by Jan Irving
I looked at the guy I’d woken up with.
He was very tall, towering over me. He wore a neatly trimmed dark blond beard. On either side of his face were golden braids, though the rest of his hair was long and free.
He was gorgeous, but obviously obsessed with some kind of role-playing. Figures there’d be something wrong with him since I’d woken up with him. I’d always picked the lemons in the barrel.
But he had a sweet smile.
And I had class in less than an hour.
I tossed more of my clothing, looking for a clean T-shirt. I found one with palm trees and camels my Mom had snagged for me on a trip to Cairo. It was clean. Now I needed my favourite pair of stonewashed jeans.
Conan was still standing there, glowering at me like I was a servant boy who’d forgotten to dress his royal highness.
“Okay,” I said. “I gotta get to class. It was real funny.” I swallowed. How he got me so hard, so excited. How he felt covering me. “Ha ha. Now go, your Lordship.”
“I am Freyr Grímsson,” he continued, in a language I didn’t understand. Maybe it was Middle-earth. I found my jeans.
“There’s coffee and, I think, some left over pizza in the fridge,” I told him. “Bye.”
I sneaked one last look at him over my shoulder as I snagged my backpack.
He took my breath away. Glowing golden skin, glowering at me out of electric-blue eyes, hands on his corded hips, the kind of hips with dimples created by muscles. He had scars on his body too. Probably some kind of makeup to go with his persona. His cock hung long from a thatch of blond hair almost as bright as the gold on his head. Holy geez. I gave it a wistful glance and then slammed the door behind me.
Haldir or Elderade, or whatever he called himself, bellowed again. I winced. Lucky my roommates were off on some kind of anthropological camping thing. Hopefully no one in the building would complain. Late night noise was tolerated. Early mornings, not so much.
“Bailey!” Candy was waiting for me. “We’re going to be late!”
My best friend, Candy Drake, gave me a scandalised look out of large, soul-heavy brown eyes. Candy lived life as if she were a Regency romance heroine, with rules and etiquette. I’d had to get her drunk the night she’d got her first parking ticket. She was not a rebel at heart. Conformity was her thing.
Fortunately I understood her, since Candy and I had the same taste in reading. Growing up, we’d read all kinds. Candy’s favourites were romantic suspense while mine were paranormal romances. We could spend hours talking about our favourite heroes.
“We won’t be late. You have to factor in the time it takes for everyone to sit.” I had it down to a science because I am not remotely a morning person. I just hit my stride by 2am.
Behind us, the door shook as if the mighty Thor had struck it with his hammer. Candy’s mouth gaped. “Wow, did one of your roommates run out of coffee?”
Damn, there were actually splinters and a hole in my door!
“As if you don’t know!” I flashed. I figured Candy had to be part of this. Today was my birthday. So she’d given me a Viking, like one of the demanding Alpha males in a Johanna Lindsey romance—except this guy took his role-playing a little too seriously.
Candy shoved back her long dark hair, her face so pale her freckles stood out like flecks of sawdust on cream. “Bailey!” she squeaked, much as I had earlier that morning.
She squeaked because the door exploded like a cannonball had fired through it.
And there he was, Gundar the Invincible, completely and magnificently naked except for his mighty sword, which had two crescent moon shapes on either side of a pommel, the metal beaten. Wow, it looked really authentic to my untrained eye. I was surprised he’d used it on my door when it must have set him back quite a bit of dough, a reproduction weapon like that.
He gave me an outraged look, as if I’d been the one to smash the freaking door.
All down the hallway of my residence, half-dressed students with blurry eyes and bed hair appeared. They poked their heads out, staring open-mouthed at Gundar the Destroyer’s amazing ripped body.
“Bailey?” Candy gasped.
Gundar reached out one giant fist and snagged my T-shirt, dragging me to him.
“You will do your duty by me,” he growled and shook me, like a puppy that had piddled on the rug.
“Stop!” Candy was hitting Gundar’s free arm with her fists. His jewel-blue eyes widened and he glowered at me. “I have no wish to hurt your wench,” he said.
I grabbed Candy’s arms, not wanting my wench to get hurt either. “Candy, it’s all right. He’s, ah, mine,” I said.
Gundar looked down at me with a half-smile.
“Yours?” Her eyes were accusing. “Bailey Moore, you have a new boyfriend and you didn’t tell me?” She looked Thor over. “I want to know everything.” Her voice had a sudden dreamy quality.
I blushed. “It’s a joke!” I raised my voice for the other students. “My birthday. Ha ha.”
I had two sudden epiphanies hit me. One, we were most definitely going to be late to class this morning. The second was that we couldn’t stand in the hallway with half the building lusting over my Viking warrior. And, okay, a third one hit me. I needed coffee. Now.
“Come on.” I tugged Gundar’s arm. He didn’t move, looking down at my grip on his tree trunk of an arm with something like amusement. It pissed me off. I wasn’t built like Gundar, but I wasn’t totally skinny. My arms had some definition from push ups.
“We will go,” he announced in a gracious tone and allowed me to herd him and Candy through my beat-up door. Oh, man. How was I going to tell my roommates? I’d have to get it replaced pronto. Maybe we could swing by the recycled building supply store, where I could find a new one. That and some paint and I should be able to switch it out quick.
Which was going to eat up most of the day.
But first things first. Coffee.
“Oh no,” Candy groaned as I got out the instant.
“Sorry, no Starbucks barista handy. You could always ask Thor here if he can make us coffee with the power of his magical sword,” I said, slicing my Viking a look. He was pacing the room, sword thankfully lax at his side, studying the kitchen and couch area with some interest.
“I am not Thor,” he boomed. “I have told you my name.”
“I forgot it,” I said.
He frowned thunderously. “You did not.”
“Okay, I didn’t.” I looked at Candy who was sitting on my couch and watching my visitor. “It’s Frey-er something.”
“Freyr,” my Viking supplied calmly. Then he pointed his broadsword at me, his fuckup of a servant boy. “You will not forget.”
I shook my head, reluctantly impressed. Frey certainly stayed in character.
“It smells like seriously burned toast in here,” Candy said, wrinkling her nose.
“It must be the wiring in one of the walls,” I said. “It smelt like that when I woke up.”
“When you woke up with, um, Frey-ur,” she said, running avid eyes over Frey’s backside, which was on display as he bent down and picked up one of Jared’s T-shirts. He studied it, even lifted it to his nose and sniffed.
“This does not smell of you,” he told me, frowning.
“You can smell that?” I shook my head. For a second his reaction seemed so real… I was falling for his game. “Right, you have trained senses from hunting boar or whatever, right?”
“Yes,” Frey said, as if he hadn’t caught on I was being sarcastic. “I hunt.”
I needed coffee. “Okay, water’s boiled.”
Candy reluctantly took a cup with instant milk whipped by my spoon, tons of sugar, cinnamon, coffee crystals and hot water. Her expression smoothed out after she tasted some. It sounds like junk, but I can make really good instant lattes.
“So what is going on?” she demanded, eyes half-slitted with pleasure.
Frey studied her, cocking his head. Then he gave me an imperious look.
“I’m already making you some,” I grumbled. “Your Lordship.”
He nodded firmly. “Yes.”
I rolled my eyes before giving Candy the goods. “I woke up. He was in bed with me. End of story.”
“You woke up with a Viking in your bed and you don’t think that’s a little strange?”
“Candy, it’s my birthday.”
“I know that!”
“So Jared, Miles… This has to be their doing. They hired Lord of the Rings here to give me a thrill.” And what a thrill it had been with that warm mouth on my sweet spot and that hard body plastering me into the mattress. But I didn’t have to share that with Candy. From the way she was looking at Frey, she’d probably figured it out.
Candy bit her lip as I finished making Frey’s coffee. He didn’t come and take the mug. I had to take it to him. Geez, he was annoying.
“But Bailey…” She put her mug down and got to her feet, hesitantly approaching Frey.
He took a sip of the coffee and then held it away from himself, looking shocked by the taste. Maybe he didn’t think I could work such magic with instant.
“How do you explain this?” She was stroking his arm. I felt a rush of jealousy, which was stupid.
“Explain what?”
“These scars…” She looked up into Frey’s eyes. “They’re real.”
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About the Author
Jan Irving has worked in all kinds of creative fields, from painting silk to making porcelain ceramics, to interior design, but writing was always her passion. She feels you can’t fully understand characters until you follow their journey through a story world. Many kinds of worlds interest her, fantasy, historical, science fiction and suspense—but all have one thing in common, people finding a way to live together—in the most emotional and erotic fashion possible, of course!
Email: [email protected]
Jan loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
Also by Jan Irving
Uncommon Cowboys: Shifter Cowboy Uncommon Cowboys: Shy Cowboy Uncommon Cowboys: Straight Cowboy Uncommon Cowboys: Wounded Cowboy Uncommon Cowboys: A Plain, Ordinary Cowboy Uncommon Cowboys: Cowboy in Ravenna Subspace: His Landlady
Power Games: The Wizard’s Boy Men of Station 57: Forbidden Fire Lightning Strikes: The Viking in my Bed
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