by Sandra Hill
Never let it be said that Ingrith was a timid pupil.
He lifted his head, despite her attempts to hold him down. “Ingrith! Let me lead, for once.”
She meekly—Hah! She wouldn’t know meekness if it hit her in her pert nose—rested her arms at her sides and let him examine her breasts in detail. He was fascinated with the hardness and softness. The silkiness of her skin. The perfect little nipples. Most of all he loved her reaction to all his different touches.
“Your breasts are very sensitive, aren’t they?”
“How would I know?” she snapped. “If you mean that even the lightest of your touches makes my woman-fleece weep, then, yea, I am. If you mean that I crave your suckling, then, yea, I am. If you mean that your breath alone on my breasts can make me swoon, then, yea, I am.”
“One answer would have been sufficient,” he griped, even though he was highly pleased.
“When do we get to the peaking business?”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Will you stop trying to guide this ship?”
“As you wish!” Her pretense of compliance did not fool him, not one bit.
He got his control back quickly when he suckled one breast deeply and moved a hand down to part her nether folds, stroking the slickness.
Almost immediately, she arched her hips up for more, moaning and rocking her head from side to side with rising passion. “Please, please, please,” she kept pleading, for relief, though she was probably not sure what form that would take.
He knew! And he played her now with all the expertise he had perfected over the years. He licked and sucked on her nipples at the same time that he touched and then vibrated a finger at the pearl of her passion, which stood out from the slick folds as testament to her—What did she call it?—rising sap. She was close to her peak; he could tell by the stiffening of her legs and fisting of her hands. With a middle finger inserted inside her body and a thumb pressing against her pearl, he could feel the spasms that began inside her and then spiraled outward. He did not need her scream…and, yea, she did scream…to know that she was peaking.
His ability to please her brought inordinate pride to John. He’d seen this female phenomenon more times than he could count. After all, he’d swived his first maid sixteen years ago, when he was fifteen. But it felt like the first time here with Ingrith.
She stared up at him, stunned.
“Can I take my relief on you now, Ingrith?”
She nodded. “How?”
“Do not worry, sweetling. There will be no penetration.” He went over to get a drying cloth from the washstand and came back to arrange the cloth under her buttocks.
“I was not…eek! Do you actually fit that thing inside a woman? It’s huge.”
He chuckled, and, yea, man that he was, he was hugely complimented. He arranged himself over her with his cock riding her outside female channel and her knees raised to cradle his hips. With arms braced on either side of her head, he began the strokes that would lead to his satisfaction. Not inside, which he would of course prefer, but still a remedy that sufficed.
He lost focus then and had no idea how she reacted to his thrusts, except that he must have been hitting her bliss spot on the return stroke because she began to moan with rising passion, again.
Then she splintered. He could see and feel the ripples passing over her belly.
At the same time, he peaked, too. His head was thrown back with ecstasy, and his cock was pressed tight along her slickness, but he spilled onto the cloth beneath her. Not the best way to end sex play, but satisfactory nonetheless. More than satisfactory, truth be told.
For a moment, he lay heavily upon her, harsh, uneven breaths searing his lungs. She was strangely silent beneath him. When he was finally able to raise himself, he saw that tears were streaming from her eyes.
“Ingrith!” he said with concern, swiping the wetness beneath her eyes with his thumbs. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Nay, it is just that it was so wonderful. Was it wonderful for you, too?”
“It was,” he said, kissing her forehead.
“But it would be better if you…you know…came inside me?”
“Definitely.”
“I don’t see how it could be? Firstly, you would not fit.”
“I would fit, Ingrith, never doubt that.”
She frowned, trying to figure out how.
“If I were inside you, my cock would grow even larger, and your inner muscles would shift to accommodate my size. I would feel your heat, and you would feel mine. Like satin and steel. The way God made our bodies to fit. You have experienced peaking now, but when inside you, it would be a different kind of peaking.”
She listened carefully to his explanation. “Better peaking?”
“Different.”
She shrugged. “Can we do it again?”
He laughed. “If you give me a little time to raise my enthusiasm again.”
She reached between their bodies and took his cock between her fingers.
Immediately, the traitorous part began to swell, which prompted her to squeeze. “Aaarrgh!” he gritted out. He had to pry her fingers off of him, very carefully.
“Are you enthusiastic now?”
“I am getting there.”
“This time can I do all the tortuous touching?”
His heart lurched, then seemed to expand, taking his breath away. It took a few moments for him to reply. “If you insist.”
It was a new role for her…and not a food roll, either…
Ingrith was no fool. She knew she was only getting half a meal with this kind of sex play, like eating a piecrust without the filling. Or soup without the salt.
Still, she had enjoyed the shocking things John had done to her. She wanted more. If she had to be satisfied with half a pie, that would have to suffice, because she did understand his concern about passing a deformity of mind onto a helpless child. They’d had a boy at the orphanage one time who was always in a foaming rage, maiming animals, hitting other children. Nothing seemed to help his inner torment. When he was twelve, he went after the wrong older youthling and was killed in the process. A shame, really!
John removed the damp cloth from the bed and went over to the pitcher and bowl, where he proceeded to wash his phallus. All very sensible. But not so sensible when he came back to the bed with another wet cloth and attempted to cleanse her nether parts. She swatted at his hands. “I can do that myself.”
“Let me,” he insisted.
And she did, besotted fool that she was becoming.
And was that really her, lying here bare-arsed naked, waiting for whatever he would do next? When had she become so biddable?
When he lay back down, splatted on his back, he almost bumped her off the bed. With his arms extended outward in a pose of surrender, he grinned at her, and she knew that she was more than besotted. She was falling a little bit in love with the man. An impossible situation that could only lead to her being hurt. But who could stop this avalanche of emotion?
“Well? I’m waiting,” he teased.
“For what?”
“For you to have your way with me.”
“You are a rogue,” she said, turning on her side so that she could begin her own game. A tantalizing prospect.
“Is that a compliment?”
“Definitely,” she said, rubbing a palm over his head. “You are getting bristles already. Will you shave again?”
He nodded. “Until after Loncaster comes and goes. Besides, I have an idea how to please you with those head whiskers.”
She tried but could not figure out his meaning. “How?”
He chucked her under the chin playfully. “’Twill be a surprise.”
“Mayhap I will have some surprises for you, too.”
“I am counting on it.”
She leaned over to kiss him, and he put his arms around her waist to embrace her. She shoved his hands aside and said, “Nay. I need to concentrate on one thing at a time. You
confuse me when you kiss and touch and press and prod and tickle all at once.”
He chuckled. Her mouth was almost over his when he inquired, his hot breath like a caress in itself, “May I kiss you in return?”
She pondered a moment. “Yea, as long as you follow my lead. I am the one making bold with you…this time.”
He chuckled again, and she could feel laughter rumble in his chest, under her breasts. That, too, was like a caress.
“Kissing is a new experience for me,” she told him.
“Truly?”
“Not that I haven’t been kissed in the past. Of course I have. After all, I am almost thirty-one years old.”
“Ancient, really.”
She smacked his shoulder. “But the men were the aggressors in all those instances. Now I get to do whatever I want, and it is a heady prospect.”
His smoldering eyes told her that he was pleased.
She licked her lips first, and then his. Lapping like a kitten with fresh cream. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “Help me, Jesus!”
Once she had wetted him, she shaped his lips with hers ’til she got the perfect fit. Then she opened her mouth and his, almost gobbling him with her lips. She angled her head from side to side, giving the hungry kisses different nuances. And then she plunged her tongue inside, beginning the dance he had taught her. She did not need to look down to see that he was aroused. She could feel his excitement in the way he kissed her back, by the rapid increase in his heartbeat, by his soft groans. In truth, she was exciting herself.
She was not nearly satisfied that she’d had enough kisses, but she had more territory to cover, and she was not sure how long he would allow her free rein. Sliding lower, she touched his flat male nipples with the tips of her fingers. “Does it feel good when I touch you here?”
“Very good.”
She put her mouth to his nipples and suckled. Not as much to grasp onto, but by his sharp inhale, she figured she was doing things right.
Traveling lower, she examined his phallus in detail, mesmerized by the way the skin was loose and pliant on the outside and hard as a marble rod inside. The mushroom-shaped head was already seeping his seed, which was apparently encased in a milky fluid. “Does it hurt?” she asked.
“What? Your touching me? Nay, it feels wonderful, but be gentle with me, sweetling. I am tender there.”
She nodded. “I meant, does it hurt when your dangly part gets hard?”
He choked out a laugh. “Only in a pleasurable way.”
Her brow furrowed with confusion, wondering how pain could be pleasurable, but her mind was already moving on to new activities. Rising up on her knees and leaning forward with her hands on his shoulders, she straddled him and arranged his staff along her female channel with the bulbous tip against the newly discovered bud of pleasure. “Am I doing this right?”
He made a gurgling sound through kiss-wet lips, and his eyes were misty blue with passion.
She tried to ride his staff to give them both the most pleasure, and seeing how awkward she was, he put his hands on her hips and showed her a rhythm and position that worked for both of them. This time, they peaked at the same time. Ingrith could not imagine how much more intense sexual penetration would be, when this particular activity gave so much satisfaction.
While she lay in his arms afterward, he murmured sweet compliments and answered her questions.
“Do you want to go down to the kitchen with me and find some food?”
“Nay, I would not want to run into anyone who would surely question where we have been and what we were doing. Tomorrow is soon enough for that.”
“No one will question you,” he assured her. “They will just think it.”
“Oh, that makes me feel better.” But she could not regret what she had done. Yawning, sleepy with satiety, she fell asleep. But that was not to be the end of their bedsport.
In the middle of the night—she assumed it was the middle of the night, since the candles had burned out—she awakened to find the brute with his face at her nether parts and her legs over his shoulders. “Have you lost your—aaaahhhhh!” He was using his tongue and teeth in the most extraordinary way. “This has got to be wicked.”
“Wicked good,” he agreed. After inserting his tongue inside her body, he used a middle finger to strum the erect bud—What he had done to get it that way, she could only imagine—and a palm over her stomach to hold her down. Over and over and over, he brought her almost to peaking. Then stopped. And resumed. And stopped. And resumed. Her mounting urgency was so intense that when her shattering finally came, it was with fierce convulsions rolling over her in waves that almost made her faint.
“I ne’er knew,” she said when her pounding heart slowed down to a mere racing.
“Ne’er did I,” he said, kissing her ravenously.
How could the man be ravenous when she was so sated? Ah, he had not peaked himself, she realized.
He rolled over on his back and coaxed, “My turn?”
“How?”
And he showed her the age-old ways of pleasuring a man with her mouth. Blessed gods and goddesses, he did show her!
The next morning, Ingrith took special care braiding her hair, donning a sedate gown, and attempting to cover the whisker burns on her neck. To no good end.
When she stood at the entrance to the kitchen, alone, Ubbi took one look at her and said, “I’ll kill the troll.”
And Katherine yelled out toward the open courtyard door, “Bolthor, heartling, you must come and see this.”
Good thing Hamr had not yet returned from Jorvik. He would no doubt give a hearty Viking cheer of approval.
“It is not what you think,” she lied. “I had trouble sleeping last night and rolled off the bed into the straw.”
Ubbi snorted, and Katherine giggled.
None of which was helped when John came up behind her and kissed the back of her neck, walking the fingers of one hand down her back, from shoulder to buttock in a teasing, lover fashion. But then he glanced ahead and saw their audience.
“Uh-oh!” he said.
She just moaned. What else could she do?
CHAPTER TWELVE
The shortest distance between two people is a smile…
John moved about his ordinary duties that day as lord of Hawk’s Lair. Exercising hard on the practice field with his men. Checking his beehives and flower patches. Discussing the honey birthing-control project with its participants. Making a list with his steward of items needed to purchase from market.
But there was nothing ordinary about the way John felt. He could not stop smiling.
When he missed his target three times on the archery field, and grinned, Ordulf remarked, “Methinks your bald head is causing your brain to melt.
“Pfff!” he said.
But Bolthor disagreed. “’Tis another part of his body that is melting. His heart.”
“Pfff!” he said again.
“Fergit the meltin’. ’Tis what’s been gettin’ hard that bothers me.” Another person had entered the conversation. John glanced down to see that Ubbi had come up to stand at his side, and he was not a happy gnome.
“Go away!” John told him, whisking his hand as if Ubbi were a bothersome bug, which he was.
Ubbi hitched his little breeches and straightened his age-humped back. “I’ll not be goin’ away on yer say-so. I’m here ta warn ya, troll. Besmirch my mistress’s reputation, and I’ll have five hundred Vikings here, led by her father. Lopping off yer randy manroot will be the least of yer woes then.” On those words, he stomped off, back to the keep.
John, Bolthor, and Ordulf exchanged glances of amazement. He’d just been insulted by a dwarf.
“How about my reputation?” he yelled to Ubbi’s back.
Ubbi kept walking but he made a rude gesture over his shoulder, one understood equally by Vikings and Saxons alike.
That incident didn’t hamper John’s good mood at all.
When answering a missive to his mother, who was concerned about the welfare of the children and “that sweet unmarried Viking princess,” he did not even tell her in no uncertain words to mind her own business. Instead, he was gentle in telling her to mind her own business, and he smiled as he did so. He did not even curse when the thick encaustum ink splotched on the parchment, looking like a gummy teardrop when he blotted it off.
Next his mother would be rushing here to rescue her weeping, melancholy, unmarried son. Worse yet, Bolthor would be writing a poem about it. “Tears of a Knight,” or some such nonsense.
Still, he smiled.
He resisted until noon his overpowering desire to track down the source of all his smiles, the woman who had more than pleased him through the night. He felt feral and predatory chasing after her, but he could not help himself. He found her in an underground storage room. Not surprisingly, she was organizing the goods on all the shelves.
She glanced up to where he stood on the steps, and smiled.
He smiled back at her, like the idiot he was becoming.
She was wearing traditional Viking attire today. With her hair braided into a coronet atop her head. And a long, lavender, open-sided apron over an ankle-length purple gown. She even smelled like lavender, from her soap no doubt. Gold brooches in writhing dragon patterns secured the straps of the apron over her shoulders. Her lips still looked bee stung from his kisses, as his probably did, too. He took inordinate pride in the bite mark on her neck. He had one on his belly.
“Do you know what I would like to see you wear?” he asked as he came closer and took the spice jar from her hands and placed it on the shelf. Cloves, he thought irrelevantly.
“What? A samite silk gown embroidered with silver thread? A crown of precious jewels? An ivory-linked belt?” She was staring at his lips. Was she imagining the things those lips had done to her?
“I would like to see you wearing that apron…and nothing else.”
“Is that so?” Her blue eyes flashed impishly. “Dost know what I would like to see you wear?”
“Nothing?” he guessed hopefully.
