by Jianne Carlo
“Why were you in the kitchen?” Wanting to enjoy the feel of her silky tresses, he used his fingers to separate her plaits.
“I was hungry, my lord. I slept through the morning repast.” Ainslin appeared to relish him playing with her curls for she rested her cheek on his chest and smiled through an audible sigh.
Her explanation jerked him out of his sensual hair-frolicking. “Did Helga not send a tray with food and drink to the lodge?”
As he had ordered, after he shared the morning meal with his warriors at the crack of dawn.
“Not that I know of, my lord. I saw my trunks had been delivered, and I thank you for the consideration. I must admit, I did not look for food or drink here.” She glanced about the room. “I see no tray or basket, howbeit.”
Loki’s toes.
Mischief was amiss.
“When, precisely, did you learn of my order?” Torsten ground his back teeth together. He knew his stepsister had a vicious streak and should have anticipated her jealousy of Ainslin.
“When I went to the kitchens looking for something to eat.” She craned her neck and her eyes flickered over his face. Then she yanked herself upright. “Helga was supposed to send me a tray?”
“Aye, along with my orders for you to rest and remain in the lodge,” he said, his tone rueful as he deduced Helga’s spiteful maneuvering.
The gods save him from bickering females.
He well remembered the vicious squabbling between his first wife, Dahlia, and his third step-mother, Olga—the same woman who had birthed and trained Helga. Dahlia had constantly complained about Olga’s backbiting. He had been too young and too concerned with warrior pursuits to pay attention to the underhanded tactics Olga used to set the women of the keep against Dahlia.
’Twould appear Helga had struck the first move in what was obviously going to be a struggle for dominion between the women. Female battles tended to be malicious and secretive, and he wanted no part of this one. He had learned enough about Ainslin’s strength and resolve to trust she would be victorious.
Torsten decided to both allow Ainslin to deal with Helga and to hasten his step-sister’s departure. “You have my leave to deal with Helga as you see fit, wife.”
Chapter Eight
The trust implied by Torsten’s declaration that he would allow her to settle the Helga situation had Ainslin overflowing with shining happiness. Reckless joy had her flinging her arms around his neck and pressing tiny kisses to his cheeks and jaw. “I thank you, my lord.”
“I give you leave to continue kissing me, elksa.”
Torsten’s deep rumble had her stomach all a-flutter. Her woman parts grew moist and she breathed faster.
Dare she?
Aye, she did.
Gathering her mettle, she closed her eyes, brushed her lips to his, and slipped the tip of her tongue along the seam of his mouth.
He groaned, wrapped his hands around her face, and rasped, “Aye. Like that sweetling.”
Encouraged and excited when he opened his mouth wider, she licked along the ridges of his teeth. Her nipples pearled at once, stretching at the fabric of her chemise, and the slight abrasion made the tight peaks ache for his talented fingers. Lost in the sensual wonder of his mouth, her boldness notched higher every time he growled his pleasure.
How astonishing that lips and tongues and teeth could give and receive such bliss. When he nipped the tip of her tongue, ’twas as if there was a direct connection to her tits and sex. She felt all a-prickle, certain her body would burst into flames if he caressed her mound, or feasted on her breast as he had earlier this morn.
He tasted of ale and honey, sweet and tart, and she craved more of him, and sipped the length of his lower lip. Wild with hunger for him, she tickled the inside of his cheek, touched the roof of his mouth, and teased him into a slow and erotic tongue play, swirling hers around his.
At once, he jerked away, and, panting, rested his brow on hers. “Your puss is sore, Ainslin. We must stop.”
“Must we,” she protested, hoping to alter his mind.
“Aye. We must.” He captured her wrists and pressed his mouth to the undersides. “Your skin is as soft as a babe’s.”
A knock sounded on the door.
Ainslin jumped.
Torsten’s forehead puckered, he grasped her waist, stood, and set her to one side. “I will be but a moment.”
Ainslin bit back a grin at his cranky grouching.
The interruption did not please him.
But, he pleased her. She blew out a prolonged, contented sigh.
She had dreaded this marriage.
When they reached the king’s court in Mercia, she had pleaded with Ælfgifu to try and change Canute’s decision, but Ælfgifu had simply shook her head and suggested that Ainslin make the most of her fate. Charm Jarl Torsten, keep him satisfied, and, mayhap, the jarl would allow Ainslin to send for her sons. Ælfgifu assured Ainslin that she would keep an eye on the boys.
Terror for her twins had had Ainslin begging Mother Mary to keep her sons safe until she found a way to regain custody of them. How many prayers had she recited during the interminable journey to Bear Hall? When they set foot on the Norse lands, she prayed for divine intervention.
He had sent for her sons.
Last eve, he had said they would raise Brom and Rob together with their own sons. He had won her heart with that declaration. And now he allowed her to settle the matter of Helga. Elation strummed through her. All her prayers had been answered.
Admiring her husband’s wide shoulders and powerful legs when he marched to the door, she marveled at her good fortune. She could reason with him. This morn had proven that. He liked not her quick temper, but listened when she made her words soft and sweet. And he favored her kisses. He had liked her burst of affection.
Too busy thinking of other ways to please him, she was startled when all of a sudden, he tweaked her nose. “What ails you, wife? Your brows are knotted as if some great worry has befallen you.”
“I but wondered if you preferred fowl to venison. Or savory to sweet? Ale to wine?” She looked up at him, and some wicked Norse sprite spurred her to set her palms to his chest, tiptoe, and nip the cleft in his square chin. “I would learn your preferences, Torsten, in everything, that I may please you better.”
“Never doubt this, elksa, you please me.” He pressed his lips to each of her fingers in turn. “The day outside is a fine one. It seems Thora and Greta have sent us a basket of food and a flagon of wine. What say you we picnic in the meadow?”
Resisting the urge to clap her hands, Ainslin beamed at him. “I will fetch a blanket from your—our chamber, my lor—Torsten. I will be but a moment.”
She whirled around and raced to their room. Exhilaration made her clumsy and she fumbled with the heavy lid of her chest. Snatching a navy blanket from the trunk, she sprinted back to her new husband.
He grinned down at her when she squeaked to a halt in front of him, and he ran the back of his hand down the side of her face. “You have roses in your cheeks and your eyes sparkle. A picnic pleases you, wife.”
“Aye,” she agreed as a sudden invisible force tugged at her breastbone. She liked him like this, his sooty gaze gleaming with amber delight and a hint of wickedness, and fine lines bracketing his up-tilted mouth.
Should she broach the subject of Martha now?
Aye.
Taking a deep breath, she asked, “Torsten, will you allow Martha to stay here?”
His brows shot up. “I had not thought she would stay. She was your nurse as a child, was she not?”
“Aye.”
“And you have need of her as a grown woman?”
She swallowed her embarrassment and studied the weave of the blanket. “Aye. I have difficultly, um, during my monthly time. Martha brews a special tonic, which helps me greatly.”
“Then she will stay, but I will not have her here in the lodge. She can live in the cottage you first occupied and you will decide
how she occupies her time.”
Relieved, she glanced up at him. “My thanks, my—Torsten. Martha enjoys cooking. I will assign her to the kitchens.”
A few minutes later, Torsten led Ainslin to a narrow, but effusive brook that tripped and glinted merrily in the blazing afternoon sunlight. Above them wispy white clouds streaked the dome of a sky so blue and bright, she had to shade her eyes.
“You must be hungry as a bear.” Torsten twined his fingers with hers and her pulse skipped a few beats when his thumb traced tiny circles on her palm. “Have you had anything at all to eat this day?”
She shook her head. The humiliation of having to ask Helga for even an apple had proved too awful to consider. “Nay. And I must admit to being famished.”
They tramped up the steep ridge of a knoll and when they crested the peak, Ainslin gasped. Below them as far as the eye could see were plot upon plot of farm lands. Workers, as small as dormice from this distance, toiled amidst mounds of rich dark soil.
“’Tis the northern boundary of our lands.” He pointed to fences delineating each rich, earthy brown patch.
For a moment, she missed his emphasis on the word our, but then his meaning rose like a bubble of joy into her throat and tears threatened to drip. Not even Hadrain, her gentle and kind husband, had spoken of our. As was his right, all that she had inherited upon her father’s death—her estates and wealth—passed into Hadrain’s ownership the second their vows had been said.
“Has this holding been in your family long?” Were the laws of Norway similar to the Danelaw Canute imposed on Mercia?
Torsten’s chuckle startled her.
She peeked at him.
Lines crinkled his eyes, and the sun’s rays dusted the gray color with gold flecks. A dimple danced in one cheek and she marveled at how boyish and mischievous he looked at that moment. Would their babes inherit that adorable, winking dimple?
“My father died three winters ago while my brothers and I were serving with the Jomsvikings in Constantinople.” He slipped an arm around her waist when they picked their way down the rocky slope. “When word came to us of our father’s death, we set out for Stjórardalr immediately. Before we arrived, a neighbor, Jarl Gunnar, claimed Stjórardalr. Gunnar had always coveted our holding and I anticipated his actions.”
“There was a battle?” Ainslin scolded herself for the silly query.
“Aye. The lands before you now were once Gunnar’s. As are many of the people who farm the soil. But all who were once loyal to him have now sworn allegiance to me.”
Question after question crowded her mind.
What had happened to this Gunnar?
Torsten had lived in the famous gateway city to the east?
What were the Jomsvikings?
Had he been compelled to this service?
Where else had her new husband journeyed?
Her admiration for him jumped ten-fold.
What wonders he must have seen.
The path widened and flattened and the terrain smoothened.
Black-crested charcoal and white Terns swooped and kee-yahed above a dense clump of pine, yew, and spruce trees springing from the base of a craggy line of mountains liming the horizon. A frolicking breeze sifted the perfumes of nature to Ainslin’s nose. The familiar richness of newly plowed dirt, the raw pungency of manure, and a teasing hint of the green of the coming spring.
“There is a shallow pond not far from here. ’Tis beyond yonder trees.” He transferred the basket to his other hand and ushered her, with a palm to the small of her back, around an outcrop of jagged boulders.
Unable to contain her fizzing curiosity, she blurted, “What are the Jomsvikings ?”
“Norse warriors who live by strict creeds. ’Twas how my brothers and I earned our riches, Ainslin. We fought alongside the monarch Basil the Second in Bulgaria and were rewarded with both coin and the spoils of war.” The tall trees on the left cast dark and cool gloom along the rocky trail and a chill snaked around her nape.
“Bulgaria?” She had never heard of such a place.
“Aye. ’Tis a land near Constantinople, which is similar in terrain to your Northumbria, but more mountainous. Like your countrymen, the people of Bulgaria worship the Christian God.”
They climbed a trail hewn between two massive boulders, she ahead of him now. Sunlight dappled an elongated shadow of her and Torsten on the blue-gray pebbles dotting the footpath. They reached the summit and she halted to drink in the beauty of the vista below them.
The sparkling and rippling surface of the pond reflected the azure of the sky above. Fed by hundreds of thin streams that flowed from the cliffs of the steep mountains and bounded by smooth bleached stones, the water of the pool was so clear she easily glimpsed the sandy bottom.
His warm palm clamped her shoulder. “’Tis to your liking?”
“Oh aye.” She craned back to squint at the top of the cliffs. “’Tis fed from snow on the tops of the cliffs?”
“Aye, but because ’tis so shallow and the sun shines right on it, that ’twill be warm by now.” He lifted her braid to one side and his lips and nose nuzzled the base of her neck. Delicious shivers and tingles scattered her thoughts. She arched to give him better access and when he nipped and worried a sensitive spot moaned, “Oh. My.”
“Come sweet wife, ’tis time to address one of your hungers.” When he turned her to face him, her knees wobbled at the roguish glint in his eyes. His arm steeled around her waist. “I will spread the blanket. You attend to the food.”
She accepted the basket he handed to her.
Torsten kicked away the pebbles dusting the packed dirt between two boulders, flapped the length of cloth a couple of times, and set the rectangular material to the ground. Then, he lay on his side on the fabric, and patted the space next to his resting elbow.
Struck shy all at once, her face overheated, and she sat, her legs bent to one side, and rested the covered basket in front of her knees. She removed the wineskin first and found only one goblet. “Are you thirsty, my—Torsten?”
“Aye, wife. I am both parched and ravenous. Thirsty to drink your sweet nectar, and ravenous to taste your honey.” He placed his palm on her thigh.
Beneath his hand, her skin prickled, and she could scarce gather together enough reason to marshal her hands into action. With shaking fingers, she emptied the basket. A slab of strong-smelling cheese, chunks of cooked fowl, a round loaf of bread, and a bunch of golden berries.
Torsten scrabbled to sit with his back against a large rock. “I find, wife, that it pleases me to feed you.”
With that he tugged her onto his lap and chucked her chin. “I prefer venison to fowl, but fowl to fish, and mutton above all. Now, ’tis your turn, elska.”
Distracted by the hard shaft under her bottom, she protested, “’Tis my duty to know your preferences, sire. You need naught know any of mine.”
“I like sire worse than my lord, Ainslin. Nay. You are wrong. If we are to enjoy each other as man and wife, then we must know and gratify each other’s preferences. In bedsport, in particular, I must know what makes you gasp and whimper. What kisses where causes your honey to flow. So, answer me true. Fowl, fish, venison?”
Hadrain had expected her to cater to his wishes in all things, but not once had he ever noticed her partialities. Once again, she wondered at her astonishing providence in being wed to this incredible warrior. “Roasted hog. The smell of the meat roasting makes my belly grumble.”
Torsten plucked a thick morsel of fowl from a wooden bowl, and rubbed the delicious smelling meat over her lips. “Then I must hunt hog for you. Today all we have is fowl, so my lady wife—eat.”
She tasted smoke and salt and spicy peppercorns and when almost done chewing, stretched to grasp fowl to feed him. Am imp must’ve been sitting on her shoulder, for she teased him with the meat exactly the way he had her, and commanded, “Eat, husband.”
“You grow bold, wench,” he announced after swallowing his food. H
e grabbed the wineskin, removed the plug, tipped his head back, and sucked a large draught.
Ainslin eyed his bulging cheeks not understanding what he intended. He firmed his hands around the back of her head, set his mouth to hers, and dribbled the clover-flavored wine onto her lips. She opened to lick at the wetness, and he fed sips right onto her tongue.
The sweet intimacy of the act had her trembling all over. His hands fondled her breasts and he grazed the tips over and over until she was dizzy and breathless and squeezing her legs together in the hopes of alieving the burning at her core. He nuzzled a soft spot behind her ear. She latched her arms around his neck and pressed her aching nipples to his rigid chest.
“You like it when I lick you here.” Wafts of the spicy wine drifted to her nose when he tongued the whorls of one ear.
“Oh aye,” she whispered.
“I can smell your honey flowing.” His fingers trailed under her crytel to smooth the skin of her calf, over her knee, and grazed the inside of her thigh. He toyed with her drenched folds. “Here is your honey, elska. This is what I strive for. For ’tis evidence of your desire for me.”
Near mad with yearning for him to press on that nub the way he had before, she tilted her hips in a silent plea.
“Soon, soon,” he crooned while sipping the racing pulse in the center of her throat. His fingers withdrew. She clamped her legs together to try and snare his hand.
He laughed. “To me, Ainslin.”
She looked at him, but her eyes had glazed and his features were all a-blur. “I ache, Torsten.”
“I know. Taste, wife. I want you to taste your woman’s nectar. Smell the musk that drives me berserk.”
Her jaw went slack when he slipped two fingers into her mouth. He stared into her eyes. The desire blazing from him stoked her fervent desire.
“My puss is not that sore,” she blurted.
For a long moment, she thought her persuasion had succeeded.
