by Jianne Carlo
He hooded his eyes, surveying the rising and falling of breasts he dreamed of suckling. Saliva coated his mouth. The famed porcelain skin of her forehead, praised and lauded by the courts’ skalds, furrowed, and her tongue flicked at the seam of her lush lips.
Torsten yearned to roar his victory to all and sundry. He, the Northern Bear, had wrenched a reaction from Ainslin, the beauty whose frigid temperament ’twas said would freeze the fire-spewing mountains of Ísland.
“No thanks, my lady?”
“The king gave his permission?” She studied her lap.
“I need not his blessing,” Torsten declared. “He gave you and yours over to me.”
She looked up then, her green eyes flecked gold like a cat’s, the brown lashes spiky with moisture, and he clenched his jaw, unwilling to surrender to the lure of her love for the twin sons she had borne another man.
“When?” she asked, setting her fingers on the chair’s arm.
“Seven eves after you began your journey here, I sent my brother to fetch your sons to you.” Torsten sipped his wine and watched her carefully, for Ainslin the Frigid had that iron control back in place.
“Why?” She notched her chin higher, and the pride the women of the court so despised shone bright from eyes no longer threatened by the womanly weakness of tears.
“I would have something from you.” Torsten cursed the coarseness in his voice brought on by a cock that had been stiff and hard and aching for her tight sheath for too long.
She never flinched. “Pray continue, my lord.”
“I would have you warm and willing in my bed.” He forced a harsh edge into his tone, though he spoke softly.
Torsten shoved his chair back when she lurched to her feet and all the color drained from her cheeks. Her gaze flitted about, landing on the fireplace, the pile of logs, the pitcher, and all the while, her breasts rose and fell, straining at the green gown she wore. Suddenly she stumbled around the table, hugged her arms, and gave him her back.
The gods had created woman simply to confound man.
Torsten ground his teeth, stifling the automatic lifting of his arms, and resisting the instinct to hold and comfort the woman he had schemed to make his for nigh on two seasons.
Last summer he’d glimpsed her at a table in King Canute’s great hall and her beauty and manner had entranced him at once. Unlike the other ladies in her midst, when she smiled, her face lit with sparkling innocence. No hint of sly intrigue marred her elegant gestures. She used her fan for cooling and not for a coquette’s dalliance. Recently widowed, she clung to her husband’s memory, and pleaded to King Canute for a full year to mourn him.
Within mere days, he became obsessed with her, and resorted to ridiculous maneuvering to watch her unobserved. Acting like a rank youth pursuing his first swiving, constantly aroused and hungering for her, he searched for any sign she’d welcome a temporary sexual liaison, and found naught.
He enjoyed her lyrical voice when she sung playful ballads to her sons. The sheer joy in her forest eyes when she taught the boys how to skip stones over a rippling pond bemused him. Her motherly devotion, her complete loyalty to her deceased spouse impressed him.
Two nights before he was due to depart for his homeland, Torsten overheard Ainslin’s neighbor, Earl Sigrid of Northdam, in conversation with another, speaking of his plans to petition King Canute for her hand.
Rage consumed Torsten.
She was his and no other’s.
Since Canute was on royal pilgrimage to Rome, Torsten knew Sigrid would have to wait for the king’s return in the spring to plead his case. Without a single hesitation, Torsten informed his captain to plot a course for Italia. He had set sail the following day. Before winter froze the seas, he’d garnered Canute’s royal decree to wed Ainslin.
She was even lovelier than he remembered. Even the straight line of her spine intrigued him. He planned to kiss and caress every morsel of her delectable back.
Her deep inhale filled the sudden quiet in the lodge.
Ainslin pivoted to face him.
The dark circles within her green eyes had shrunk to the width of a needle.
Such terror?
Why?
Had her deceased husband used her cruelly?
Beat her?
“You have my oath, I will always come to you of my own accord whenever you so desire.”
Each word swelled his prick to greater girth and length, and his weeping slit dampened his loose breeches. By Odin, he would not spill his seed like an untried youth. Visions of her naked, the long, golden hair spread on the fine sheets he’d purchased on his last voyage, her nipples begging for his attentions, hazed his brain.
“I would have your oath, my lord, that you will not cast aside me or my sons, should you find I do not please you,” she said, hands twined together so tightly the skin on her fingers lost all color.
His cock jerked, his sac tightened, his lust so great ’twas all he could do not to lay her on the table and pound into her puss.
“’Tis done,” he growled, knowing the twain could never happen. She pleased him, by the gods. She pleased him by simply breathing. “I would have you now, Ainslin.”
Chapter Two
Ainslin had no notion of what would happen next, but never expected Torsten to pounce, curl one massive arm beneath her knees, and haul her high against him. The quick action giddied her mind, and she couldn’t draw in enough air to soothe the ache beneath her ribs.
The jarl marched out of the chamber and into another, and yet another. Ainslin glimpsed an enormous bed tucked against a wall, a slate fireplace, this one stacked with unlit logs, a bench and table, and two sturdy chairs, before Torsten spun around in a circle and everything blurred. Two more paces, and he halted and lowered her onto the mattress. Fine linen caressed her hands, when she tried to dry the dampness coating her palms on the fabric.
He sat, his eyes fixed on her face, unfastened the loops on his boots and tugged them off, stacking both side by side at the foot of the bed. In one fluid motion, he pulled his tunic over his head, and draped the length of cloth over a chair.
A shudder racked Ainslin from head to toe at the sight of his colossal shoulders and the broad expanse of his chest.
“You are cold,” he muttered and lurched to his feet, striding over to the fireplace.
Ainslin realized he’d seen her trembling and believed her chilled.
Though the chamber had no source of warmth save the stone lamps hanging from the rafters, her body flamed from the inside outward, her skin sparking and tingling. Fascinated by the way his back muscles bunched and flexed, by a jagged scar that ran from one shoulder to mid-arm, by the contrast of his inky hair and bronzed skin, she struggled to her elbows, staring at him, hungry to absorb every detail, every nuance.
The fire caught in a blaze of leaping blue and yellow flames, the wood snapping and crackling under the heated assault. He glanced back at her, and their gazes locked.
She stopped breathing, her belly coiled, and a tightness squeezed her womanly parts.
He set the iron rod he’d used to stoke the logs against the stone frame, stood, and in two great strides reached the bed. To her astonishment, he went down on one knee, and removed her leather half-boots, first one, then the other. The rough pads of his thumbs and fingers shaped her stockinged ankles and caressed her calves.
None had ever touched her so intimately.
How could such soft and slow stroking kindle a firestorm within her?
When he tugged off her garters and stockings, and bent to press his lips to the back of her knee, she gasped. How delicious the feel of that kiss, the tickling heat of his breath, and then, mercy of all mercies, the swath of his tongue there. Her entire body from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair prickled and rippled. She was ablaze.
He stood and the expression on his face made her mouth go dry and her nostrils flare. A tremor of fear caused her stomach to clench. He loomed above her like a giant, and
she bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
“Nay,” he murmured, and sat on the mattress; the straw dipped under his weight. His thumb stroked her wounded lip, and he bent his head and lapped the drop clinging there.
Embers burned the spot his tongue licked, and the faint aroma of the wine he’d drunk wafted to her nose and intoxicated her mind. Her eyelids grew heavy, and, when he fitted his lips to hers, closed. Ainslin gave over to him, letting him do as he willed, not able to think, only able to feel. His lips were soft and full, he licked the seam of her mouth, and the caress struck like a bolt of lightning, setting her flesh aflame. Her sex grew damp, and a trickle of moistness made her squeeze her thighs together.
His palm cupped her face, and he lay alongside her on the bed. His mouth opened to suckle her lower lip, and she yearned to touch him, to feel his hard chest beneath her fingertips. Uncertain what he expected, she fisted her hands.
When he nipped the place he’d suckled, she gasped, and his tongue slid between her lips. Wonder of wonders, that a tongue could give such pleasure. Ainslin fell back on the mattress, and his leg glided over her body trapping her bottom against the linen-covered bed. He licked her teeth, touched the tip of her tongue with his, drawing it into his mouth, sucking lightly.
His mouth left hers, and her eyelids flew up. Her breathing ragged, she glanced at the arrogant line of his jaw, the thick fringe of onyx lashes hiding his eyes from hers and casting shadows on his prominent cheekbones. He trailed kisses over her face, openmouthed kisses that had her toes curling in on themselves. He traced the whorls of her ear, and her womanhood spasmed.
Never had Ainslin imagined such a delicious caress. She grabbed the sheets when he bit the plump flesh of her lobe. The sharp nip made her belly muscles quiver. Her breasts throbbed, her sheath contracted, the nub there throbbed. The chamber became an inferno of warmth, and a thin patina of perspiration coated her arms and hands.
A whimper escaped her when his lips returned to hers.
“Open,” he ordered, and when she obeyed, his mouth plundered hers. His tongue swirled in and tangled hers into a plunge and retreat rhythm, coaxing her into a dance that grew more furious with each probing advance. Of their own volition, her hands reached behind his head, her fingers tangled in his silky hair, massaging his head, rubbing the smooth skin of his nape.
Ainslin surrendered, following his lead, molding her lips to his. His touch, his smell, the mating of their mouths too dizzying for any rational thought to stay in her head. When he lifted away from her, it took long seconds before she could find the strength to open her eyes. She wanted to protest the loss of his magical kisses, but words wouldn’t form, and her head fell back on a bed cushion. A veil of hair hid his face from her, and she felt his fingertips on the neckline of her dress.
He muttered a curse, reached over the bed to a table, snatched a small dagger, cut the laces of her tunic, and threw the knife back to its original position. Turning back to her, he groaned, “Mine.”
Her nipples puckered under his fierce stare, the transparent chemise no match for the avarice in his eyes. He tore the front of the garment to her waist. One hand curled around her breast, and his calloused thumbs grazed the aching tip. Ainslin’s head rolled back and forth. She dug her nails into her palms, yearning for more, for a release from the painful pulsing between her thighs, from the convulsive contracting of her sex.
When his mouth clamped onto her breast, and his tongue laved the bud, she cried out and knitted her fingers in his hair. He bit down on the turgid peak. Her hips came off the mattress, and she held him fast to her breast, resisting when he raised his head. “Nay. Nay.”
He chuckled and sucked and nibbled his way to the other breast. “Aye, Ainslin, aye.”
Her legs fell apart when his tongue outlined the pink flesh around her burning nipple, drawing smaller and smaller circles, but not touching the throbbing peak. He fisted his hands in her tunic and moved over her, bunching her skirts at the waist. Cool air washed her knees, thighs, and over her mound.
She blinked and looked down just as he sucked the crested tip of her breast into his mouth. She moaned when he drew hard on her flesh and then tongued the bud. His teeth sawed her nipple and she groaned in frustration, her foot rubbing up and down the linen sheets.
Torsten nipped harder; she arched, reaching for something just out of her grasp. Pain-pleasure lanced her sex, the sensation unbearable, and she yelped when his finger plunged into her sheath. His thumb caressed the fleshy nubbin, and her legs clamped around his hand.
The heel of his palm abraded the pulsing nub, and she ground against him, her hips lifting off the mattress. When he removed his hand, Ainslin wanted to rake her nails across his shoulders and order him back. She felt bereft, and only by tangling her hands in the sheets did she halt the impulse to throw her arms around his neck and beg him to stay.
In the space of a heartbeat, he loosened the rope tying his trousers and shucked them off.
Fear seeped through the desire clouding her mind at the sight of his erect member, the head slick and weeping from a slit in the middle.
Ainslin swallowed as she took in the size of his enormous organ. Her mouth went dry, and her bottom cheeks dipped with the mattress when he rolled over her body. The heaviness of his torso, the rigidness of his shaft on her mound, made her breathing hitch and her sex cream.
»»•««
Torsten kissed her hard, eating at her lips. Ainslin’s passionate response fired a bolt of lust more powerful than the lightning from Thōrr’s mighty hammer, Mjöllnir. His ballocks contracted, and the berserker in him went wild. He cupped her ass, tilting her hips forward, and he drove into her, impaling her in one thrust, tearing through her maidenhead.
Shock froze his limbs.
He looked down to find her eyes squeezed shut, her forehead creased, and her mouth pinched.
She was a maiden?
His prick throbbed and his sac, swollen full to bursting, demanded release. Lust drummed his skull. Raging desire strummed his veins. The urge to plunder and pillage racked a shudder through his knotted muscles. He held still, not daring even a hint of friction, too close to the edge to rush the ecstasy of her clamping sheath, the fiery grip of her channel.
Anger cut a slice off his hunger, and he raised his head and stared at the roof, battling the craving to spill his seed, to claim her, to own her, to pound into her tight puss, to find a senseless release.
She set her hands on his chest, her fingers unsteady, and he felt the hammering of her heart when her wrists connected with his chest.
Torsten glanced at her and ground his teeth when he found her eyes open wider than a startled doe’s, the gold in the green reflecting the light from the lamp above the bed.
“I do not please you,” she whispered, ducking her chin.
“Nay.” Trying not to move his lower body, he kissed her closed eyelids, her forehead, the corner of her mouth. “Ainslin, we will speak of this later. ’Tis naught but pleasing to be sheathed in your womanhood. I fear the pain of your broken maidenhead scattered all pleasure for you.”
She lifted her head abruptly, and her skull impacted his jaw, the crack like thunder in the silence of the chamber. “Your pardon, my lord. I did not mean to wound you.”
A smile played at his mouth. “I make you a bargain, Ainslin. After this, you will kiss my jaw better, and I will kiss your sheath better.”
Twin circles of pink blossomed in her cheeks, and her eyes grew big and round when the meaning of his words sank in. He studied her face for any sign of pain and found none, her lips now relaxed, not pursed, and he knew she was not aware of her fingers tracing the brown flesh around his nipples.
Torsten rocked into her gently and her brows rose. He repeated the motion and, by Odin, her sweet puss clutched his cock greedily. Sweat beaded his forehead. He worked his jaw and withdrew slowly, easing his shaft from her channel until the crown rimmed her entrance.
Her nails dug into his shoulders, her
eyes glazed over and she mewled.
The agony of filling her slowly again, sliding his prick into her convulsing womanhood, almost did him in. Torsten gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to pummel and pound.
She slipped a hand down to his ass and kneaded the cheek, her lithe caresses stabbing lust-bolts through his groin.
He grunted and concentrated on another slow retreat.
Her nails bit into his rump, and she squeezed his bottom rhythmically.
Torsten’s control slipped, and he thrust to the hilt.
She lifted her leg and wrapped her calf around his hip.
Hanging onto the last of his warrior discipline, he rasped, “Ainslin, do you hurt?”
“’Tis agony,” she moaned. “Can you not move faster?”
Freed by the sweetest words he’d ever heard, Torsten plunged into her. Her walls stretched and clamped, sucking at his retreating prick. Gripping her hips tightly, he raised her hips and drove into her again and again, angling to hit that spot he learned of with harem women.
Distracted when her breast grazed his cheek, he fastened his mouth on the pouting bud, suckling fiercely. Ainslin’s body bowed, her back arching, and he shuddered through her climax, his teeth grazing her nipple, his cock plundering her puss. His sac drew taut, his pecker erupted, spilling his seed and filling her womb.
The furious release left him spent, his mind blank, his muscles slack.
Torsten rested his forehead on hers. Her glorious hair smelled of lavender. He threaded a sunset curl around a finger and rested his weight on one elbow to better observe her features.
Eyes closed, lips reddened, mouth curving at the corners, she heaved a long sigh, and her lids lifted.
When their glances locked, color washed over her skin, and she quickly turned her head to the side. The rosy hue staining her cheeks ebbed and flowed.
No man had had her before.
She truly belonged to him and him alone.
Forgoing the primitive compulsion to pound his breastbone and howl his pride and pleasure, he nuzzled the crook of her shoulder, and grinned. He had breached her maidenhead. Odin himself could not have gifted Torsten a richer treasure.
