Enthralled: Viking Lore, Book 1 (15 page)

“Laurel, are you
awake?”

Laurel’s already-open
eyes widened. “Yes,” she whispered back into the darkness inside the hut.
Unlike when she’d first arrived in the Viking village, the sun now sank past
the horizon for a brief time each night. Thankfully, the tightly thatched roof
and the furs hung over the window openings blocked most of the light. Even
still, she hadn’t been able to sleep.

“I think we should
talk.” Eirik’s voice came from the far corner where he always slept atop a
thick fur.

“Very well.”

He’d been unusually
quiet in the few days since his game with Alaric. Laurel’s stomach squeezed at
the memory of that evening, when she hadn’t understood everything they’d spoken
of, yet she could make out enough to know that they’d discussed her—that some
danger loomed ahead of her. Even more shocking, she thought she’d heard her
name combined with the word for—a union of some sort? It couldn’t mean…

She didn’t hear him
move through the cottage, but suddenly his weight bore down on the bed near her
hip, making the wooden frame creak slightly.

A long silence
stretched and she could faintly make out his blue eyes, which were darker than
usual, pinning her to the bed.

“I cannot stop thinking
about that day at the lake,” he said, his voice low.

She inhaled in
surprise. She’d hoped he would explain what he and Alaric had been discussing
that involved her. She hadn’t expected such a bold declaration.

“N-neither can I,” she
breathed. Even at the mere mention of the lake, her skin flushed and her lips
tingled at the memory of his kisses. Of course, he had kissed her elsewhere as
well
.
Her nipples drew taut underneath the
shift she wore—the only thing between her skin and the air.

“I would like to know
what you’d think about …”

His voice was thick as
he struggled to form the words.

“What is it?” She held
her breath.

“I wondered if perhaps
you would consider…if you would consider marrying me.”

She sat bolt upright so
quickly that she almost knocked foreheads with him. “What?”

First he was reticent
and taciturn for several days. Then he was whispering to her in the middle of
the night, but instead of explaining things, he reminded her of the heated
kiss—and more—they’d shared nigh a fortnight ago, and now he was asking her
about marriage?

“What do you…where is
this…what?”

He lifted a shadowy
hand and brushed his fingers along her cheekbone. “This is obviously sudden and
unexpected,” he said. Even as he spoke, her eyes drifted closed for a moment at
the feel of his callused yet gentle fingers playing along her skin.

“I do not know how
these things are done in Northumbria,” he said. In the dim light
,
she could see that his brow was furrowed.

She opened her mouth to
respond
,
but then a realization struck her. “Nor
do I.”

She’d never given much
thought to marriage. Since Whitby Abbey was all she’d ever known, marriage
wasn’t part of daily life. Even though marriage was proper for people outside
the Abbey, the nuns and monks within its walls looked down on such earthly
unions as somehow less pure that their own relationship with God.

Of course, she wasn’t a
nun, so she wasn’t bound to their way of life. Yet she had never considered a
life outside of her servitude to the Abbey before.

“Why would you want to
marry me?” Asking such a question made her blush, but she was so caught
off-guard that she didn’t bother worrying about the boldness of her words.

Eirik cleared his
throat. “There are several reasons,” he began, his voice low and earnest. “I
admire your bravery given this…difficult situation. You are a hard worker, and
you awe me with how quickly you learn new things. And we seem to
be…compatible…in other ways.”

His fingers trailed
down her cheek to her neck, the touch feather-soft.

“I know I said I
wouldn’t touch you like this again,” he breathed. “By the gods, I’ve tried to
stop myself, yet your skin, your lips, your eyes—they haunt me. I am drawn to
you, Laurel. I long for your company when you are not with me, and I feel calm
and excited all at once when I am in your presence.”

She shivered at both
his touch and his words. Something deep within her wound tight, ready to break.
“I…I feel the same way. I’ve fought against myself all this time, telling
myself that it is wrong to care for a Viking heathen, wrong to have such sinful
thoughts and desires, wrong to give up my old life, my old self.”

Tears brimmed in her
eyes as she spoke, blurring the shadowy outline of his ruggedly hansom face.
“And I have fought myself as well,” he whispered, letting his fingers play along
the top of her shift. “I’ve held myself to my code of honor, yet it leaves me
cold when all I want is you.”

She exhaled, and it
felt like all her fears, all her worries, left with the air from her lungs. She
could no longer pretend that she didn’t want him too, or settle for the idea
that she couldn’t have him. She could no longer cling to the edicts of Abbess
Hilda about her sinfulness, how wrong it was that she was willful, how her life
was a punishment from God.

For in Eirik’s deep
blue eyes she saw herself anew. She saw that her willfulness and quick mind
were gifts, not burdens. She saw that the heat now coursing through her body
meant that she was alive, a small vessel for pleasures as old as time itself.
She saw that the world was far wider, far richer, far more vivid that she’d
ever imagined.

She leaned forward and
brushed her mouth against his, trying to communicate the swirling emotions
overflowing within her. She didn’t know what marriage to this man would mean.
She wasn’t sure if she was ready to decide, but her body needed to touch his.
She needed to feel the heat she had tried to deny herself for so long.

He responded to her
kiss immediately, pulling her into his chest. He tilted his head and deepened
the kiss, stealing her breath with his soft yet firm caresses. His hands dug
into her back possessively.

She inhaled through her
nose and swam in his clean, masculine scent. Her fingers couldn’t find a
resting place, so eager were they to skim over his arms, his back, his neck,
and to twine in the golden waves of hair hanging around his shoulders.

“I’ve thought about
having you in this bed every cursed night,” he breathed against her lips. He
leaned forward so that she eased back onto the down-filled mattress.

Even as she sank back
into the bed, a flicker of doubt threaded through her. “I’m not ready to…”

He propped himself on
his elbow above her, his eyes glimmering hungrily. “Nei, you are an innocent.
Not yet. But let me give you a taste of the pleasures we can share.”

His words held a dark
promise that sent a shiver through her. Her body seemed to be acting separately
from her mind, for though she still felt the weight of guilt for her wanton
ways, she craved to delve deeper into the pleasures they had waded into that
day at the lake.

Before Abbess Hilda’s
voice could castigate her, Eirik’s hand skimmed down from her collar bones to
her breast. A jolt of sensation had her bucking at the light touch. His thumb
brushed over her already-hard nipple, which strained against the linen of her
shift.

“I have dreamt of
tasting you again,” he whispered. “But I long to taste you more fully.”

His tongue twined with
hers for another moment, but then he tore his mouth away and lowered his head
to her breast. As he had done before, he flicked his tongue across the peak of
her breast. Even through her shift, the sensation was almost too much. She
writhed and moaned as heat pooled between her legs.

She clung desperately
to his shoulders, her fingers sinking like talons into his muscular flesh.
After several torturous moments of his attention on one breast, he shifted to
the other, and she was treated to another fresh bolt of pure heat.

One of her knees rose
of its own accord so that it cradled the outside of his hip. He made a
satisfied noise in the back of his throat at her unconscious motion. He reached
down and wrapped one large hand around the back of her other leg, pulling it up
so that his torso rested between her two bent knees. She felt exposed like
this, but instead of being frightened, it only heightened the swirling heat in
her limbs.

His hand remained
wrapped around her leg, and he began slowly pulling her shift higher. When the
material was to her mid-thigh, he shifted slightly to let his fingertips trai
l
down the inside of her leg. Closer and closer his
fingers drew to the apex of her legs while his tongue swirled and teased her
breasts.

She gasped as his
fingers brushed against the damp curls protecting her most private place. No
one had ever touched her there before. Once, when she was younger, she had been
caught by one of the nuns touching herself there. She had only been exploring
with childlike curiosity, but Abbess Hilda had beaten both of her hands with a
switch, then strapped her to the cursed chair and dunked her.

She tensed as one of
his fingers slid down the damp seam, remembering the Abbess’s harsh words and
punishment.

“Does this feel good?”
he whispered against her breast.

She had never
considered such a question before, yet the answer was so clear. It felt
incredible
.
Her insides were knotted in exquisite anguish, longing for more. Her skin felt
flushed and tight, her breasts heavy and needy. And between her legs, she was
wet and hot and hungry. Something was building within her, and it made her feel
empty and greedy.

And it was Eirik—strong,
honorable, kind Eirik—sharing this moment with her. How could this be the
terrible sin Abbess Hilda had claimed it was?

“Aye,” she breathed. “I
want more.” It was an affirmation of her choice, a rejection of her past, a
glorying in this perfect moment.

His finger resumed its
trail down her damp, aching flesh. He parted the folds of skin and brushed
against that spot of pure pleasure. She arched her back instinctively, her body
seeming to know what to do.

He caressed her, teased
her, brushed and rubbed and circled until her breathing was shallow and she
thought she’d go senseless from the pleasure. Then he slipped one large finger
inside her and a whole new, deeper sensation filled her. He lifted his mouth
from one of her breasts
,
and the cool air
hitting the damp linen shift over her nipple sent fresh ripples of hot and cold
sensation through her.

She was too deep in her
own pleasure to comprehend what he was doing at first. Then she felt his hot
breath right against the dampness between her legs and she jerked up onto her
elbows.

“What are you doing?”
she panted, eyes wide on him.

“Giving you pleasure,”
he breathed. Before she could ask what he meant, his tongue flicked out and
over that most sensitive spot.

She gasped and moaned,
her knees shuddering around his shoulders. As his tongue stroked her, he slowly
began moving his finger in and out.

“You taste even better
than you did in my dreams,” he said, his hot breath teasing her flesh.

Though the words were
bold, for some reason they made her head spin even faster. There was something
so raw, so carnal about this act. She had no idea what to expect when it came
to the ways of bodily pleasure, yet this was far more animalistic than she’d
imagined. Her body responded of its own accord, greedy, hungry, open. She cared
not whether she should be embarrassed by the rawness of this moment. All she
knew was that she wanted more.

She felt herself
climbing toward something just out of reach, some promised relief from the
nigh-overpowering sensations coursing through her. His tongue flicked and
swirled while his finger moved faster, pumping in and out. She spiraled higher
still, her breath hitching as she reached.

Then something broke
within her and a flood of pleasure washed over her, drowning her. She cried out
wordlessly as her body shook and clenched and twisted, drenched in ecstasy.
Slowly, the waves of pleasure ebbed, but she felt washed clean by their power.

His touches slowed and
finally ceased as he pulled away and brought himself up alongside her.

“That was…” She
couldn’t find the words for what she’d just experienced.

“That was just the
beginning,” he finished for her.

She became aware of the
rock-hard shaft jutting into her hip. He was still wound tight as a bowstring,
his pleasure unspent. Could they share the kind of intense sensations that had
just claimed her? She reached out to let her fingers brush his rigid manhood.
He sucked a hard breath through his teeth at even that light touch.

He let her explore him
through his linen pants, occasionally groaning or inhaling as she discovered
what he liked.

But then he stilled her
hand with his.