Come Back to Me (25 page)

"Should I be flattered?" he asked with a smile as he handed her one of the goblets. Rejoining her on the bed, he lay back against the pillows as though he had no thought other than to converse with her. "You weren't afraid before and you were a virgin then."

"It seems innocence and ignorance have much in common," Rycca murmured, then swallowed fully half her wine without noticing. She felt flushed and uncertain, wanting to draw the covers up over herself but unable to reach them where they were bunched at the foot of the bed without making her self-consciousness glaringly obvious. His casual disregard of their mutual nudity and his blatant arousal made her all the more acutely aware of both. She struggled to match his composure even as she desperately sought some—any—distraction.

It came but from an unlikely source. Her gaze settled suddenly on a long white scar that bisected his left thigh, cutting clear across it in the arc of a descending blade that must have come very close to severing the limb entirely. Her breath caught. It was hard to say which surprised her more, the evidence of so terrible a wound or the fact that it was healed.

Hardly aware that she did so, she traced her finger along the scar, touching very lightly as though afraid she might somehow do him further damage. "What happened?"

He shrugged. "A fight. I slipped on wet ground."

"This is a killing wound yet you survived it and it seems to give you no trouble. How can that be?"

Dragon laughed, trying to ignore the effect her touch had on him. He was intensely aroused and unsure how much longer he could maintain his pose of calm control. Being stroked by her definitely didn't help. Neither did the tender concern he saw flash in eyes that not so very long ago had been spitting fire at him.

She was a contrary woman, capable of fierce pride and will yet also vulnerable and strong all at the same time. She could frustrate, bewilder, and mystify him, and he thanked Loki for it. Or perhaps Frigg, for he suspected the queen of the gods would approve of one such as Rycca.

"You see here," he said as casually as he could manage, "the benefits of travel and my own brother's fortuitous choice of a wife."

Rycca's brow furled. "I don't understand."

"In Constantinople I met a physician who showed me how wounds could be stitched. It seemed a sensible measure, much preferable to searing skin with a fiery blade. Years later, when I found myself bleeding to death on a road near Hedeby in Jutland, I remembered that I had thread and needle in my kit, the kind we use for repairing sails. It worked well enough."

"You stitched up your own leg with canvas twine and a needle?" The mere thought of what that must have felt like filled her with horror. To manage such a feat, a man would have to have nearly superhuman control.

"It was preferable to the alternative," Dragon said. "However, I didn't make a very good job of it. The leg healed badly and troubled me until Cymbra took charge of it."

"The Lady Cymbra, wife to the Wolf?"

"The very same. She is a healer of extraordinary ability. Although I admit there were times when I contemplated wringing her lovely neck, she coaxed, pummeled, and generally coerced me back to full health."

That would be the Cymbra who was renowned for her beauty and who had provided Krysta with all those wonderful recipes, the same Krysta who was herself so lovely, so kind and gentle, so completely what a wife should be.

Unlike Rycca, who had no domestic skills at all and who was as far from such feminine perfection as it was possible to be. She who dreamed of freedom, announced her determination to bear only daughters, and snarled at her husband when he gave her pleasure.

Heaven help her.

Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face for Dragon's mood changed suddenly. He took her wine goblet from her and set it with his own on the table beside the bed. She stiffened when he drew her into his arms but he ignored that and settled her head firmly against his shoulder.

"Watching you," he said, "is like watching swiftly changing weather move over the sea. One moment you seem tranquility itself, and the next you are roiled by storms."

Her voice was muffled against his skin, so close that he felt the movement of her lips. "Ever have I kept my feelings hidden, until now. Indeed, there were long stretches of time when I thought I had none."

"Except the desire to be free?"

Her hair brushed against him like warm silk. "Except for that, and had I let any inkling of it emerge, a beating from my father would have been the least result."

"I wonder," Dragon mused as he stroked her hair, "how long it will take you to
realize
that you are safe here."

She had no answer for him, nor did she particularly seek one. The shadows of her past cast into the present were no pleasant topic to contemplate, especially when far more enticing pursuit presented itself. It seemed he had forgotten his reluctance to be touched by her. Yet he would not yield as he had that incandescent night she cherished still. Perhaps he should drink more wine. But when she teasingly reached across his chest for the goblet to hand to him, he pulled her back. So quickly that she had no chance to realize his intent, he turned them both, pressing her into the soft mattress as he loomed above her.

His teeth flashed white as he smiled. "Let us strike a bargain, wife."

"What sort of bargain?" She made no attempt to hide her suspicion.

"I will do as I please with no resistance from you, and when I am satisfied, you may do as you wish."

For just a moment, his evenhandedness surprised her. Just a moment…

"Do you remember what I said about ignorance and innocence, my lord?"

"Very clearly, my lady."

"I have shucked off both. You toy with me. When you are satisfied, you will go to sleep and leave me to fume at having entered into so poor a pact."

"You wound me, all the worse for wounding yourself. Do you not know you are a temptress no man could resist?" He frowned at the sudden thought. "Although they had damn well better lest they be fodder for my sword." His big hand caught in her hair, drawing her head back, baring her throat to his caress. "Be advised, wife, I am a possessive man."

She took a breath, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and parted her legs, drawing him into the cradle of her hips. "Be advised, husband," she murmured close beside his ear just before she bit it lightly, "I am a possessive woman."

His big body tensed in her embrace, becoming suddenly urgent. She had a scant moment to spare for thought of her daring at having said such a thing, for women were not supposed to place such demands upon their lords. Thought fled as he cupped her breasts, teasing his fingers over her nipples before suckling first one, then the other. The pleasure was, as always, almost too much. So too was his filling of her though he went gently, his face strained with the harshness of his control, entering her slowly but inexorably. She felt herself stretching to contain him as she had before but this time there was no pain, only a sense of stunning completion that filled and filled her until all the empty places inside her seemed taken up by him.

Dragon raised himself on his powerful arms, gazing down at her and farther at them united. Though the night air was cool, sweat gleamed on his forehead, yet he moved within her hardly at all, holding himself almost entirely still save for the very tip of him that probed lightly, seeking, then flexed against some hidden part of her being she had not known existed.

The world exploded and she with it. Without warning, she was sent hurtling over a shattering peak. Scarcely had crest after crest of pleasure begun to ebb than he was moving within her, hard and deep, holding back nothing now but taking his due as man, lover, husband. Taking her with him as well as the wildness grew, rippling through her like waves vibrating ever outward from a center. Her head tossed back and forth helplessly on the pillow, her back arching as she strained to be even closer to him, take him even more deeply into herself, make them even more completely one.

"Dragon… !"

No denial this but entreaty and demand together. She clung to him, her nails digging into his shoulders, as the world shattered yet again and took with it his formidable control. He claimed her mouth with the same rhythm as he drove within her, deeper, harder, faster… His orgasm seized him and went on and on, seemingly endless.

RYCCA LAY ON HER BACK. SHE WAS SURPRISED TO find herself still conscious, or returning to it. Truly, after what she had just experienced she would not have thought it amiss to discover herself no longer a part of the mundane world. Yet there she was, the sheet feeling crumpled and hot beneath her, her lips and nipples tender, and the faint resonance of throbbing between her legs to remind her of what had just happened.

She turned her head slightly, relieved that she could do so, and found Dragon not asleep or at least drowsily replete as he should have been—oh no, not he—but wide awake, propped up on an elbow, and looking at her with what appeared suspiciously to be amusement.

"I don't think you are human," she said sulkily.

He grinned. "I felt like a god a few moments ago but that's to your credit, not mine."

That sounded rather nice but still his apparent nonchalance in the face of an experience that had left her utterly drained was irksome. She sat up suddenly and left the bed just as quickly, ignoring her weak-willed wish to stay right where she was, curl up against him, and feel the warmth and strength of his arms around her.

It was his turn to be irked. "And where do you think you are going?"

She tossed her hair aside so that it fell down her naked back to brush against her bottom. Over her shoulder, she said, "To find a night robe."

She thought he might object but he surprised her, which really should not have been surprising at all since he seemed ever to be doing that.

"Wear the green one."

About to take it from the chest, she looked at him instead. He was stretched out on his side on the rumpled bed, his head propped up in his palm, unbashed by the intimacy that made her acutely self-conscious yet oddly content all at the same time. With haste, she seized the green night robe and dropped it over her head.

Dragon hid a smile. He doubted she had any notion of how she looked draped in what seemed no more substantial than sea foam and lit by starlight filtering through the shutters. But he wasn't about to tell her for she was already skittish enough. Instead, he sat up, moved to the side of the bed, and held out a hand.

She hesitated, but when he said nothing, demanded nothing, did nothing more save wait, Rycca weakened. If only she could find something to dislike about him, she could steel herself against the insidious, treacherous, delightful yearnings he set off within her. But that perfect visage and magnificent body were mere trappings for a spirit of true nobility. How could she do other than fall completely under his spell, forget her own dreams, and become just one more in what was no doubt a
very
long line of simpering females grateful for his merest attention?

She shivered in pure revulsion.

"Rycca
…
?"

"A sudden chill."

He rose, drew her into his arms, and led her back to the bed, producing a luxurious fur throw to place over her, even tucking it in around her before fetching them both more wine.

"Wanner?" he asked when he joined her beneath the fur.

Curled in the shelter of his body, feeling more cared for and protected than she ever had in her life, Rycca could only nod. The wine, the warmth, and all that had proceeded between them made her suddenly drowsy. She was only dimly aware of Dragon taking the goblet from her.

"I don't want to sleep," she murmured.

"What do you want to do?" His voice was soft in the darkness, so very near.

"Lie here… like this…"

She thought that being a man, he would object, would want more. But he merely kissed the smooth curve of her shoulder and fitted her against his body, her back to his chest and his arm resting on her waist, his ringers lightly brushing her belly.

Rycca exhaled slowly. Her limbs felt like water. Through the thin silk of the night robe she felt his hardness, yet he did nothing, said nothing, only held her.

"Do you ever lose control?" she asked.

He was silent, considering. Finally, he said, "Not in a longtime."

"Do you want to?" The question surprised her. She did not know where it came from or why. Likely he did not either but he answered all the same.

"Control is important. That is most obvious in battle where it makes the difference between who lives and who dies, but it always matters."

"As it did when you stitched up your own wound?"

"Yes, without control I would not have survived."

"What about when you were a child?"

"I was lucky then and I had Wolf to shield me."

She turned in his arms, amid the soft rustle of silk, and faced him. Her slender ringers lightly stroked the square line of his jaw. "You have not answered my question."

"I do not understand it. Why would I want to lose control?"

"You might discover that you do not always need it. You trusted your brother. You knew you could always rely on him. Have you ever trusted anyone else like that?"

He answered quickly, emphatically. "No."

Her legs entwined with his, her toes tracing the muscled line of his calves. "Do you want to?"

"Do you really have to ask what I wish, and twice?" His chuckle was deep and affectionate. "Forgive me for being blunt, sweetheart, but isn't it rather obvious?"

It was and becoming more so by the moment, but Rycca refused to be distracted. While she felt so emboldened, she meant to make the most of it.

"Indulge me," she murmured against his chest. "Tell me what the man inside craves."

"Are you asking if I would like to trust you? Yes, of course I would. But you have to admit, we did not get off to the sort of start that inspires trust."

"Gould we not try?"

He cupped her breast, drew his thumb over the rigid nipple. "We could do that," he agreed when he felt her shiver. "You could begin by not fighting me."