Lord of Fire and Ice (17 page)

Slowly, he reached out a hand. Starting at the base of her throat where her pulse fluttered, he began tracing a lover’s journey over her flawless skin.

Oh, the feel of her, all warm and soft and willing!

He paused to dally in every crevice, the crease beneath her slender arm, the delicate skin at the bend of her elbow. He passed over the hot, erotic places he’d normally have focused on to find something as simple and uniquely Katla as the dimple on her knee. Defying the urgency of his rioting cock, he took his time, learning her by heart.

All of her.

He ran his fingertip around the outline of her hands, to the deep base of each finger, and threading his way around her knuckles. He taunted the hidden crease beneath each breast. He drew circles around the shallow indentation of her navel.

His touch dropped lower, and he teased her legs apart. His fingers launched a gentle invasion. All the while, his gaze never left her face.

Brandr delighted in watching as pleasure and need parted her lips and made her eyes go languid.

When she reached out to touch him, he stopped her. “Not yet, princess. You first.”

“No.” She pressed her fingertips against his lips. “Most of the time with Osvald, only one of us took pleasure, and it brought no ease to either of us. You and I will go into this madness together or not at all.”

Then to his joy, she feathered her fingertips over his chest. A slight breeze found its way through the overhead smoke hole, cooling the fever heating his skin.

“This caring you speak of,” she said, her voice sultry, “surely it must go both ways. If one is not pleased, how can the other take pleasure?”

He dared not even draw breath as her clever hands danced over him, tickling along his ribs, teasing his nipples into hard knots. Then she reached down and cupped his ballocks, her gentle massage only sending his groin into a deeper ache. She explored his thighs, scooting close enough to reach around and run a thumb along the crevice of his buttocks.

His breath hissed over his teeth. “You little minx.”

She laughed, deep and throaty. Her breasts teased him with glancing brushes as she moved closer.

But she carefully avoided the throbbing shaft that yearned for her touch more than any other finger width of his skin.

Instead, she raked his ribs with her nails and splayed her hands across his flat belly. When she finally grasped him, the pressure inside him had risen, so it was all he could do not to come in her hands.

“Katla, I can’t—”

She surprised him into silence by wrapping her hands behind his neck and hooking a leg over his hip.

“Can’t what?” she asked with feigned innocence as she pressed herself against him, her hot moistness tormenting the tip of his cock.

“Can’t stand not swiving you for one more beat of my heart.” He covered her mouth with his. All his longing and hope poured into her. Lust and caring surged through him, twin cascades plunging into a rain-swollen river.

He loved her, he realized with a jolt.

Katla, his one-time mistress and owner. From the dark crown of her head to the soles of her delicately arched feet, he loved her.

And the greatest wonder of all was his ice princess seemed to care for him a bit too.

But if he didn’t take her right now, he’d die on the spot.

He rolled to pull her on top of him and pushed her hips down, gently impaling her on his rock-hard erection. He groaned, awash in the pleasure of her slick, hot flesh.

She cried out, but not with pain. The gasp that tore from her throat was the feral sound of feminine triumph as she engulfed him completely.

He moved inside her, reveling in her softness. Heart on heart, their bodies joined in perfect concert, seeking the deepest bonding possible.

Before, they’d strained against each other. Now they moved as one. Their hands, mouths, bodies, and hearts clasped tightly, and when they interrupted their kiss, it was only to tumble into each other’s eyes.

There is surrender in bliss. It’s a kind of dying the body welcomes, not unlike the wounded warrior who longs for the Valkyries to bear him to Valhalla. Brandr and Katla teetered for just a moment on the brink of that death then plummeted over the edge together. He felt her contract around him in spasms of joy as his seed pulsed into her.

Unwilling to part from her, he wrapped his arms around her. Gradually, the fever of lust subsided. When their bodies separated, she shifted to settle by his side. He looked up into the thatch overhead, utterly spent. A single star winked in the center of the smoke hole.

There was no need for words. Their bodies had said it all. A mantle of caring enveloped them, sending delayed shivers over their skin. Love sparked and crackled in the very air they breathed.

Their other couplings had been feral and hot, like a pair of wild creatures mating. But this joining had touched a part of him he hadn’t even been aware was there.

They were well and truly bonded.

She kissed his neck and snuggled close, relaxing against his body with the same lethargy that was stealing over him. In a few moments, her even breathing told him she’d escaped into the land of dreams and shadows.

Just before he followed her in sleep, Brandr decided he’d never ask the gods for another thing for the rest of his life. After this night, he’d already received more than the full measure of happiness usually meted out to mortals. Another drop of joy might tempt Loki beyond bearing, and everything Brandr cared for might be snatched from him by that envious trickster godling.

No, better to be safe than sorry.

Katla was his. It was more than he had a right to ask. More than he’d likely ever see again, especially once the morrow came and he put his plans in motion.

The ones he was sure Katla wouldn’t like one bit.

***

A shaft of sunlight broke through the smoke hole and stabbed Katla in the eye. It was rare that she slept past the cockcrow or missed hearing the clank of the bell around the ram’s neck as her flocks were being driven into the high pasture.

But this day she’d slept till midmorning, judging from the position of the sun. Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Katla extended her arms over her head in a leisurely stretch.

Then she jerked upright in a sudden motion.

Brandr wasn’t beside her.

She ran a palm over the linens. The indentation in the tick where he’d been was still warm. His scent lingered in the bedclothes. He hadn’t been gone long.

Katla rose and dressed quickly. She usually stirred at the slightest sound. She must have been sleeping like the dead for him to sneak out of bed, dress, and leave the chamber without her knowledge.

That’s what comes of being loved to exhaustion
, she thought as she tugged on her stockings and wrapped the binding strips of cloth about her calves.

Loved.

They hadn’t used the word, but she felt it. In the deep relaxation of her long sleep, in every loose-jointed limb, she reveled in the afterglow of well-being that follows a bone-jarring coupling.

Each time. Her mind was a little fuzzy. She’d actually lost count.

Inga was working at the central meal fire when Katla emerged from her chamber.

“Pack a pot of meat and bread for us, would you please, Inga?” Katla said as she moved toward the open door.

Sunlight caught the bright red fabric on one of the looms propped in the entry, making the color even more vibrant. Or mayhap it only seemed so. The breeze blowing through the longhouse was fresher, the scent of sausages frying more spicy and pungent. Even the soft drape of her underdress swishing against her skin as she moved was tinged with pleasure. Katla could find no cause for complaint about anything this fine day.

“My husband and I will go for a long walk and break our fast in the woods.”

Inga’s face crumpled in confusion. “But Br—your…husband already broke his fast and ordered food packed for the journey. A keg of water also to be brought to the wharf, which Finn said he’d see about. I still need to—”

“What journey?”

“I…he did not…I assumed you knew.”

Oh gods, he was leaving. After last night. After everything.

Katla ran out of the longhouse and down the winding path to the wharf. Brandr was setting the rigging on the coracle and arranging bundles of cargo to distribute the weight evenly. Finn’s water keg rode in the center of the craft.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked when she reached the spot where the small vessel was tied up.

“What’s it look like?” Brandr shielded his eyes against the glare of sunlight to look up at her for a moment then resumed his work. “I’m preparing for a voyage.”

Her heart sank to the soles of her feet. Why had she let herself need him? He was still leaving.

He’d said he would, she reminded herself sternly. She shouldn’t have been surprised. She swallowed hard and steeled herself not to show her bleeding soul.

“Where are you bound?”

“Where are
we
bound, you mean?”

“We?” For a moment, her heart leaped up in gladness. He hadn’t intended on leaving her after all, but it didn’t mean she could go with him. “No. I’m not going anywhere. There’s too much for me to—”

“Don’t worry, sister.” Finn’s voice came from behind her. “You won’t be gone long.”

“That’s right. I won’t be gone long, because I won’t be going at all.” She fisted her hands at her waist. “Where is it I’m not going?”

“To Jondal,” Brandr said calmly as he accepted and stowed the bundles Finn had brought down for him.

Katla recognized the vibrant blue of one of her dresses peeping from the top of a rucksack. Someone had taken her key, gotten into her trunk, and packed clothes for the voyage without her knowledge.

“I’m taking you home,” Brandr said as if that ended the matter.

“This is our home.”

“No, it’s not,” Brandr said. “It’ll always be your place. And no matter how long I bide here, I’ll always be Brandr the Thrall when folk think I’m out of earshot.”

She started to protest, but he silenced her with a piercing look.

“You know it to be true,” he said quietly.

Inga padded softly up and handed Brandr the basket of food he’d requested.

“Ask Inga,” he said. “She’ll tell you it’s so. Even once the iron collar’s gone, there’s a shadow about our necks no amount of scrubbing can clean.”

“I would travel with you as your servant, mistress.” Inga cast a darting glance in Katla’s direction then averted her gaze to the rough wood of the wharf. Her submissive demeanor spoke volumes. She felt the weight of her past keenly.

There were times when Katla had struggled with jealousy, but now she felt nothing but pity for her late husband’s bed slave.

Surely things would be different for a man. Brandr was well liked. She’d seen it herself. With time, her people would come to accept him as master here.

“Perhaps when we return, Inga, we’ll take you on the next trip. We won’t be gone long,” Brandr said. “Three or four weeks—five at most.”

Brandr strapped an oilskin over the cargo to protect it from the elements.

“Finn and your other brothers have agreed to wait till I can collect your bride price from my share of the bounty my friends and I brought back from Byzantium. We’ll return to Tysnes Isle before the weather turns and can stay for a bit, if you like,” he said. “Then we’ll sail back to Jondal to winter in my brother’s hall.”

Katla’s jaw gaped. “But it’s my duty to care for the people here. I can’t leave them.”

He climbed out of the boat and walked toward her. “I didn’t think I could be a thrall either, but a person can get used to anything. You might be surprised what your people can do on their own. Besides, your brother will see to the folk of this holding, won’t you, Finn?”

“
Ja
, of course I will.” Her brother drew himself up to his full, lanky height.

“Oh, Finn, you can’t even see to yourself, much less run a farmstead.”

Even though Finn wilted a bit as she said it, she stood by her assessment. He’d shown his quality of late, but she couldn’t trust him to carry on without her. Katla turned back to her husband.

If this was the first battle of wills between them, she was determined to win it.

“Brandr, I understand you feel you have to leave. My bride price has been agreed upon, and you must honor your debts,” she said primly. “I wish you safe travels, and will see you when you return.”

“Our honeymoon isn’t near done,” Brandr reminded her.

A month of loving and feasting and sipping the special bridal ale and mead was usual for the newly married. It wasn’t her fault they wouldn’t be enjoying their time together.

“It’ll be an odd honeymoon with you gone, but I’ll manage,” she said stiffly.

One corner of his mouth turned up. “And you think that ends the matter.”

“There’s no other way to see it.”

He shook his head and sighed. Then he grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder so her head hung down behind his back and her bottom smiled at the sky.

“What about now, wife?” he asked. “Do you see things differently from that angle?”

“Brandr, put me down!” She tried to squirm away, but he held her fast.

“Stop wiggling, or you’ll feel my hand on your backside,” he warned.

Her bottom heated at the thought. “Lay a hand on me, Brandr Ulfson, and you’ll have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life.”

He laughed and gave her buttocks a love pat. “You didn’t complain of my hands last night.”

Since it was within reach, she gave
his
bum a sharp smack. He ignored her.

“Farewell, Finn.” Brandr clapped his free hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder. “I’ll be back with the bride price before you know it.”

“And you’ll be welcome, so long as you don’t try to return the bride,” Finn said with a laugh.

“Don’t just stand there.” Katla pressed against Brandr’s back to raise herself up so she could glare at Finn, but she couldn’t break free from her husband as he stepped into the swaying coracle. “Help me.”

“Sorry, sister. I can’t even see to myself, you know.” Finn slipped the chain that held her all-important keys off her neck and secreted them in the pouch at his belt. Then he loosed the mooring lines of the coracle. “Doubt I’d be any help to you.”