Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 01]

by The Reluctant Viking

  The abrupt, unexpected words had startled Ruby. “What did you say?” Then she’d whispered, “Say it again.”

  “Let’s get married.”

  “Is this a proposal, Jack?” she’d gasped, tears of happiness filling her eyes.

  “Yes.” His breath had fluttered against her parted lips, soft as a butterfly’s kiss. “Oh, yes!” Then Jack had smiled for the first time that day and begun a sweet assault of kisses. His lips had been white-hot with blistering heat as they’d seared a path from lips to throat and back to lips to pursue deep drugging kisses that had turned Ruby mindless and incoherent in her cries. Over and over, he had marked her with his stalking mouth.

  Impatient, Jack had torn off his jacket and removed Ruby’s as well. Her sweater and his T-shirt had followed quickly after. For a moment, Jack had pulled back to look at her exposed body appreciatively. “Oh, Rube!” he’d exclaimed before lowering himself. “Oh, sweet, sweet, Rube!” By the time his lips touched the tips of her breasts, Ruby had already arched up to meet him, yearning, aching to be suckled. He’d used his tongue to circle and flick, his teeth to rasp softly, his lips to draw her into his mouth rhythmically.

  Ruby had been feverish with wanting by the time Jack had stood to remove the rest of his clothing. She could no more have halted him then than stopped her wildly careening heart. All their petting in the past had taken place in his car or on the living-room sofa, with parents nearby. This had been the first time she’d seen Jack naked. Like an ancient Viking, he’d stood proudly, his tall, muscular body perfectly in tune with the autumn background, his blond hair fluttering in the air. His erect penis had grown rock hard and huge under her flattering perusual. Jack’s sheer masculinity took her breath away.

  By the time Ruby had lain naked, as well, they’d both been panting. His long fingers had moved expertly in the delta between her thighs to prepare her wetly. She’d budded, then flowered under his fluttering fingertips. When he’d poised between her legs finally, he’d repeated his earlier question, “Will you marry me, Rube?” At the moment she’d whispered, “Yes,” he’d buried himself in her sheath in one smooth stroke. There’d been slight pain, but mostly the overwhelming, wonderful feeling of being filled by the man she loved. After that, she’d been unable to think at all as he’d driven her to the edge of eternity and then over with catapulting waves of pleasure.

  When they’d lain in each other’s arms afterwards, Jack had nuzzled her neck. “Let’s get married—now! We can drive out of state, get married by a justice of the peace and be back at my apartment by Sunday night. I have three hundred dollars in my checking account.”

  “Now? Today?” Ruby’s brain had still felt muddled from their lovemaking. He couldn’t be serious, she’d thought.

  “Yes. I want you to come back to school with me. I don’t want to be there if you’re not with me. Please, Rube, marry me.”

  “This is just lust speaking, Jack,” Ruby had commented, with a shaky laugh.

  “Yeah! Ain’t it great?” he’d responded with the drop-dead grin she’d always found irresistible, and Ruby had felt a deep throbbing begin in her center once again. Then he’d begun a new assault on her already weakened senses. “I love you, Rube. I’ll never love any other woman,” Jack had whispered as they sank to the soft autumn bed. “We can make it work. We can…”

  Words hadn’t been necessary after that as they made sweet, sweet love for the second time in the most gorgeous setting any bride could ever want.

  They hadn’t eloped that weekend, but they’d convinced both their parents of their seriousness. The formal wedding had taken place over Christmas vacation, and Ruby had returned to Jack’s university with him. Thanks to the financial help of both sets of parents, part-time jobs, Jack’s scholarship and some extremely frugal living conditions, including postage-stamp-size apartments, both had managed to graduate from college four years later.

  As the fog of memories began to dim, Ruby realized she still lay on the Viking pallet with eyes squeezed shut, her body shuddering with silent sobs she didn’t want her wretched guard to overhear. Jack’s words lingered in her mind: “We can make it work.”

  What a fool she’d been!

  “Do you weep for want of me or for your sorry fate?”

  Huh? Jack hadn’t said that.

  Ruby’s eyes shot open to the sight of Jack—no, Thork—leaning against the open doorway of her tower room, arms and legs crossed. She hadn’t even heard the door open.

  Standing up, she asked him huffily, “How long have you been standing there ogling me? Why aren’t you off sucking up to the tarantula?”

  “Sucking up?” Thork questioned on a laugh. “Can I assume ‘tarantula’ is a spider?”

  “You got it!”

  “Your manner of speaking—’tis ever a puzzle.” Thork shook his head quizzically.

  “You think my language is odd. I’ve heard enough ’twas-es and ’tis-es and ’twoulds to last me a lifetime.”

  Thork laughed easily.

  Ruby narrowed her eyes. What was up now? A short time ago the brute had shook her and almost slapped her face. Now he stood here laughing as if nothing were wrong. He was just like Jack in that regard. A short fuse, quick outburst, and then an equally rapid recovery.

  “So, is the torture going to begin now? Will you do it here, or should we move out into the bailey so everyone can watch? If we had more time, we could serve popcorn and slurpees. Hey, why not give the whip to your spider friend? I’ll bet she could do a good job of skinning me alive.”

  Thork looked appalled at her words.

  “Halt thy wicked tongue, woman. Linette is not as you think.”

  “Hah!”

  Thork still hadn’t moved from his nonchalant stance near the door. He gazed at her intently, seeming to look for answers to some great mystery.

  “Why are you watching me so strangely? What am I being accused of now?”

  Thork shrugged uncomfortably. “Naught do I accuse you of,” he started to explain, then seemed to shift course, “but I wonder what you dreamt of before you started weeping. You were making love in your dreams, were you not? Was it your husband, Jack?”

  Ruby felt her face flush and pressed her fingertips to her cheek, wondering if the finger welts from Dar’s slap were still there.

  “The tips of your breasts swelled with passion even as you slept,” Thork continued relentlessly. “You arched your womanhood and spread your thighs wantonly. You even moaned.”

  Involuntarily, Ruby looked down, then crossed her arms across her chest in embarrassment. The tips of her swollen breasts were, indeed, clearly outlined under her thin T-shirt.

  “By the faith! Surely you do not turn shy on me now—after all the outrageous things you have said and done.”

  An insufferable grin spread across Thork’s lips.

  “All right, what’s going on here?” Ruby demanded to know. “Something has definitely happened. First you run hot, then cold. One day, angry. The next, teasing. Tell me. Do I die or do I go free?”

  Thork studied her, as if weighing his words carefully. “Neither. We have discovered the traitor in our midst. One of the hesirs who traveled with us from Jorvik was Ivar’s man. ’Twould seem was him, not you, who sought to entrap Dar.”

  It took several moments for Thork’s words to sink in.

  Then, shrieking loudly, Ruby sprang at him, pounding his chest, trying to scrape her nails across his face, biting his shoulder when he lifted her by the upper arms off the floor. When she hit his groin with her kicking legs, Thork twisted his body and lost his footing. They both fell to the pallet, which broke with a loud crash under the impact of his weight and the force of their combined fall.

  “You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! You bucket of slime! Let me up. I’m going to cut out your stinking heart. Ouch!”

  “Leave off, wench. Your voice—’tis shrill as a sea gull. Oh! Your nails are sharp.”

  Thork pinned her down with his hard body, her arms abov
e her head, her legs encased in his thighs. They lay in the midst of the broken bed on the floor, straw floating in the air above them from the torn mattress cover. Ruby tried to heave him off her and realized her mistake immediately.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed on a whisper as the juncture of her thighs pushed against Thork’s manhood, arousing him instantly. She tried to correct her error by dropping back and turning her face away.

  He wouldn’t allow it.

  Wolfishly his lips stalked hers, forcing a response she didn’t want to give. When she fought him, Thork nipped her lower lip gently with his teeth. Ruby parted her lips to scream, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth, filling her with a pleasure she could not deny.

  She could feel the smile on Thork’s self-satisfied lips. The boor!

  Palm to palm, he held her hands pressed to the bed above her head, then levered himself up slightly. He moved his body from side to side across her, back and forth, the coarse wool of his tunic-covered chest brushing her T-shirt-clad breasts, the hardness of his manhood caressing the dream-sensitized vee of her thighs. She arched involuntarily, and Thork gasped out, “Oh, yea, sweetling! You do that so nice.”

  He deftly maneuvered his thighs between hers, then shifted so he lay firmly against her jean-clad center. In an age-old dance of lift, then touch, lift, then touch, Thork undulated against her mercilessly. Meanwhile, his tongue set a matching pattern in her mouth. She tried to moan her protest, but only managed to open her mouth wider for his plundering kiss.

  Unable to utter her protests aloud, Ruby soon gave up, a soaring passion overtaking her. Lost between two worlds, Ruby wasn’t sure if the crackling noise under her was straw or autumn leaves. Or whether it was Jack or Thork. Perhaps they were one and the same. She couldn’t think anymore. She didn’t want to think.

  Lost in a time warp, Ruby keened her anguish and fevered wanting into his open mouth. “Oh, Jack! I love you so much!”

  Thork pulled back abruptly and stared at her in disbelief—a hurt, questioning expression shadowing his passion-glazed eyes. Then he muttered an obscenity. Ruby couldn’t stop looking at his lips, which she’d bruised deliciously with her kisses.

  Oh, my God! She wanted him so badly! Thork, Jack, whoever he was—it didn’t matter.

  “Jack! You called me Jack,” Thork accused, stabbing her murderously with blue eyes still hazy with desire. “Do you think of another man when you yield to me?”

  Ruby licked her lips nervously, trying to think of a way to explain once again that he and Jack were the same man to her. She never got a chance to answer as Dar rushed breathlessly into the room.

  “What goes here? It sounded like the whole bloody keep was falling down.”

  Following him were Aud, Olaf, Gyda, the girls and a dozen others, including Linette.

  Embarrassed, Ruby tried to shift from under Thork, but the stubborn Viking refused. Ruby smiled involuntarily, though, in a pure, unadulterated gloat at the sight of the Black Widow glaring at her in Thork’s arms.

  Thork rolled to his side, still holding her in his arms, his arousal pressing disconcertingly into her thigh.

  “What happened? Did she attack you?” an outraged Linette asked, pushing her way to the front of the group.

  “Nay, I tripped and fell onto the pallet,” Thork explained dryly, pulling a sheet discreetly over his middle.

  “On top of the wench?” Olaf scoffed.

  “Shush, Olaf,” Gyda whispered loudly, elbowing him to behave.

  Dar snickered as he shooed everyone back downstairs to the hall where the loud noises had been heard. He shook his head in disgust at the sight of the two of them on the broken bed before extending a hand to Ruby, then Thork.

  “Methinks the mischievous Loki is having a grand laugh over you,” Dar commented dryly, looking pointedly at Thork’s crotch. “Mayhap you two deserve each other, after all.” He pulled at his lower lip thoughtfully and his eyes narrowed slyly at Ruby. “Is there any chance you truly are related to Hrolf, or that mayhap he would dower you in marriage?”

  “No!” Thork bellowed. “Do not think it! Never will I marry, and leastways not to this sorry wench!” Obviously, he’d managed to overcome his bout of passion for her.

  “Hold it here,” Ruby intervened. To Dar she said, “Yes, I am truly related to Hrolf, and, no, I am not, nor ever will be, an heiress. Forget any ambitious plans you may be concocting in that direction.”

  Dar pretended mock offense.

  To Thork Ruby snapped haughtily, “As for this ‘sorry wench,’ she doesn’t want you any more than you want her. You and that oversexed spider can live happily ever after, for all I care.”

  So why did the thought bother her so much? Why did her eyes linger on the well-developed muscles in his forearms and thighs as he brushed away pieces of the clinging straw?

  And buns! He had the cutest backside she’d seen outside of a magazine centerfold, Ruby thought irrelevantly as she watched him stride out of the room. Boy, could she picture him in a pair of tight jeans!

  Ruby realized then that Dar watched her closely and seemed to know just what part of Thork’s anatomy she’d been ogling. With a knowing grin, he raised a hand to halt her next words.

  “Do not think to deny what I just witnessed. An old man I may be, but not yet in my dotage when it comes to recognizing that certain look in a woman’s eye.” Chuckling, he bid her follow him downstairs, where the servant Ella had been given permission by Thork to take her to a nearby pond for a bath—under guard, of course. Wonderful! How did Thork know she craved a bath? Probably because she stank like a pig after three days without soap and water.

  “Dar, am I no longer under suspicion now that the hesir confessed to spying for Ivar?”

  “Nay. We still trust you not. ’Tis even possible that the spy worked with you, though I misdoubt it. ’Twill be for the Althing to decide.”

  “Do you really believe I could be a spy?”

  “A stranger in our lands who cannot account for her background is suspicious enough in times when danger lurks in every corner. Not only must Thork worry about the danger from his half-brother Eric or from enemies who would kidnap those he cherishes for ransom, but the Saxons merely bide their time until the right moment for attack.

  “Then you made matters even worse with that birth-control nonsense you introduced to the women. Thor’s blood! ’Twas a stupid move on your part if you are, in truth, a spy.”

  “I’ve tried to tell the truth, but no one believes me.”

  “Tell me naught of the future again, lass. I will hear naught of it. Take care, though. I tell you true—the only thing that will save you at the Althing is protection by a powerful Viking man. Since that appears nigh impossible at this point, you best pray to that Christian God of yours that they believe you are kin to Hrolf.”

  Dar’s words of warning remained with Ruby as she and Ella walked to the pond just beyond the manor keep, followed by Vigi who looked left and right for possible intruders.

  “By the saints, I ne’er thought to see you alive after you went to the tower,” Ella exclaimed as soon as they were out the manor doors. “I heard once that a sorceress can put a spell on people so they gotta do her will. That mus’ be it. A sorceress you are. How else could you have escaped bein’ kilt so many a time?”

  “Oh, good heavens, Rhoda…I mean, Ella, don’t even think to mention the name sorceress in connection with me, or they really will kill me, especially that Sigtrygg.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The spring-fed pond nestled in a secluded little oasis, hidden from the keep by a strand of trees. The bossy Ella ordered Vigi to go to the edge of the clearing and make sure he kept his back turned. Then she perched on a flat boulder, refusing to enter the water with Ruby.

  “Are you daft? There was a girl onct who took too many baths and her skin shriveled up so bad it never got smooth agin. ’Tis not good to be so clean, poisons the blood, it does. Why, I even…”

  Ruby let Ella ramble on as s
he lingered almost an hour in the soothing water. She scrubbed her hair and body over and over to remove the grime.

  The servants were setting up the evening meal when Ruby returned to the manor. Aud told her that the tower room had been cleaned for her continued use but that she would be expected downstairs in the hall for dinner.

  “Where are Eirik and Tykir?” Ruby asked, suddenly realizing she hadn’t seen them since their arrival here several days ago, not even in the hall at mealtimes.

  “In the stables,” Aud replied. “They sleep there and eat in the kitchen with the servants.”

  “But how can you stand to see your own grandsons live such a life?”

  For a split second, Aud’s composure weakened, but then she straightened. “Do not think to question what is naught of your affair.” She walked straight-backed to the kitchen area, summoning Ella to follow her.

  Ruby decided to seek out the boys before the evening meal. Vigi followed but didn’t try to stop her. Cold, suspicious eyes followed Ruby wherever she walked. The hesirs, bonders, freedmen and even thralls, who worked diligently at assigned tasks, would clearly kill her on the spot if given the choice. The spy’s confession had done nothing to lessen her guilt in their eyes.

  Ruby entered the stable, where she eventually found Tykir grooming a gray pony.

  “Hello, Tykir.”

  “Ruby!” At first, Tykir’s eyes lighted up with welcome, but then he shadowed them carefully. Even he must have been told to distrust the strange woman who might be the enemy.

  “What is your horse’s name?”

  “He has none.” Tykir looked surprised. “Should he have?”

  “Well, not everybody names their horse, but I thought since this one seems so special to you it ought to have a name.”

  “Could we name him?” he asked shyly.

  “Of course. Can you think of any names that you like?”

  He shook his head sadly, as if he must be lacking in some important way.

  “Well, my boys never had a horse—”