Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) (28 page)

“I shall keep the things I hold dear. My way of seeing the world. My memories of those I love. But your world is my home now. No one in Geitland will know my words. Your words are my words.”

“I fell in love with you as we shared our words with each other. Mine to you, and yours to me. I would hold that dear between us. We were bound today by your way, and I feel no less bound for that. We will be bound in my way soon. I like that thought—that two ways have brought us together and hold us fast. Please don’t give up who you were when we met.”

“I was your slave when we met.”

His mouth curved into a wry grin. “Never have you been a slave, my love. Rope around your neck or not. You are like Brenna in that way. Your spirit is too strong to be broken.”

She might have believed that once, but no longer. She had been broken. She had come to Karlsa in pieces. But when she shook her head and began to say so, Leif caught her and held her still.

“You have been lost. Not broken. You stand here as my wife, smiling up at me, offering your trust. That is proof that you are found and whole. And now, at long last, you are mine.”

She pushed her hands up over his shoulders, and he lifted her so that she could wrap her arms around his neck. As he carried her to the back room and her bed, she feathered tiny kisses over his lips and beard.

He set her down and turned her, and she saw that the floor of this room had been covered and mounded in furs and woven wool. “What is this?”

“I think our friends who lit the fire and the candles took pity on me and made us a bed on the floor.”

She considered her bed. It was longer than the bed she’d kept at the castle, but it was narrow, and the rope supports creaked oddly when Leif even sat on it. “Is your bed in Geitland larger?”

“Our bed. And yes. Much.” He bent low and swept his arms around her, resting both large hands on her belly. At her ear, he rumbled, “Room for you and me and your belly.”

Before she could play at offense, his hand skimmed down and began to gather up the skirt of her gown. His mouth was still at her ear, his beard brushing over sensitive flesh, and she could hear the change in his mood in the sudden roughness of his breath.

“Olga.” Her name was a groan in his chest. “I need you.”

He had brought her skirt up to the tops of her thighs, and he plunged one hand under and found her center. His fingers brushed over that tender, private place, and she jumped in his embrace and reached down to grab his hand. Quickly, he pulled away, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She shoved his hand back where it had been and held it there, and he groaned harshly at her forwardness.

And then he gave her what she wanted. Fully clothed, Leif bent over her, sheltering her completely under his broad body. Olga bent forward as well, holding his hand between her legs; he played with her body, his fingers sliding through her dripping-wet folds and paying especial notice to the tiny nub where every point of sensation in her body converged into a tangle of ecstasy. His other arm crossed over her chest, and that hand hooked her shoulder, holding her in a powerful grip. His face was buried in her hair, his teeth at her neck, his breath roaring in her ear. She could feel the iron heft of him pressing against her hip and the slight, the involuntary flex of his hips as his hand rubbed and swirled and plucked until black sparks filled her head and she thought she would swoon. Grunting like an animal, she completed.

She knew, because she had cared for many women in her condition, that more than the belly changed when a child grew inside a woman’s body. The woman’s needs changed as well, and her sensations. Many women she’d known—including Brenna—had become wild with their men during their carrying.

The first time she’d carried a child, she’d never felt desire before and she was too much consumed by fear and watchfulness, subject to a cruel husband, to feel it then. This time, she’d spent much of it sad or ill or recovering, and she had not, until the past few weeks, felt anything like it. But since she’d been well enough to appreciate Leif’s presence, she’d known the deep itch of intense physical desire.

Leif’s hands on her now were nothing like she had felt before, even with him. It was as if the parts of her that made the most pleasure had grown somehow, though they felt no bigger. The sensation had doubled, even trebled, however, and even as she sagged into Leif’s arms, her release over, she could not let his hand go. She wanted his touch. She wanted to feel him all over.

“I want to be bare,” she gasped, and Leif made a noise like a laugh and a groan and a grunt all coiled into one.

“As do I, my wild wife. I want to feel your skin on mine. I want to taste you and bring you that pleasure every way I can.” He stood and turned her. While she watched, he put his fingers into his mouth and licked them clean.

This was not how it had been with them before. As they undressed, their eyes on each other, plucking playfully with each other’s garments, Olga wondered at the change. Was it just the babe, making her feel more? No, it was also Leif. And it was her, too.

They were fully open with each other. Unguarded. Unreserved. Giving freely. Seeing a future together.

They were mated. For life. And that was new.

As soon as he had tossed his breeches away, Leif grabbed her and brought her down to the furs with him, so quickly she squealed. And then his head was between her legs and his mouth was on her, his tongue traveling the same short path his fingers had. His arms hooked under her thighs and curled around her hips, and he palmed her belly in both hands as he tasted her fully.

Almost at once, another release was on her, and she reached down and grabbed his hair, twisting it around her fingers as she tried to hold him more firmly to her. He chuckled, and she felt the rumble of it on her flesh. She couldn’t be still. Her hips rocked under him, her hands pulled and pushed at his hair and head, her feet dragged over the rolling muscles of his back, and still it wasn’t enough. She began to shake her head to and fro, not because she meant to deny or stop him but because it was the only other movement left to her.

When the waves crashed over her, Leif didn’t stop or ease up. He stayed where he was, even as the sensations became too much, even as her body demanded a moment of rest. He denied her that respite and continued his feast, and, just as she was desperate for him to stop, ecstasy grabbed her again, and this time, she screamed.

He brought her softly down, kissing lightly, gentling her with hands and mouth and voice and breath. Only when she was at ease and had her full breath did he pull back and then ease up to loom over her, holding his weight from her with his arms locked stiff.

His beard sparkled in the candlelight, and she knew that it was her body that had wet him. She rose up and kissed him, tasting and smelling herself on his lips and beard. When she lay back, he cocked his head at her and smiled in a way that said he was pleasantly surprised.

“It is different between us now.”

“I feel it, too,” she answered, having already had this conversation with herself. “We are mated. That is the difference. We are bound fast.”

She reached between them and took hold of his sex. With a light pull that wrenched a grunt from him, she led him to the place they both wanted him to be.

This way, he was more careful than he had been with his hands and head between her legs. He pushed in slowly, his eyes locked with hers, watching her, and he stopped just at the point where he could go no farther. For a moment, he stayed there, still, and studied her face. It was more than studying—he was telling her something, sharing with her. Love. She felt it like heat on her skin and in her heart, his love for her.

Smiling, she raised her legs and hooked them around his waist. She tangled her hands in his hair again and pulled until, with a grunt, he came down to his elbows instead of his hands.

He kissed her as he pulled slowly out and pushed slowly back in. Their rhythm began, and Leif was gentle and controlled, watching her, bringing her, with each filling slide, closer to yet another inferno of pleasure. This time, though, with her release achieved so many times already, she focused on him, on his taste, his scent, her scent mingling with his. She focused on the feel of their mouths together and moved her own in ways she knew would make him grunt with need. She focused on the slide of his body—large, the skin roughened with hair and scars—on hers, small and smooth. She focused on the pulse of him inside her and squeezed around him to lift their mutual pleasure even higher.

So intent was she on making feelings for him and for her, she didn’t notice how close they both were until he was moving swiftly, struggling to keep control, and she was moving against him, trying to make him deeper, bring him closer—the things she’d asked him to be careful of.

With a roar of frustrated defeat, he suddenly grabbed her and rolled, setting her atop him. This was a position she knew well, and she picked up their dance immediately. Panting and grunting, he cupped her belly in his hands again and held on as she rode him as if he were a steed on the way to war.

And then his hands went to her breasts. At the first graze of his rough thumbs over her swollen nipples, her body filled with heat like she’d walked into a fire, and she went tense as bliss consumed her. As she did, he released as well, his shout loud and agonized.

She fell forward, and he caught her, rolling at once to his side. He pulled out of her, going easy, and then tucked her wet, breathless, thoroughly sated body into the shelter of his body in its similar state.

Now, she truly was weary.

“I love you, Leif.” Her words slurred a bit, as if she’d had too much mead.

He laughed quietly and kissed the top of her head. “And I you. Rest, wife.”

Nuzzling her nose in the dark golden curls that lightly furred her man’s chest, Olga heeded him and slept.

~oOo~

Only two days later, Olga stood on the pier, wrapped in her white wolf pelt, and stared at the boat Leif was already in. He was helping to load her belongings, such as they were, into the hull. Or whatever the large part of the boat was called. Ship. It was a ship. A small one, but much larger than the tiny fishing vessel they had limped to Karlsa in.

And that was the problem. Only once before in her life had she been on a boat, or a ship, and it had been an arduous, painful, desperate journey that had lasted an eternity. She had seen friends die, and nearly die, and they had all suffered badly in body and spirit. It had been the cap of a period of horrible suffering and death.

Now Leif wanted her to travel by boat—ship—again. It was a good vessel, he assured her, strong and steady, and they had a crew of strong men with them. Only two days, he said, three at the most, and they would be home. But she was leaving a home, yet another home, and at her back were the friends she’d made and grown to love.

She’d said her goodbyes. Frida would have her house and most of her healing supplies. No longer was the girl an apprentice. Now, at fourteen, she would be the healer of Karlsa, and she had been well trained by circumstance as much as any formal teaching from Olga, or Sven before her.

She’d bid a tearful farewell to Brenna and Solveig and Dagmar. Leaving them was leaving family; her heart ached to know how far away they would be. She was leaving home again. Oh, how she hoped the home she traveled to would be her last.

Jaan and Georg were sailing with them, eager for the coming raid.

And Vali had decided to raid, too. He was leaving his wife in charge of their recovering home in the hopes of bringing great treasure back to them all.

They were all in the ship, waiting for her. And Leif’s friend, too. Ulv. All waiting.

She was terrified. The thought of the rocking of the sea under her, or the chance of a storm tossing them about like a leaf in a breeze, had her frozen in place, clutching her wolf pelt around her shoulders. And she had a babe to protect. How could she get into that thing? How could Leif think to have her travel that way?

Leif climbed out of the ship and stood before her on the pier. He cupped her face in his hands and smoothed her cheeks with his thumbs. “Olga, do you trust me?”