Fall Hard (13 page)

Loki, who’d padded to the door in Viggo’s wake, trotted into the clearest corner and curled up in his basket, his tail thumping once, twice before he settled.

“Have you lived here long?” I asked, meaning,
Have I been here before?
I didn’t think so. The whole place, the furniture, the Icelandic band posters on the walls—none of it said anything to me.

Viggo shrugged. “Six months or so. It’s not much, I know. But the rent is low, and the location is good.”

Six months. I’d been right, then. It was reassuring. Sitting on the sofa, I noticed a guitar propped against the wall next to the television. An image drifted into my mind of Viggo playing the guitar and singing something in a low voice, but I wasn’t sure if it was a memory or just my imagination.

“You like pasta?” Viggo asked, startling me a little.

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Good.” He grinned. “I don’t know how to cook much else. Would you like a drink while you wait?”

“I’ll help, if you like. I’m not the world’s greatest cook either, but I do know which end of a knife is which.”

We managed to throw together a simple, spicy sauce of chicken, tomatoes and vegetables, and ate sitting on mismatched chairs at Viggo’s small wooden table. Viggo served the wine in a couple of glasses he’d clearly liberated from a bar somewhere. Its subtle, smoky flavour went well with the rich sauce. With a lamp switched on, the place seemed less drab, cosier. Sven would have hated it, I thought.

I shook my head angrily. Here and now, the intrusion of my past was jarring, unsettling.

Viggo looked up at me. “Something’s wrong?”

“No, I’m fine.” I produced a weak smile. “Just a sort of…déjà vu, I suppose.” I pushed the last few bits of pasta around the plate with my fork. “Is this weird for you?”

“Weird? No.” Viggo leaned across the table to grab my arm. “It’s good to have you here.”

All at once, there was tension between us. But not in a bad way. I put down my fork and grasped his forearm. “It’s good to be here.” I wanted to ask if we’d done this before—cooked a meal together—but surely I’d have done that with Sven? Fresh start, I reminded myself, silencing the voice of suspicion (Gretchen’s voice) that nagged at the back of my mind. “Ready for dessert?” I asked instead in a low voice, rubbing my thumb slowly, deliberately over the bare skin of his arm.

Viggo raised a teasing eyebrow. “I have some skyr in the fridge.”

I grinned. “Kinky.”

We rose from the table as one, our mouths meeting with bruising force that softened into tenderness. Viggo’s beard rasped against my face, still sensitive from shaving twice in one day. My hip knocked the table, and a fork clattered on the floor.

“We should go to bed,” Viggo said hoarsely.

I nodded, not trusting myself to answer, and pulled him in for another rough kiss. His lips were warm and spicy, a little chapped. I couldn’t get enough of him. “Want to fuck you again,” I breathed in his ear.

“Then come,” he said, and half pulled me after him into the bedroom, his arm around my waist. It was a small room, most of it taken up by a large bed, which suited me fine.

“Get this off.” I tugged at his shirt.

Viggo smiled. “You’re impatient.”

“Yes. Get it off.”

He made a tease of it, deliberately slowing his fingers as they worked on the buttons. My face must have shown what I thought of that, as halfway down, he took pity on me and pulled the shirt smoothly over his head.

My breath caught. “God, you get better looking every time I see you.” I reached out to touch the golden skin of his chest, running my hands over its smooth planes. Jörmungandr hissed menace from his place coiled around Viggo’s muscular arm, but the man himself smelt of warmth and safety. I let my hands drop to his waist and started tugging at his belt—not helped by Viggo, who took my face in both hands to kiss me softly and thoroughly. “Hey,” I said, pulling back, laughing. “I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“I think you’ll work it out.” True enough, at that moment I got the belt undone. His jeans didn’t take long after that, and soon I was pushing them off his hips. He was fully hard, his cock hot and heavy when I cupped it in one hand. I ground my own erection against his hip, the sensation frustratingly dulled by layers of fabric.

“You need to get those off,” Viggo growled. Had he read my mind? I hesitated.

“Turn around,” I said finally. He raised an eyebrow and did as I’d asked, turning to face the bed and taking the opportunity to kick his jeans and underwear off completely.

He’d misread my crisis of confidence, I realised with relief as he flexed the muscles in his back deliberately, making Yggdrasil’s tattooed branches seem to sway in an unfelt breeze. I stripped quickly while he waited with no sign of impatience. Reassured, I stepped forward to fit my naked body to his, my stiff cock pressing against his spine. Gripping his hips with both hands, I rubbed against him a couple of times, the sensations electrifying. He pressed back against me with a barely audible moan, which I took as a sign he was enjoying it too.

But I didn’t want this to be over too soon. I wanted to make it good for Viggo. I dropped to my knees and used my hands to spread his buttocks, exposing Yggdrasil’s taproot. Starting at the base of his spine, I ran my tongue down the root all the way until I was licking at his hole, tasting salt and musk.

Viggo’s response was much louder than before. He gasped and swore. I bit playfully at one cheek, then pulled back. “Not too rough for you?”

“No. It’s good.” He spread his legs and bent to lean on the bed, giving me easier access to him. I took a deep breath, just looking at him for a moment, spread out for me and me alone. Then I shut my eyes briefly and went back to my task.

Viggo jerked as my tongue touched his pucker, and his breathing came heavily and fast. I ran my tongue around his hole, every so often giving teasing little jabs to the centre. His muscular thighs flexed in my grasp, his legs shaking a little. It was driving me wild.

I reached through his legs to grab hold of his balls, rolling them in my hand, feeling them tighten as I did so.

Viggo groaned. “I think you should fuck me now. Or it will be too late.”

“Stuff?” I panted, pulling back.

Viggo clambered over the bed and reached a long, muscular arm into a bedside drawer, coming out with condom and lube. He tossed them on the bed near me and stretched out on his belly, his head pillowed on his arm and one leg pulled up to give me access. My hands shook just a little as I rolled on the condom. I grabbed hold of his buttocks with both hands, stroking and kneading them, then ripped open the lube and coated my fingers.

He didn’t seem to need so much preparation this time, which was good, as my erection was almost painful at this stage. “Ready?” I breathed.

“
Ja
.”

I lubed myself up and lay down beside him, spooning him from behind, that amazing tattoo filling my vision as it pointed the way down to his entrance. I traced a finger all the way down Yggdrasil’s trunk, and Viggo shivered.

“Lift your leg up,” I said, and Viggo did as I’d asked, exposing himself to me. I had to suppress a shiver of my own at the sight.

Grabbing my cock in one hand, I lined myself up and pushed in as slowly as I could. The pressure of his internal walls around me was agonising pleasure, a torture I would have begged for. Viggo felt hot and welcoming and mine. When I was fully seated, my balls pressed against his arse, I paused, using an arm around his middle to pull him to me as tightly as I could. Viggo grunted and gripped my arm with a hand, as if trying to help. Our sweat mingled, soon turning from sticky into slippery. His scent was primitive, familiar. Male.

“Need a minute?” I gasped into his shoulder, hoping he’d say no.

“No. It’s good.”

“Good.” I took a moment to lick the back of his neck, tasting an explosion of salt and letting his startled laugh warm me inside as his skin warmed the rest of me. Then I pulled out a few inches and thrust back in again before halting, teasing.

“God,” he groaned. “Again.”

“Sure?” I made my tone innocent, enquiring, even as I grinned into his back.

“Yes. More.
Now
.”

“Impatient.” He wasn’t the only one. I’d been barely holding myself back, and now I stopped trying, just thrust into him again and again.

Our gasps and the slap of flesh on flesh filled the air, a porno soundtrack without the cheesy music. I felt so close to him now, and he was mine in a way he hadn’t been that time I’d taken him down by the river. I wanted him to know it but didn’t know how to frame the words, so I just pulled him even tighter and hoped he’d understand. Then I trailed my fingers down his stomach and grasped his impossibly hard cock.

Viggo swore and bucked his hips back into mine. Our rhythm was all over the place, but it didn’t seem to matter; it was no time at all before he was groaning loudly and pulsing in my hand. The contractions of his arse around my cock were irresistible. I came too, pouring myself into him in a haze of ecstasy that seemed to go on and on.

Afterwards, we lay together in a sweaty heap, Viggo’s head on my chest. I played idly with his hair.

“Does it bother you I like your tattoos so much?” I asked, my fingers stilling for a moment.

There was a tremble of laughter through Viggo’s frame. “Of course not. Why do you think I get them?”

My chest felt cold. “You didn’t have them before?” My tone was too urgent, I knew—and Viggo tensed, didn’t answer. “Viggo?”

He held up his hand, Mjölnir towards me. “I had this one. But the large ones, the serpent and Yggdrasil, I got after.”

“When?” I demanded. “Before or after my accident?”

He didn’t want to tell me. I could see it in the frown that flittered over his forehead, hear it in his silence. “This one, before,” he said finally, leaning up on one elbow and nodding towards his shoulder. Jörmungandr’s fanged mouth spat silent defiance at me. “But the other, I got after.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, one-sided, and didn’t answer. Was it, somehow, symbolic to him? A tree of life to celebrate my survival?

Right. Because everything, of course, was about me. It was just a bloody tattoo.

But it bothered me. I hadn’t realised how much I’d been counting on my reaction to tattoos having been a locked-away memory of Viggo. If not that, then what? And what, if anything, did it say about my current relationship with the man? I stared up at the ceiling, at a small patch of damp above our heads. It wasn’t enough to distract me from my thoughts.

“We should go out,” I blurted out. “Tomorrow night. For dinner, or—”

“I can’t,” he interrupted me, kissing me afterwards to soothe the sting. “I have to work.”

“I didn’t know you did evening trips.” Although I supposed it stayed light long enough, so why not?

“Not at the Riverjet. Friday, Saturday evenings I work at Mistilteinn. It’s a café-bar in the city centre. Close to Laugavegur.” Laugavegur was the main shopping street in Reykjavik.

“Playing music?” I asked, mindful of the guitar I’d seen earlier.

Viggo grinned. “Only sometimes. Mostly I tend bar.”

“You work too much,” I muttered, staring once more at the stain on the ceiling. Was the rent on this place really so high he needed two jobs?

Viggo shrugged. The motion made his grip on me loosen and then tighten again. I liked it. “I needed money.”

“Needed? You don’t anymore?”

He chuckled softly. “I was planning a trip to England. Now I think I won’t go so soon.”

A thrill prickled through me, and I half sat, staring down at him. “You were coming to visit me? Why didn’t you call me, then? Or, or e-mail, or something?”

His gaze flickered to one side. “You changed your number, you remember? And I didn’t have your e-mail. And I wanted to see you.”

Because we’d been lovers?
My guts were tying themselves in knots. I wanted to ask—but I didn’t. A new start, Viggo had said. Surely that was the best way.

Coward
, my conscience told me. “Good thing I came back, then. I’m not sure how you’d have got on with Gretchen. She can be a bit prickly.”

Viggo gave me a cocky grin. “I’m good with women. We would be okay.”

“I bet you charm all the tourists,” I said, half amused and half irrationally jealous.

“I get good tips,” he admitted.

“Just as long as that’s all you’re getting from them.” I stroked his face, and when my fingers neared his mouth, he snapped playfully at them with his teeth.

“You think I fuck all the good-looking men in the office after a riverjet trip?”

“If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here,” I said seriously. Something fluttered in my chest as the words slipped out.

Viggo’s gaze turned solemn. “I’m glad,” was all he said. Then he reached up and pulled me down towards him with an arm around my neck. Our kiss was slow, unhurried, but it felt like something momentous had passed between us. I needed his touch, anchoring me.

We dozed a little after that. Or at least, I did, and Viggo didn’t stir from my arms. Daylight hadn’t yet faded when I roused myself again, and I could hear children calling in the street. “Are you awake?”