Deep, Dark & Dangerous

by Jaid Black

  Otar picked up the pace, massaging her clit in a firm, circular motion. His cock nigh unto exploded as he watched Madalyn gaze at him through lustful eyes. The sound of her moans and the feel of her drenched pussy made him so hard as to be painful.

  “Come for me,” Otar murmured, mesmerized by her carnal expression. He gently pushed her down onto the table. “Come for your husband, Madalyn.”

  She arched her back, causing her breasts to thrust up. Splaying her thighs wide, his gorgeous wife moaned and groaned as he rubbed her. Replacing his hand with his mouth, he greedily dove for her flesh and sucked it hard.

  “Oh God. Otar—what are you—oh God.”

  Her body began to convulse, and he knew that she was coming. He sucked on her clit harder, wanting to bring her over the edge.

  “Ooooohhhhhh!” she screamed, unable to hold back the rush. “Ohhhhh Godddddd!”

  Madalyn came on a wail, giving him her juice. He lapped at her like a boy with a favored treat, savoring every nuance of her orgasm. The way she looked, the way she sounded, her intoxicating, tangy scent…

  Otar slowly lifted his head from between his wife’s legs. Her breathing was heavy, her eyes round as moons. Clearly, she was confused by her feelings. ’Twas normal for a new bride, so he didn’t dwell on it.

  “You taste delicious,” he told Madalyn, helping her up from the table. “’Tis almost time to sleep.”

  “A-almost?” she stammered.

  “Aye,” he said softly. “Almost.”

  He picked her up and carried her to their bed.

  MADALYN HAD NEVER BEEN MORE BAFFLED by her behavior, or more embarrassed. She had told Otar she would never find happiness here. Having an orgasm for him hardly backed up her words convincingly.

  Now he was carrying her to the bed. A bed that was looking more ominous with every passing moment. Could she blame him for trying? If she were a man, wouldn’t she try to bed someone who’d just climaxed in her presence less than a minute ago?

  She had never been big on one-night stands. As a result, sex tended to make her feel closer to a man. And the last thing she needed was to feel closer to Otar. It would only serve to convolute an already murky relationship.

  He sat her on the bed. Standing over her, all muscles and erection, he looked even more powerful. She reached for a fur on the bed behind her and quickly draped it over her front.

  “Otar…”

  “I told you we will not consummate this eve, Madalyn. I will honor my vow to you.”

  She hesitated. “Then what’s going on?”

  “We are going to lie in bed. Together.” He began to remove his chain-mail tunic.

  “What are you doing?” she breathed out.

  Sweet lord, his body was ruthless in its strength. She had known he was heavily muscled, but seeing those muscles up close and personal, no clothing to impede the view, was overwhelming. His chest was solid and impressively delineated, his nipples dark and flat. Black hair sprinkled his chest before tapering into a thin line and disappearing into his animal-hide pants.

  She’d never seen a man built like Otar. He didn’t have the overly bulky build of the steroid junkies that frequented L.A.’s posh gyms, but the honed, deadly physique of a warrior who could kill you with his bare hands.

  “In my world, husbands and wives sleep together,” Otar told her. He looked at her pointedly as he stepped out of his boots and then proceeded to undo his pants. “Naked.”

  She blinked, having momentarily forgotten the thread of the conversation. “I’m not from this world,” she weakly protested, realizing he was unlikely to cave in.

  “Aye, you are. Leastways, now you are.”

  Madalyn watched with a little too much fascination as he pushed his pants down. She swallowed when his erection sprang free, immediately noting how long and thick it was. Rising up from a nest of dark curls, it looked more than eager and willing to hurry the consummation along.

  “I guess it’s true what they say about the size of a man’s hands,” Madalyn muttered to herself.

  “Eh?”

  Her cheeks went up in flames. “Never mind.”

  “Scoot over,” Otar murmured. “I will hold you whilst you sleep.”

  Madalyn worried her lip. The bed was small; there wasn’t anywhere to scoot to. And she was certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep with Otar lying next to her naked.

  Her back to Otar, she lay down on her side, her face close to the wall. Otar’s heavy weight pressed into the bed beside her, a large, vein-roped arm snaking over her hip. Madalyn thought it was as close as they could get without having sex. She was wrong.

  Apparently unhappy that the polar bear fur kept his body from touching hers, Otar slid underneath it and pressed impossibly closer. She could feel his erection poking against her back, hungry to do more than lie there waiting. He draped his arm over her middle again and held her securely.

  “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he murmured, his right hand nudging her head to his bicep and then tenderly stroking her hair. “Soft and vulnerable, determined and strong.” He bent his head and kissed her temple. “You are perfect and you are mine.”

  Madalyn closed her eyes against his words. They were the sort of heartfelt sentiments she’d hoped to hear from the lips of the man she married one day, but she had never dreamed of things happening in this manner. At war with the woman who she was, the frightened child inside of her couldn’t help but snuggle closer, wanting his strength and larger-than-life presence as near as possible.

  Her eyes flicked open, her back still to him. “You try to make me feel loved in order to keep me from raging against you,” she whispered. “That’s not an emotion you should play with.”

  He stilled. “Madalyn—”

  “I’ve been searching for a man to love me, really love me, all of my life.” She felt tears well up in her eyes but refused to shed them. “Romantic love doesn’t exist, Otar. It’s an illusion, the stuff of books and movies. You can keep up the charade if you’d like, but you’re not fooling me.”

  He rolled her over so he could make eye contact. “’Tis not a game to me. I do love you, and one day soon you will grow to love me in return.”

  She sighed, shaking her head. She’d been down this road before, though never to such an extent. “It’s not me you love, Otar.” Her smile was kind and a little sad. “It’s Victoria.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but she gently placed a finger over his lips. “That’s what I meant when I said I’ve always wanted someone to love me—the real me. You fell in love with a role I played, not with the woman I truly am.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t deny her words. Madalyn knew that he couldn’t.

  She rolled back over onto her side, determined to fall asleep. She sighed, her heart heavy. Crazy or not, she actually felt a bit gloomy by his lack of protests.

  What do you want him to do, swear that he loves you? Lie to you? Tell you all the words your pathetic little psyche wants to hear? That’s why you became an actress, after all. You naively believed that fame equaled love.

  Madalyn closed her eyes tightly. She wanted to go to sleep, to forget about the Achilles heel she had just presented Otar with. Love was the only thing lacking in her life…and the one thing she craved more than anything else.

  To let the very man who’d taken her prisoner in on that secret was akin to idiocy. She didn’t want him to know her vulnerabilities, yet she’d just handed the biggest of them over on a silver platter.

  She was insane. The situation was insane. Her feelings and behavior toward Otar repeatedly shifted from semi-friendly to obstinate and back again. She needed to be one way and stay that way.

  But it was difficult. A part of her liked him as a person, regardless of the situation. Another part of her wanted him to go away so life could go back to normal. Hollywood hadn’t been perfect, or even close—but at least she had been free.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

/>   Madalyn awoke the next morning to the sound of loud, angry shouts. She sat up, careful to keep the fur wrapped around her. Immediately recognizing one of the voices as belonging to Otar, it took her a moment to pinpoint the other voice.

  Iiro.

  Her pulse picking up, she got out of bed and pressed her ear against the wall nearest the front door. She suspected they were discussing Drake, and any news about her sister was welcome.

  Listening intently, she gratefully realized they were conversing in English.

  “What do you mean she escaped?” Otar bellowed. Madalyn’s eyes widened from the other side of the wall. “How could such a thing happen?”

  “I don’t know, milord,” Iiro grumbled, obviously embarrassed. “Leastways, she was there by my side one moment and gone the next.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “At my sire’s dwelling. She disappeared not long after I declared my Hunter’s Right.”

  So he had married her. Madalyn found a crack in the wall big enough to peep at them through.

  “’Twas an awful consummation,” Iiro ground out, pacing. “The sex was good enough to kill a man, but all the events before and after it vexed me to no end.”

  “You consummated last eve?” Otar asked, sounding as disbelieving as Madalyn was. “She let you do this?”

  “Oh, aye.” He waved that away. “She all but attacked me. ’Tis the one boon to her otherwise grim disposition.”

  One side of Madalyn’s mouth kicked up in a half-smile.

  “I do not follow,” Otar grunted. “If she wanted to consummate, why did she run?”

  He threw his hands up. “I doubt the gods themselves know what lurks in the mind of my wife!” Exasperated, he listed her many sins. “When first I brought her to my parents’ dwelling and declared my Hunter’s Right, she informed everyone present that she would be cutting off my man-parts that very eve.”

  Madalyn snorted. Go, Drake, go.

  “At evening repast she accused the lot of us of possessing ‘too blue eyes’—whatever in Odin that is—and insisted we were aliens from another planet with plans to inhabit her brain.”

  Madalyn saw Otar hide a smile. He was obviously amused but didn’t want to laugh at his friend’s expense.

  “My mother, Frigg bless her, still attempted to engage Drake in conversation. Even after she forced my sire’s jaw open to see if he was possessed of a forked tongue!”

  “Forked tongue?”

  “Aye. She poked it to make certain ’twas a human’s tongue.”

  “Your wife is bizarre.”

  Iiro frowned. “’Twas her way of testing him to see if he was an alien. Were my sire an alien, ’twould have been a very crafty thing my wife did.”

  Madalyn couldn’t help but be warmed by the way he was defending her.

  “I see.”

  “With your permission, I should like to go hunt her down on the Outside. Alone. She abandoned me and I’ve a score to settle with my wench.”

  “Get the camera whilst you’re there.”

  “Madalyn does not have it?”

  “Nay, but she told me where to retrieve it. Beneath the floor of that cottage.”

  Iiro inclined his head. “’Tis done.”

  “Do not let your wife escape again,” Otar warned. “Now go retrieve her.”

  Iiro flushed. “Aye, milord.” He turned to walk away, then pivoted back to face Otar. “I almost forgot,” he said, grinning.

  “Aye?”

  “We are not the only warriors who declared Hunter’s Right last eve. Lord Ericsson did as well.”

  Otar grunted. “Truth be told, I believed he would.”

  Madalyn lost interest once the subject turned to people she didn’t know. She hurried away from the door and scooted back into the bed. She glanced around for her clothing but didn’t see it. When the door creaked open a moment later, she swaddled the polar bear fur tightly around her.

  Drake had escaped! Deep down inside, she had doubted such a thing would be possible. Still, Madalyn realized her sister’s flight to freedom was far from over. Iiro was as tenacious as Otar—he would never give up.

  “You are awake.”

  “Thank you for stating the obvious.”

  Otar’s eyebrows shot up. “I see we are feeling our old, cranky self again.”

  “I’m not cranky.” She frowned. “I am hungry. I want to eat, but I don’t see my clothes.”

  “You don’t need clothes in order to eat.”

  She sighed. “Otar, I can only handle so many changes at once. I’m not eating naked this morning!”

  There was a teasing gleam in his eyes. “We can eat naked at the evening’s repast, then.”

  “You’re giving me a headache,” she whined, dramatically raising a hand to her forehead. “They should take you into elementary schools to scare the daylights out of the kids. You know, sort of a living testament to the fact that bad things happen to little girls who venture too far from home.”

  He clucked his tongue as he neared the bed. “I’m not so bad as that, am I?”

  “I will answer that question after you give up my clothes.”

  “I will give you some clothing to don after you give me a good-morn kiss.”

  Madalyn sighed like a martyr. “You’re determined to drive me insane.”

  “Do insane people harp on their husbands at every given opportunity?”

  “Yes! They are much worse!”

  “Then I can’t have that. Now kiss me good morn.”

  The more she baited him, the more Otar seemed to enjoy the banter. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one. Madalyn found herself cracking a small smile.

  “You’re a goof,” she said, exasperated. “Do you know that?”

  “If a goof is fair, handsome, and possessed of admirable lovemaking skills, then I must agree.”

  She suppressed a laugh, and the ensuing sound came out like a snort. “Doesn’t anything get to you?”

  “You do,” Otar admitted, his expression growing serious. “I want to make you the happiest you’ve ever been, Madalyn.”

  Her smile faltered. She wanted to shout at him not to say things like that, not to try to make her care about him, but couldn’t bring herself to hurt his feelings. “You’re a good man,” she said. “Your people are twisted and your marrying ways are beyond obscene, but you’re a good man.”

  “Thank you. I think.”

  Their gazes clashed and held. Nervous, Madalyn wanted to bite her lip. Instead, she closed her eyes and slowly offered her lips to him for a kiss.

  Otar’s mouth gently covered hers. The kiss was a soft caress, a lingering brush of sensation that did much more toward arousing her than a hard, demanding kiss ever could have. Her breathing growing heavy, she broke away, giving him her profile.

  “Thank you for the good-morn kiss,” he murmured.

  “You’re welcome,” she said quietly.

  She could feel Otar’s searing gaze on her, though she didn’t look at him. He wanted her. Without a doubt he’d take her this very moment if she showed even the slightest inclination toward being intimate with him.

  “I’ll get your clothes,” Otar said, following a tense silence. “’Tis time to break our fast.”

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  They weren’t the clothes she’d had in mind, but starving, she decided they would do in a pinch. Madalyn quickly got dressed in a sheer green dress and matching sandals. Otar was next door retrieving his mother and sister and she wanted to be fully clothed when they walked in. Or as fully clothed as a woman could be when forced to dress like a raging slut.

  “Good morn, daughter,” Annikki called out to Madalyn.

  Madalyn was taken aback by the term of endearment. No woman had called her daughter since her mom died, and she didn’t care for what it did to her heart.

  “Good morning.” Madalyn inclined her head respectfully. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Quite.” Annikki embraced her, t
hen kissed her cheek. “You look even lovelier now than you did yestereve. You’ve shed that garb you called clothes and donned the dress of our women.”

  Madalyn blinked. Glancing from a bemused Otar and back to a serious Annikki, she borrowed a line from the man who had married her. “Thank you. I think.”

  Agata chuckled. “Good morn, sister,” she said with a smile, before embracing her and kissing her cheek.

  “Good morning, Agata.”

  As Madalyn smelled the food Otar had carried in from his family’s adjoining hut, her belly began to rumble.

  “Ah,” Annikki said, pointing toward a chair. “You are hungry. Let us eat, then.”

  Madalyn had enjoyed the women’s company the night before, and did so again. Annikki and Agata were a hoot. They loved to gossip, both of them telling stories with enough wit to put David Letterman to shame.

  The one and only thing that bothered her about the conversation was the fervor with which the Thordsson women recounted the prophesies of their people’s ancient seers. Changing their opinions where the dictates of the gods and goddesses of Valhalla were concerned was clearly not an option. They believed that the number of females existing above the ground would die out—and soon. Nothing she said could refute their deeply ingrained beliefs.

  The conversation took a turn toward marriage customs, and Madalyn’s ears perked up further. To hear Otar’s mother tell it, the Viking men had been hunting down women from above the ground for as long as their race had dwelled below it.

  Tradition, Annikki called it. Madalyn dourly wondered why their people had chosen kidnapping to be their communal tradition. They should just let off fireworks or have parades like normal people.

  “So tell me,” Madalyn asked Agata, setting her cup down. “If this marriage auction block is unavoidable, how did you manage to avoid it?”

  “’Twas easy,” she replied, waving that away. “Shanty Rowers are considered undesirables, thank the gods.” She shrugged. “No man would have me.”

  Though Agata’s words had been lighthearted, Madalyn sensed the pain behind them. “I don’t understand. You’re beautiful.”