Claimed by Her Viking Wolf (4 page)

Asger
grinned, wrapped
that material around himself, and went after her. Time to not only get some
answers, but to also make her his.

Chapter Four

Kim stuck her overheated face into the freezer, and
tried to control her breathing. Jeez, the man was huge, and … well … huge. She
rolled her eyes at her thought processes, and pretended to be studying the
frozen sausages when she heard him approach. Of course he would come down.
Judging by the bare feet and legs she could see from this angle, he was still
naked, damn him.

Not that he could be anything else, because she’d
thrown his clothes out after the leggings had shrunk in the wash. Guess they
were hand wash only, which would make sense, really. She should have anticipated
that, and oh, lord.

I’m rambling in my head now. Man up and face
him. He was naked when you undressed him for pity’s sake.

With a wry grin at her jumbled thoughts, Kim
straightened, shut the door and looked at him. Amusement made his dark eyes
crinkle up at the corner. Her breath stalled to a halt when he raised his arms
to tie the still wet mass of his brown hair
bac
k
. It made his biceps flex and his abs ripple, and Kim
let her pent-up breath out in one fell swoosh when she saw he’d covered up with
the towel. However, she could still see the long imprint of his cock, and she
squeezed her thighs together to help relieve some of that ache between her
legs.

Unconscious as he had been he was a magnificent
sight, but seemingly back to full health, hot and wet from the shower still …
damn it. It was every erotic dream she’d ever had rolled into one
mouth-watering temptation right in front of her. And it didn’t help one little
bit that every dream she’d had over the last two days had involved the hunk now
standing in front of her. Him and Kim in a heap of sweaty entangled limbs, to
be precise.

“
You’re
awake,” she finally said. Kim wanted the ground to swallow her up, when his
smile deepened. “I mean, of course, you’re awake, you’re standing there, after
all … oh, dammit.”

She turned her back on temptation and grabbing one
of the carrier bags, turned back ‘round and thrust the thing at him.

At his curious expression she rushed on to explain.
“I bought you some clothes. You know modern ones. I guessed your sizes, so I
hope they fit, and…”

Her voice trailed off when he dropped the towel,
and pulled out the clothing she’d bought him.

“
I
don’t mean for you to do it here, go upstairs or
sommat
or—”

“
Why?”
That one word uttered in that deep growl of his was all it took for her to take
leave of her senses completely, so she stood and gaped up at him.

“
Why
what?” She somehow managed to squeak that question, as he stepped so close that
his scent engulfed her. Clean, male musk, with that enticing hint of danger,
and wild animal. The barely functioning side of her brain did wish she had a
pen to write that down. She would have to use that description in her next
story. In fact she was pretty sure she had used something like that, never once
believing that it would be so accurate.

“
Only
a body,” he said, winked at her—winked for pity’s sake—before he made a big
show of studying the set of boxer briefs she’d bought him.

When he looked at them, scratched his beard, then
tried to put one on his head, Kim finally found her sense of humor at the
hilarity of all this.

A giggle escaped.
Asger
smiled at her, when she took the underwear off of him, and held it up to her
own groin.

“
You
wear this over
your
…” She glanced at his semi erect
cock, wrenched her gaze back up to his face and cursed her propensity for
blushing.
 
She was an erotic writer for
pity’s sake, yet, just like she couldn’t get through a reading without turning
the color of beetroot, it seemed she couldn’t bring herself to say the word out
loud in front of him either. So she simply waved in the general direction of
his genitalia, hoping he would get the drift.

Asger
smirked. There was
a definitely devilish gleam in his eyes, when he ran his gaze slowly over her
body until he reached her groin where she was still clutching the damn boxers
as though her life depended on it.

“
You
wear them under your clothes.” She threw the things at him when he reached out
to her.
Asger
laughed, making her wonder if he hadn’t
known that all along, and was just having fun at her expense. She turned away
from him, but she still had a perfect view of his taut ass as he made short
work of pulling on the boxers. After a moment’s hesitation the jeans, and the
t-shirt followed, and she turned back round again. Not that the view of him
clothed in modern clothing was any better. The distressed jeans hugged his
muscular thighs, lovingly outlined the imprint of his cock, and hung low on his
hips. The shirt strained against his biceps, and Kim had to remind herself to
breathe.

Yeah, she hadn’t thought this out very well. She
should have bought him clothes three times too big. Maybe then he wouldn’t look
so damn edible.

When he gave a little bow and winked at her again,
she laughed.

“
Well,
I’m glad they fit. Are you hungry?” she asked and he rubbed his rock hard abs
and smiled.

“
Yes,
minn
kona
.”

The way he said that—jeez, she had to get away from
him, or she’d take her hand off cutting the vegetables.

“
Good,”
she said. “I’ve bought enough food to feed an army, so why don’t you sit down
in the other room, and …
erm
… I don’t know, study
that dictionary.” She pointed to it on the kitchen table, and
Asger
nodded.

Much to her dismay he didn’t leave the kitchen,
however. Instead he plonked his far too delectable ass on her kitchen bench and
started to read.

Kim realized with a start that she could listen to
him read for hours, which was exactly what she ended up doing. They fell into
somewhat of a predictable pattern over the next few days, in so far that
Asger
spent every waking moment in that dictionary. He
seemed determined to master the English language, and she found herself telling
him the meaning of umpteen things around the house. In truth he astonished her
with the relative ease in which her very own Viking warrior adapted to the
twenty-first century. Then again, hadn’t that made his kin such formidable
warriors? The ability to adapt and think on their feet?

At least he had stopped destroying her electrical
equipment. He still looked at the microwave as though some demon was inside it,
and the radio had freaked him out, too, but he hadn’t run his sword through
them. Kim was rather relieved to see that he left it in his room most of the
time now, after he’d almost drawn it on the poor postman when he’d knocked on
the door, to deliver a box of her latest paperbacks.

Kim wasn’t at all sure about
Asger
having his nose stuck in one of them, the ever present dictionary by his side.
With the TV out of action, it meant they’d filled their days, with her sitting
in her favorite writing spot, tapping away, and him sitting on the other side
glued to her books.

Every once in a while he would look up from reading
and just stare at her with the most curious expression on his face.

“
What?”
Kim had eventually snapped at him.
Asger
had grinned,
shut the book, pulled his shirt over his head, and headed outside. When she
followed him, it was to find him chopping wood for her wood burner with far
more vigor than had been necessary. She’d stood watching him for a while,
admiring the play of muscles in his broad back. His side was almost healed now,
further testament to what she knew to be the certain truth. He had to be a
shifter. Not that they had that discussion yet, but she saw his inner animal
often enough in his eyes, when he looked at her. Add to that the fact that he
seemed incapable of not sniffing her whenever he stepped close to her, and
yeah…

Kim glanced across at him again now, and cleared
her throat. He snapped her book shut, winked at her, and then wandered off into
the kitchen. Kim couldn’t help it.
 
She
inched across to read what had him so enthralled. Oh
lordy
,
it had to be a sex scene, didn’t it? She didn’t need to hear the floor board
creak to know he was back in the room. The fine hair on her neck stood to
attention as he came up behind her, and tugged the book out of her hands.

“
Interesting
reading,
minn
kona
,”
he said. Her heart rate
kicked up a notch when he put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back
into his solid frame. His breath ghosted across her neck as he bent his head
and inhaled just under her ear.

“
Tell
me, is that what you like a man to do to you?”

His deeply accented voice settled straight in her
clit, and she bit her lip to stop herself from moaning out loud. He would no
doubt smell how wet she was getting for him anyway, so instead she wrenched herself
out of his loose grip and put the coffee table between them. There, that was
marginally safer.

“
I’m
a writer. I make things up.” She hedged the question, but she couldn’t quite
bring herself to look at him. His deep laugh told her that he didn’t believe a
word of it.

“
Fine,
have it your way,
kona
.”

“
Why
do you keep calling me that?” she asked. Kim wrapped her arms around herself
when his gaze drew so intense that she could hardly breathe. “You’ve been
holding out on me. Your English is coming along fast.”

Asger
smiled, as he
cocked his head to one side.

“
Amazing
what you learn from books. I call you that, because you’re mine.”

****

Asger
rather enjoyed
Kim’s stunned expression, especially as her breathing sped up and her heart
rate increased. Not in fear, but arousal that increased her sweet scent and
made him hard as nails. His cock pressed against the stiff material of the new
trousers she’d bought him, and he wished himself back into his own clothes.
They had far more give in them, which, considering his cock was in a constant
flux of readiness around his
kona
would be
much preferable. Resisting the urge to unsnap the buttons on his trousers …
jeans, she called them, to free his aching staff, he shoved his hands into the
back pockets of said jeans instead.

Kim looked on a knife edge, ready to bolt if he
gave into the very real need to touch her.

Instead he settled for quietly studying her, as the
seconds ticked by. Her throat rippled as she gave several hard swallows.

“
Well,
that’s … you have no…” She threw him a somewhat panicked look, and turning
abruptly walked over to her bookcase. The thing was heaving with all sorts of
books, old and new, and he swallowed a groan of his own when she bent down to
rummage through a box of books at the side of it. It tightened the material of
her trousers over her delectable ass. His hands itched to caress those globes,
to redden them with his hands until they glowed hot and pink, and she was
begging him to take her.

Asger
groaned and
adjusted his dick away from the metal contraption that held his trousers
together, just in time before she turned around, clutching what looked to be an
extremely old book.

“
Talking
of books, I’ve been meaning to show you this. I found it in an antique shop
years ago, and, well I can’t read it. It’s all in Old Norse … I think … but, I
thought…”

She jumped when his wolf took over. He leapt across
the distance separating them in one fell swoop. It was the first time he’d
truly allowed his wolf to show, as much as he was able to in this realm. The
fact that she didn’t scream soothed the churning in his gut somewhat. He
recognized that book. The ancient one had something very similar back in his
times.

“
Where
did you get this?” he asked, and a tingle of recognition went up his arms when
his fingers touched the worn cover. It was a replacement. He sensed that
straightaway, his sensitive nose picking up the slightly different age scents
from the covering and the paper contained therein.

He realized he’d spoken in Norse, when she looked
up at him blankly, so he repeated the question in halting English. While he
could speak it now, having found it relatively easy to pick it up, thanks to
the solid base he’d been given when he’d been a mere
sveinbarn
—
his
nursemaid at the time had been English—it still felt odd to form the words out
loud.

“
I—I
told you. I picked it up years ago. It was old and dusty, but…” She stopped
talking when he opened the old pages and clouds of musty dust rose in the air
between them.
Asger
inhaled deeply and smiled. These
pages held the promise of home. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see his
village, and the brothers he’d left behind. His mate’s tentative hand on his
forearm brought his attention back to her and he smiled at her.

“
This.”
He flicked through the pages, until he found what he was looking for. It was a
depiction of his village.
Asger
swallowed the
immediate longing to be back there down with a whine.
“
Minn
homestead.”

He traced the aged pages with one finger, inhaling
sharply when Kim pressed closer into him to see. Her soft breasts cushioned his
side. With her head bent over the book with him, it wouldn’t take much to close
the distance and claim her lips. Only the certain knowledge that this book
would hold the answers to why he was here, and
Odin
willing, tell him how to get back to his time, stopped him
from tasting her.