs. When she turned down the hall he stashed the blankets and left the building.

  What have I done?

  Well, he told her he loved her for starters. And he hadn’t drunk enough beer for the alcohol to be the one choosing his words.

  Did he love her?

  If he did, that was going to be damned inconvenient come the winter.

  He put no faith in her claim that she loved him. He doubted that she’d even remember saying it. And if that was the case, she probably wouldn’t remember him saying it either. Tor decided to never bring that subject up if she didn’t.

  As far as the sex was concerned, she was the one to press that forward. He tried to resist but she was so insistent, crying and begging him to make love to her.

  And it wasn’t just sex. It was making love.

  Damn.

  Tonight with Kyle was different from his other experiences. Probably because he knew her so well. And, to be honest, because he might actually love her.

  I wish I knew what being in love felt like.

  Tor reached his barracks and went up to his room. He stripped and climbed in to bed, only to find that sleep wasn’t coming yet.

  What have I done?

  July 26, 1944

  Kyle’s tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and her temples felt like they were caught in a vise. She squinted one eye open. She was in her bed, in her room, in her barracks.

  Why did she think she would be somewhere else?

  What did I do last night?

  She rolled over and laid on her back with one arm draped across her eyes while she tried to reconstruct the evening and figure out why she felt such a sense of dread.

  The letter from Erik.

  That was it.

  Her engagement was over. Erik didn’t love her, couldn’t forgive her, picked another random gal to marry, and told her not to write him back if she couldn’t be nice about it.

  Kyle felt a renewed surge of anger which made her head pound.

  How dare he? Who did he think he was?

  Who did he think she was? Someone who wasn’t good enough to be a farmer’s wife?

  Kyle sucked a breath as the realization hit her. She wouldn’t make a good farmer’s wife, not anymore. Not after this last year spent in the company of men and women from all over the country—all over the world.

  Tor’s teasing about her coming to Norway started as a joke, but the more she played with it the more she began to think that she might actually go. Whether to see him or not didn’t matter, it was her heritage and she was curious about it.

  Before leaving Viking and joining the WAC the idea never occurred to her. Now a trip like that could be in her future.

  Another stab of dread pounded in her head.

  What was her future going to be now? When she finished her two year enlistment what would she do?

  The thought of going back to live in Viking was suddenly very unappealing. Now that she wasn’t going to marry Erik and live on his farm there didn’t seem to be any reason for her to carve out a life there.

  Maybe I could have a life with Tor.

  Another surge of dread at that thought worried her. Something happened last night, and it had to do with Tor.

  He was at the bar.

  Kyle remembered her plan to drink and dance until she forgot about Erik, but she didn’t mean to drink enough to forget what she was doing. She remembered some soldiers buying her drink after drink and taking turns dancing with her.

  So far, so good.

  Then she remembered one of the men kissing her when she didn’t want him to. He spilled her drink. He wasn’t being nice.

  Tor told him to stand down.

  Kyle smiled. He rescued me.

  She remembered Tor taking her outside. And she was humiliated when she remembered that she threw up violently as soon as he did.

  There was a taxi ride to camp. She’d washed her face and brushed her teeth. Then she went into the woods with Tor.

  Oh my God!

  Panicked, Kyle reached down and touched her nether parts to see if she felt different. When she probed herself, she felt bruised.

  A flash of a memory burst into her mind—she was sitting astride Tor, who was on his back on the ground, and she was trying to put his erection inside her.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  She had sex with Tor. He made love to her. She wasn’t a virgin anymore. And he did it because she cried and begged him to. It wasn’t his idea, it was hers.

  Guilt mixed with fear flooded her. What would he think of her now? He had come to her rescue, saving her from who-knows-what, only to have her beg him to make love to her instead.

  Wait.

  Another zing of realization jolted her.

  Tor said stand down, soldier. Not stå ned, soldat.

  Was she imagining things? What else did he say?

  I’m here to take you back to camp.

  You don’t have a choice, Lieutenant.

  Was she so muddled by multiple rum and Cokes that she couldn’t tell which language he was speaking?

  Kyle knew she was speaking English, because the soldier understood her.

  But he understood Tor, too.

  When the jerk grabbed her and said something about Kyle wanting to go with him because he bought enough booze to earn her, Tor said it was nineteen-forty-four and that was a different kind of woman.

  In English.

  In perfect English.

  Kyle dug through her foggy memories of the rest of the night, trying to remember their conversations.

  After she threw up they were sitting on a bench. She told Tor that Erik had broken their engagement for a dumpy little nothing who doesn’t have uppity ideas.

  She was p
artly quoting Erik’s letter. And she had no idea how to translate dumpy or uppity ideas.

  She was speaking English the whole night. So was he.

  Tor speaks English.

  He lied to me.

  He lied to everyone. From the first moment she met him.

  Another jolt of memory seared her skull, and this one made her heart pound and her hands shake.

  She remembered asking Tor why didn’t anyone love her.

  He said, “I do.”

  *****

  Kyle stood under the hot spray of the shower until her fingers turned pruney. She couldn’t stop crying. In the last twenty-four-hours she’d made a terrible mess of her life and had done it with the aid of a man who was completely untrustworthy.

  How could she ever face him again?

  But she had to face him again. At least long enough to confront him about not needing a translator so she could get herself reassigned to some other duty that didn’t involve lying Norsemen.

  Kyle knew that part of the reason for her unending tears was because she had feelings for Tor. She remembered poking him in the chest and saying that she loved him, too. That added a great big shovelful of manure to the stinking situation.

  As long as she was engaged to Erik, she told herself she loved him. Erik and his farm were her destiny when Tor went off to Italy, and she held on to them as tightly as she could.

  Then Erik cut her loose without warning and Tor came to her rescue when she was drifting in the storm without an anchor.

  She probably meant those words last night, but that was before she realized Tor had been lying to her. The memory of her silly attempts to help him learn English—like making vocabulary cards for him to put up in his room—made her feel like an idiot now.

  Especially since she had her first sex with him.

  I’m not a virgin anymore.

  Kyle let the water run over her knowing that when she turned it off she would have to face the world. For now the heat was soothing her aching head and bruised body.

  There wasn’t such an easy cure for everything else.

  *****

  Tor saw Kyle from a distance before she saw him. She was wearing dark glasses and had her hands stuffed in her pockets. She was heading toward the mess hall for lunch and paying more attention to the road beneath her than to anything else around her.

  He walked toward her and got in her path. “Lieutenant?”

  Kyle’s head jerked up and she stopped mid-step. “Um, Captain.”

  He hated that he couldn’t see her eyes. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Vi må snake.” We need to talk.

  Kyle huffed. “You can drop the pretense, Captain.”

  She remembered.

  Damn.

  He tried to look sincerely apologetic. “Then we really do need to talk.”

  She pointed at the mess with her chin. “I need to eat.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Please don’t.” Kyle resumed her pace and circled past him.

  Tor caught up and fell in step with her, speaking in Norsk so their conversation would be private. “So much happened yesterday, Kyle. We do need to talk about it.”

  “I agree. I’m just not ready at the moment,” she answered in the same language. “I’m starving and being with you will ruin my appetite.”

  Tor felt terrible. “Are you that angry with me?”

  “Yes. Because you lied to me.” Kyle opened the hall door before he could do it for her and stopped again to look up at him. “I wouldn’t have done what I did if I’d known the truth.”

  Tor knew he wouldn’t score any points by pressing the point here and now. “Where should I meet you?”

  “I’ll get the jeep after lunch. Be at your barracks when I get there.”

  She let go of the door and disappeared inside.

  *****

  Tor was standing outside his barracks when Kyle drove up. He opened the passenger door and climbed in. She hit the gas before he got the door closed.

  She drove to the pistol range and stopped the jeep facing the targets. A few men were practicing and he figured she picked that spot so the sound would cover the argument he expected they were about to have.

  Tor turned in the seat to face her. “Where should we start?”

  She faced him. “How about, you can speak English and never needed a translator in the first place?”

  “Will you take off the glasses?”

  Kyle hesitated. “Why?”

  “I want to see your eyes when I talk to you.” Tor reached for the dark glasses but Kyle took them off by herself. Her eyes were swollen and red.

  “Satisfied?” she snipped.

  “Yes. Thank you.” Tor cleared his throat. “I trained in England for fourteen months and learned the language. But I do know it better now because I’ve been listening to it for the last eight months.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me when I first met you at the airport?”

  Her glare was so harsh that he felt like donning her dark glasses for protection. He pulled a breath then launched into his explanation.

  “At first I was confused. I was sick on the plane, I hadn’t slept well for thirty-six hours… I just wasn’t thinking straight. And then when you spoke to me in Norsk, I answered in Norsk.”

  She looked skeptical. “So then why didn’t you say something when we got to camp?”

  Tor decided to jump in. “Because I liked you.”

  “Liked me?” she yelped. “What kind of an excuse is that?”

  “An honest one.”

  Kyle snorted. “So now you’re being honest? I suppose you thought it would be fun to see how far you could seduce—” Her words dissolved into a ragged sob.

  “No. Never.” He grabbed her hands and wouldn’t let her pull them away even though she put up a good fight. “I swear to you, Kyle. It was never my intention to bed you.”

  She wiped her streaming cheeks on her shoulders because he’d imprisoned her hands.

  “I found you intriguing and I wanted you around to help me adjust. Speaking a second language can be exhausting.” He gave her a crooked smile. “That’s all.”

  When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “Last night wasn’t my idea, you know that.”

  Her sobs got louder at the reminder.

  “Don’t misunderstand me, Kyle. I loved making love to you. It was amazing. And I think it was good for you too, wasn’t it?”

  She wouldn’t look at him but she gave a tiny nod. “Was it making love, Tor?” she croaked. “Or was it just sex.”

  Now he didn’t answer, panicked over what he should admit to.

  She looked at him then with a myriad of naked emotions playing over her face. “Tell me the truth.”

  All in was all in. “I told you the truth last night, Kyle. Do you remember?”

  “You said you love me,” she whispered.

  Tor’s heart stuttered. “And you said the same.”

  Kyle seemed to grow calmer. “Yes.”

  Tor let go of her hands. “So what now?”

  Kyle’s voice was flat. “If I tell Jones you don’t need a translator anymore, then I’ll be reassigned.”

  “At Camp Hale?”

  She gave a little shake of her head. “Not necessarily.”

  That was not good news. “Are you going to tell him?”

  She stared at him, her eyes more gray than green at the moment. “I don’t know. I’m still so angry at you. And at myself.”

  “Then don’t do anything yet,” he suggested hopefully. “Not until you’ve had a chance to think about everything for a few days. The situation may not look so dire in a week or two.”

  She sighed shakily. “Okay. I won’t say anything yet.”

  Kyle put the dark glasses back on and restarted the jeep. “In the meantime, though, this fling is over.”

  Chapter

  Thirty One

  August 14, 1944

  Ky
le hadn’t said anything to anyone about Tor’s English skills for the last two weeks because she was tangled in such a messy mix of emotions that she didn’t trust herself to be sane enough to take action at any given point in time.

  She realized that even though she was furious at Tor—and had every right to be—she was more drawn toward him than ever before. That made sense, too. They’d each confessed to making declarations of love. And then they made love, forever changing who she was.

  There was no going back on that.

  So Kyle kept doing her job, translating for the captain as he and Frank Collins took their current platoon through training in the rifle and pistol ranges, grenade courts, gas chambers, and bayonet courses.

  Truth be told, she found the training fascinating and caught herself wondering if there would ever come a time when women in the army would be issued firearms and be able to train like these men were.

  In her current state of mind, she thought shooting at things would be very therapeutic. Maybe she’d ask Tor to teach her to shoot his pistol.

  Once I’m speaking to him again.

  So far, all of their conversations since that fateful night had been strictly professional and related to Tor’s jobs; Kyle hadn’t allowed herself to say anything of a personal nature to the captain. The drastic changes that took place in every aspect of her life during those hours had left her too fragile to reopen that door just yet.

  But there was one result of Erik’s breaking their engagement that surprised her: for the first time in her life she no longer saw herself as a future farmer’s wife.

  The freedom from that expectation both terrified and exhilarated her. When she lay in bed at night thinking about where her life might be headed now, she started to consider the idea of living some where other than Viking.

  Where would I go?

  What would I do?

  She remembered reading in the Ski-Zette two months ago that President Franklin Roosevelt signed something called the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, but she hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it at the time because she never thought it would apply to her.