Kiss of Pride

by Sandra Hill

  “Don’t you dare,” she ordered.

  He arched a brow at her.

  “That is quintessential make-out music. More panties have been dropped to that song than you could imagine.”

  “That could very well be, but Vikings have other methods.”

  “Like raping and pillaging?”

  “I have decided that you will owe me a bounty every time you make that ridiculous accusation in future.” And he had some very graphic ideas of what those bounties would entail.

  She didn’t look at all daunted by that threat. In fact, she grinned.

  He took off his jacket and laid it over the dresser behind him. He loosened the constricting tie at his neck, only then noticing her lips part as she watched him closely. Hmm. Slowly, very slowly, he undid the buttons on his shirt, then eased it off his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor.

  Her pink tongue peeked out, and she licked her lips. It was an unconscious movement, not deliberately designed to entice.

  But he was enticed nonetheless. Any more enticed and he would be embarrassing himself like an untried youthling.

  Still leaning back against the dresser, he toed off one black loafer, then another.

  “You’re not wearing any socks,” she pointed out.

  “I forgot. When I was getting ready for our wedding, I was a bit excited. Mordr had to remind me to put on a tie.”

  “Mordr?”

  He understood her surprise. Mordr was not usually concerned about fashion.

  “I love your feet,” she said.

  “Huh?” he glanced downward, not about to tell her that Mordr had also said he needed a pedicure, which Dagmar had luckily offered to provide. Until then, he hadn’t even known what a pumice stone was.

  “Your feet are lovely. Long and narrow with high arches. Manly.”

  Of course they are manly. What else would they be? Dainty little toes and heels to support my big frame? “Thank you.” Then he quickly added, “You have nice feet, too. Especially do I like your colored toenails.”

  She laughed at his lame counter-compliment.

  “I am offended, though. Here I stand, bare-chested, exposing all my impressive muscles, and you admire my feet. Something is wrong with me?”

  “You know there isn’t. I’m trying to regulate my excitement. If I look at certain places on your body, like your chest . . . or elsewhere”—she glanced downward—“I might just jump your bones.”

  “Oh please, do not regulate your excitement. Please, jump my bones.”

  “I thought you wanted to slow things down.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. Come here, wife.”

  Biddable, for once, she stood and walked toward him. There were tears in her eyes.

  “What? Why do you weep?” He opened his arms to her and pulled her close.

  “I love you so much. We can tease each other ’til the cows come home, but I just want to make love with you and show you how much I appreciate the gift that you are.”

  “I was just playing, Alex. Sorry I am if that made you feel unloved.”

  “Silly husband! I like to play, too. But later.”

  He was still stuck on the cows coming home, whatever that meant, but then he realized that Alex was just saying what he felt, soul-deep. There was a time for games, and a time for the serious business of love. This was the latter. “You are my soul mate, and I am yours. It only took a thousand years for me to find you.”

  “Exactly, my love. Exactly.”

  Nineteen

  Just WOW! . . .

  Alex was lying on Vikar’s big bed, totally naked. Who knew a Viking could disrobe a woman so fast? She watched her new husband approach, also totally naked. Who knew I could disrobe a man so fast?

  And wow! It was a woman’s romance novel cliché to say her man was huge, and a man’s fantasy cliché to say he was well-hung, but, well, just, wow! Forget blue steeler. They should have a new name for ones like this. A big boy! Or hot doggy! Or a wowzer! Yeah, that’s what she would call it. A wowzer!

  “I am afraid to ask what that smirk on your face means, Alex.”

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said, opening her arms to him.

  He arranged himself gently atop her, his wowzer nestled between her already spread thighs. Leaning down to kiss her, he was extra careful not to scrape her with his fangs, a fact of vangel life when aroused.

  They kissed. And kissed. And kissed some more. In between they whispered endearments, or love words, or just murmurs of sweet pleasure. The kisses were wonderful, slow-building prods to an already high arousal. She squirmed beneath him, wanting more, but acquiescing when he whispered, “Let me.” That was all. “Let me.” Two simple words. But to her, they were sex personified.

  Vikar adored her then, with his mouth. With his calloused fingertips. With his hairy chest. With his knees and, yes, even his toes. She adored him, too. Combing her fingers through his long hair that had side braids for his wedding intertwined with green beads. To match her eyes, he had told her. Who said Vikings didn’t know how to use flowery words! She traced the muscles of his upper arms, taking delight in the arm rings he wore almost all the time, three-inch silver bands etched with angel wings. She kissed his fingers, one at a time, and then his palms.

  They rolled, over, and over, and over again. When she was on top, she rubbed her slick woman’s folds over his erection. When he was on top, he sucked her breasts until she climaxed.

  When she was on top again, she punished him for making her come before entering her by using her tongue in his mouth, like a simulated penis. When he was on top again, he pressed her knees wide apart, braced himself on extended arms, and entered her in one long thrust.

  He was too big!

  He couldn’t fit all the way!

  Alex’s eyes went wide and she gasped. It wasn’t painful. It was just not enough.

  But then Vikar reached between her legs from behind and did something inside her body that she could swear caused her vagina to twitch and her uterus to shift. He was in her to the hilt now.

  “What . . . what did you do?”

  “Shh. Later,” he said, an expression of fierce concentration on his face.

  Alex was filled, totally, now. Even so, her inner walls kept shifting and spasming to accommodate his size.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked in an agonized whisper.

  “A little. A good hurt, though.”

  He smiled, or tried to smile. Lifting her legs, he set her heels on his shoulder and began the exceedingly long thrusts and withdrawals where her grasping channel provided a delicious friction, trying to hold him in. His head was arched back, his fangs extended over his tightened lips as he tried to prolong the slow journey of their mating, but he was unable to last for very long, especially when she had a second orgasm, and came around him in a gush of wetness.

  “You feel like hot honey around my cock,” he gasped out. “Do you taste as sweet?”

  “I don’t know, but if you dare to pull out I’m going to kick you where it hurts.”

  “Have I told you lately how much I love your fierceness?”

  “Have I told you lately that you talk too much?”

  He laughed and began the short, hard, pummeling strokes that shoved her up against the headboard and presaged his own approaching climax. When it came, it was with a roar of triumphant pleasure, after which he released her legs and fell on her, almost unconscious with satiety. She did not mind his weight that pressed her to the mattress. In fact, she caressed his sweat-dampened shoulders, especially his angel bumps that almost seemed to throb, like heartbeats.

  Finally, he raised his head and said, with wonder, “That was worth a hundred-year wait.”

  Vikings who doo-wop? . . .

  Three hours later, Vikar lay stunned. He was all fucked out. Literally.

  He was a Viking. Norsemen thought they knew everything there was to know about sex. Hah!

  He’d had no idea he could make a woman ejaculate. He’d had no idea
he could move a woman’s uterus with his cock. He’d had no idea he could come to rock-hard “life” so many times, after peaking.

  Thinking he would show his saucy wife a thing or two about the lovemaking arts, he’d initiated her into the famous Viking S-spot on her body. But, not to be undone, she’d shown him his G-spot. Holy clouds! Vikar had not known that men had G-spots. Wait until he told his brothers that. On the other hand, they would be wanting Alex to show them, and he couldn’t have that.

  Alex slept beside him, tucked up against his side with her face on his chest and a knee pressing against his finally flaccid cock. He could feel her breaths against his heated skin and he could hear the pounding of her heartbeat.

  But, no, the pounding he heard was coming from outside. Footsteps on grass, he guessed. Could it be Lucies?

  Quickly, he jumped from the bed and grabbed for his sword. Going over to the open window, he peered outside carefully.

  “Oh, good heavens!” Alex said, having come up beside him.

  Outside stood his brothers and about a dozen other vangels. All of them obviously drukkinn, because they swayed as they tried to stand in a straight line, then burst out in song.

  “Um, wah, um wah, um wah . . .” They kept chanting the odd sounds at the same time they danced two steps to the right, two steps to the left, pumping their elbows at the same time. Except Mordr kept tripping over his big feet, and Trond kept pinching some female vangel’s behind . . . Regina, he was pretty sure. He’d best be careful. Regina could wield a witchly curse faster than a Lucie on speed. Suddenly, they burst out in song, “Why do fools fall in love?”

  “Aren’t they adorable?” Alex said.

  “Huh?”

  She was clapping her hands together with glee. Fortunately, she had a sheet wrapped around her body or she would be giving his vangels more than applause for appreciation.

  The serenaders resumed their odd “Um, wah . . .” singing.

  “What are those grunting noises they’re making?”

  “Don’t you know anything about rock ’n’ roll?”

  Apparently not.

  “That’s classic doo-wop music. What they’re singing is a famous Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers song from the 1950s.”

  Dwop? Teenagers? And she’s pleased? “Um. That’s nice,” he said. Then, “How do we make them go away?”

  “Don’t be such a grouch.”

  “Kiss, kiss, kiss!” the crowd shouted when the song ended.

  Gladly, he kissed Alex, but only a short kiss. He wanted his “family” gone.

  When it appeared as if they were about to burst into another song, he leaned out the window.

  “Hey, Vikar,” Regina yelled in a shriekish voice that could peel rust off a lance. “You forgot your pants.”

  “Hey, Regina,” he yelled back. “You forgot your broom.”

  But he was not about to get in a shouting match with the woman, especially when she had the power to put a curse on one of his favorite body parts. Not what a man wanted on his wedding night.

  “Trond!” he shouted out. “Did I tell you there is a barrel of honeyed mead direct from the Norselands hidden in the dungeon behind those boxes of toilet paper?”

  Before Vikar could finish his sentence, there was a mad scramble of all the vangels for the castle back door.

  A short time later, he and Alex sat in bed drinking champagne and eating cheese atop crackers. There would be crumbs on the sheets, but he could not care about such small discomforts. Alex had just asked him a question that stunned him.

  “If I give you my blood periodically, will that be enough to sustain you?”

  He nodded, slowly. “We vangels need the blood of saved humans every so often. You qualify. The Fake-O and the blood ceorls’ supply, even the tanning beds, help, but they do not have sufficient nutrients to keep us from going white-skinned and eventually transparent-skinned. In the old days, it was a huge problem. We had to stay in hiding during those periods, until we were given a new assignment. Otherwise, there were vampire hunters after us, not distinguishing between good and bad vampires. I cannot tell you how many times we vangels have had stakes through our hearts, which of course did not really kill us, little did the hunters know. Still, it was inconvenient. And disgusting, truth to tell.”

  She was staring at him as if he’d grown two heads.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been staked?”

  “Only once, but Ivak was staked a half-dozen times afore he learned to run faster.”

  “I really have landed in bizarroland.”

  He felt his heart tighten in his chest. “You have regrets?”

  “Oh, Vikar, how can you ask such a question?” With a speed and efficiency he could admire, she swept the tray with their drinks and small meal aside, not caring that it bounced onto the floor and created a mess. Then she climbed atop him. Bless a woman who knew how to climb atop a man and impale herself all in one fell swoop. He had not even known he was erect. Hah! Who was he fooling? He’d been erect nonstop since he’d met her.

  Wiggling her butt on his thighs, she asked, “Does it feel like I have any regrets?”

  It didn’t.

  And at the end, when she let him feed on her neck while he peaked down below into her clutching folds, he almost wept with joy. Before the Reckoning, he’d thought his future held only bleakness. If this was the reward for a life lived well, then he truly should be spreading the word.

  “I love you,” he choked out.

  “I love you more,” she said. “And by the way, your blue wings are beautiful.”

  Mission not so impossible this time . . .

  The following months were sheer heaven to Vikar, or as close as a vangel could get to that blissful place. Marriage agreed with him.

  He was insatiable. Alex told him so repeatedly, but she was usually smiling like the cat living in a milk house when she said it. And she did let him feed on her on a regular basis, as promised. His skin had never looked so good since he became a vangel. Fanging and fucking were the most erotic combination, though Michael would cringe to hear him use such words.

  Speaking of that, while the others continued to refer to the archangel as Mike, Vikar could only think of him as Michael now. Perchance in another hundred years or so of being annoyed by his celestial mentor, he would come back to that rude nickname. For now, he was only profoundly thankful.

  But there was something important he had to do now, and he was not looking forward to it. “Alex, dearling,” he said, coming up behind her in his office where she was trying once again to write the article for her magazine. “There is something I must tell you.”

  She turned abruptly, no doubt alerted by the tone of his voice. “What? No! Don’t tell me. You’re not going out again. Oh please, don’t—”

  “No! You will not interfere with my work. Just as I do not interfere with yours.” He’d conceded weeks ago that he would not stand in the way of her writing. He trusted that she would do nothing to endanger the vangels in her articles.

  To soften the impact of his words, though, words that had to be said, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet, giving her a quick kiss. “A short trip, Alex. No danger,” he said, although truthfully he wasn’t sure about that. Even though Jasper had gone underground, so to speak, and it should take a long time for him to recoup, there were no guarantees. Plus, his orders from Michael had been ambiguous to say the least: Go to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

  She sighed, then let her stiffened shoulders slump with resignation. “I suppose I have to let you go, don’t I?”

  He nodded. “While I am gone, you and Dagmar can watch all those sad chicken movies on the TV.”

  “Chick flicks,” she corrected him with a grin.

  He’d known precisely what they were called. He’d just wanted to lighten her mood. In truth, it broke his heart to watch some of these movies with her, especially ones that involved children. Despite her resignation to a life with no babie
s or toddlers or children of any kind in evidence, he knew she felt the loss. She said having him was enough. Well, it would have to be.

  “Don’t take any bubble baths while I am gone, though,” he advised. “You know how much I like to share.”

  She smiled. “When do you have to leave?”

  “An hour ago.”

  She nodded. “Be safe, my love.”

  “I’ll be back in time for your birthday,” he said. Until Alex arrived, the vangels had little knowledge about birthing day celebrations. In fact, he and his brothers had no clue exactly when they’d been born. Now there was a big calendar in the kitchen with birthdays marked for himself and all twenty-seven of the vangels here at the castle, as well as his six brothers. If they didn’t know the date, Alex gave them one.

  “You better be. Lizzie promised to make a special cake for me.”

  “I can’t wait.” In truth, he was more enthused about the present he’d bought for her. It should have arrived by then. “I think you’re going to like my gift for you.”

  “A wowzer?”

  He laughed. In fact, he laughed every time he heard Alex use that ridiculous name for his cock when it was in a high enthusiasm. “That, too.” What he’d meant was the fancy spa tub he’d ordered for the bathing room, one that should make her bubble baths even bubblier. And big enough for two.

  “I don’t need presents. Just you.”

  “You have me.”

  The Lord taketh away, and the Lord giveth . . .

  Vikar entered the military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, and bypassed the receptionist, heading straight for the elevators. He had no clue where he was going and why. Just following instincts and that annoying voice in his head that kept prodding, “Hurry!”

  Alone in the elevators, he didn’t bother pressing any buttons and was not surprised when the elevators stopped on a particular patient floor and the doors opened. He turned right and began to walk down a corridor, scanning open doors of patients’ rooms on either side of him. Critically injured patients, by the looks of them. Finally, he stopped at one particular room. The card insert by the hospital door read: “Major Magnus Eric Sigurdsson.”