Lord of Fire and Ice (23 page)

Katla shook her head.

“Not once?”

“No.”

“Hmph.” Dalla’s face screwed into a puzzled frown.

“What?”

“Well, offhand, I’d say it means my boy loves you, but you haven’t quite made up your mind to love him back yet.”

“No, that can’t be right,” Katla said. Against all expectation, she did love her husband. Her chest ached with love for Brandr.

But she hadn’t told him how she felt.

Dalla took her hand and closed her eyes. “Keep still now.”

Soft as the flutter of a butterfly wing, the old woman’s mind brush hers, probing gently.

Katla stiffened.

“Tight as a pig’s arse. You’re very young to be this closed off,” Dalla said. “I’m thinking, mayhap, sometime past, someone who should have loved you hurt you.”

Katla pulled her hand away. “Ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

Katla’s shoulders sagged a bit. Dalla skewered her soul with a piercing gaze.

“I was married before. The first time my woman’s moon came, my husband took a bed slave. Our honeymoon wasn’t even up yet. And every month after that, Osvald brought his concubine into our bed, and I was forced to sleep elsewhere.”

The shame of rejection made her insides shake. She balled her fingers into fists without being aware she did so.

“I kept thinking, if only I would quicken with child, he’d have no cause to leave me.”

“But he never got you with child?”

“No.”

“So now you hold back a portion of yourself, tucked away so deep no one can reach it. No one can ever hurt you, unless you reveal that deep part,” Dalla said, leaning toward her. “Brandr can’t hurt you.”

“I don’t think he intends to,” Katla said.

“Mayhap your first husband didn’t mean to either,” Dalla suggested. “Did you tell him you didn’t want him to take a bed slave?”

She started to broach the subject once, but Osvald had flown into such a rage, she never tried to talk to him about it again. “He said it was not my business. It had nothing to do with us.”

But it did.

She realized how she’d hardened into the perfect Norse matron after that. She’d become someone so ruthlessly efficient, had run her household with such tight control, she couldn’t be bothered by a little thing like her husband’s bed slave. She couldn’t be touched by anything at all.

“Do you think Brandr will take a bed slave?” Dalla asked.

Panic knotted her belly. “I haven’t had my first moon since our wedding. I don’t know.”

“Brandr already loves you so much that his mind is open to you. I’ll warrant you never heard your first husband’s voice inside your head.”

“No, I didn’t.” But she could guess Osvald’s thoughts right enough every time she caught him glancing Inga’s way.

Katla stood abruptly. “I need to return. Linnea is surely finished nursing by now.”

“You brandish that child like a shield to keep from feeling your own need. Will you use her as a buffer between you and Brandr as well?” Katla started to protest, but Dalla waved her off and went on. “A babe is helpless and needy. If you devote yourself to the child, you think it will love you back with the same unconditional fervor.” The old woman shook her head. “If you love her, you won’t use her so. No bairn needs that sort of weight on it.”

“I’m not using her. I saved Linnea’s life. Brandr and I did,” she hastily amended.

“I’m sure. And now you expect that little one to return the favor.”

Katla flinched as though Dalla had slapped her.

“Man.” Dalla drew a curved line in the dirt with the tip of her cane. “Woman.” She etched a reflective curve next to the first, making them connected top and bottom in a perfect disc. “A child cannot complete the circle. A child’s place is in the center of the circle.” She made a small dot in the middle of the dirt drawing. “Sheltered equally by both adults.”

“That’s part of the problem.” Katla sank back down. “I don’t know if Brandr is willing to put Linnea in our circle. I half-expect him to send her away if she so much as cries too loudly.”

“That doesn’t sound like my Brandr. Still, the circle of two is complete whether or not a child rests inside it,” Dalla said. “But you’re avoiding the main problem. Do you wish to have
inn
matki
munr
?”

Yes, with her whole heart. She longed for that deep connection with Brandr, to feel his voice echo in her soul and send hers to mingle with his. To breathe one breath, share one heartbeat. To know and be known. She ached for that close bond.

“I do.”

“Then you must stop holding back. You must risk letting him hurt you,” Dalla said, rising when the bell tolled to call them to night meal. “You can never truly love my Brandr or let him love you until you do.”

Brandr slept through his welcome-home night meal. Katla tried to wake him, but it was rather like poking a bear, so she let him sleep. He needed rest more than food and drink. Even his friends were forced to drink to his health roundly without him till the wee hours of the morning.

Brandr slept past the cockcrow. He slept past the sun peeking through the overhead smoke hole. He kept sleeping when Katla wiggled out from under the bedding, dressed, and took Linnea to Una for her breakfast. Then Katla made her way to the latrine.

And discovered her woman’s moon had arrived a full two weeks early.

All the horrible memories of that first time with Osvald rushed back into her. He’d been dismissive when she told him she couldn’t welcome him to their bed. It was a small matter, he’d said, and ordered Inga to join him in their chamber. Katla was welcome to stay if she wished. She could watch. It might be instructive.

A piece of her soul had crumpled and died that day.

She slipped back into the chamber she shared with Brandr and stealthily found the cloths and lint she needed to keep from soiling her clothes. She was just smoothing down her underdress again when Brandr rolled over and smiled lazily at her.

“Come back to bed.”

“I can’t,” she said quickly. “Linnea is probably done nursing.”

“Una will bring her back when she’s done,” Brandr said, lifting the bed covering in invitation. His beautiful cock was fully engorged and ready, and the sight of it alone made Katla’s belly clench. “A morning swive never takes long, and I can’t think of a better way to start the day.”

“I can’t give you a morning swive.”

“Don’t want it quick? If you want a longer loving, that’s fine too. I expect we’ve already missed breakfast.”

“No, I mean, I want to, but I…can’t.”

Gradual understanding shaped his mouth into a silent oh. “No matter, then. But come back to bed, in any case. Once this day starts in earnest, it’s like to be a long one, and I’ve a mind to hold my wife for a bit before the world rushes in on us.”

A knot of caring surged in her chest, and she hurried to his side. He lay back and snugged her close so her head rested on his shoulder and her leg twined over his.

“I expect you’re hungrier than I,” she said. “You missed a fine welcome meal last night. Your brother clearly meant to do you honor.”

“No doubt Arn will have something to say about my missing it,” Brandr said, running his hand up and down her spine in a slow caress. “And the meal was Hilde’s doing, not his. Even so, my brother will undoubtedly take offense.”

“I don’t think so.” She snuggled deeper into his embrace. “Once I explained that you’d been awake for two days, and during that time you’d abducted your bride, lost your bride, tracked and fought three men, acquired a daughter, and still managed to find your way home—well, after all that, your attachment to your bed was easily understood. Your friend Harald seemed to think the adventure was as good as any skald’s tale.”

“That’s because the one who told it is far prettier than most skalds.” He dropped a casual kiss on her forehead. “Actually, it was more like three days awake if you consider that I didn’t get much sleep on our wedding night either.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Never.” He tipped her face up to his and kissed her, slow and tender.

When he released her, she looked up at him, wishing with all her heart this was a time when she was privy to his thoughts.

“Did you hear what I said?” she asked.

“Is this about trying to get me to hear you inside my head again?” he asked with a slight frown. “Because you were under duress when you thought you heard my voice, and I’m willing to bet that it was just your imagination and—”

She stopped him with a finger to his lips. “No, I mean just now. Did you hear me say you acquired a daughter?”

“
Ja
. And?”

She swallowed hard, hope tightening her throat. “You agree that we should keep Linnea?”

He chuckled. “Katla, I knew it would be so from the first time I saw you holding her. I could separate a bear cub from its mother with less risk than I could part that little girl from you.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. Linnea would rest secure within the circle of two she and Brandr made together. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. Thank the god who dropped her in your lap,” he said. “I know you want children, Katla. I’ve seen the wanting in you, sharper than any hunger.” His mouth twitched in a smile. “And it’ll be my pleasure to try to give them to you.” Then he rose on one elbow and looked down at her in all seriousness. “But if I can’t, at least we’ll have a daughter together.”

Her chest swelled with tenderness. She palmed his cheek. “Have I told you that I love you, Brandr Ulfson?”

He shook his head and then turned it to press a soft kiss on the center of her palm.

“Well, I do.”

“I’d love to give you opportunity to prove it, but I guess we’ll have to wait a few days for that.” He lay back down and hugged her tight.

This time she raised herself on an elbow to look down at him. Before her wedding, the women of her steading had been more than free with advice on how to satisfy a man. “Think you I cannot please you, even now, and without removing a stitch of my clothing?”

His jaw sagged open, and she cupped his chin to close it.

“Watch and learn.”

***

Brandr’s arms were outstretched as she’d instructed, and he lay spread-eagle in the middle of the sumptuous bed. Katla had suggested binding him at the wrists and ankles, since the bed was equipped with such lovely stout posts, but he’d given her his word he wouldn’t move unless she gave him leave. So she’d let him remain unbound.

He was beginning to regret his promise. He’d never wanted to move more in his life.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered.

He obeyed.

Her kid-soled slippers scuffed across the floor. Once she was beside the bed, she leaned to whisper directly into his ear, her lips and tongue moist on his lobe.

“Do not come till I tell you.”

He peered from under his lashes. It wasn’t exactly a violation of his oath. He still hadn’t moved. Much.

As she bent over him, her gown hung slack, giving him a glimpse of her alabaster breasts. The soft hollow between them beckoned him into its soft shadow, but he’d promised to lie still. So his hands only ached to hold her while his cock throbbed.

“Why don’t you want me to move?” he asked, still keeping his eyes closed.

“We ever want what we can’t have.” A soft palm rested on his knee, and his thigh muscles tightened. “I tell you not to move, so you’ll want to all the more.”

The hand moved over his thigh, skimming lightly. He nearly groaned aloud when she skipped over his groin and splayed her fingers on his chest instead. She leaned down, licked one of his brown nipples, and then blew across it, setting all the wiry hairs whorled around it on end.

“Keep your eyes closed,” she cautioned.

“Why? I love to look at you.”

“If your eyes are blind, your other senses are stronger,” she explained, sliding her hand across his belly to circle his groin with maddening nearness.

Along with heightened awareness of her touch, Brandr wallowed in her unique scent, all cedar and fresh linen and woman. His Katla.

Her fingertips teased the small hairs on his scrotum. “Careful, Brandr. You’ll use up all the oil in the lamp if you don’t turn down the fire.”

His eyes popped open and, sure enough, the lamp was flaring so hot it was a wonder it didn’t erupt in an explosion of boiling oil. With effort, he ordered the flame down in his mind, and it obeyed.

“I need to keep my eyes open, unless you want that to happen again.”

“As you wish.” She unbraided her dark hair and shook it out till it fell like dark rain over her shoulders and down her back.

“I love your hair,” he said.

“I know,” she said with a feline smile.

She kneaded his balls, gently rolling his testes between her thumbs and forefingers. His cock arched upward in pleasurable agony.

“What else do you love?”

You.
He couldn’t seem to make his mouth work, so he only thought it.

She laughed. “I love you too.”

Then she bent over him, and her hair cascaded around his cock, softer than selkie fur on his skin. Her warm breath streamed across him, curling around his aching loins.

Oh
gods, is she going to…?

He fisted the linens, desperate to keep his promise not to move. Every muscle in his body went as hard as iron. Bound by his oath, he was helpless.

She ran the tip of her tongue along his length from base to swollen head. His eyes rolled back, rendering him passion-blind.

Take
me
in
.

Then to his utter amazement, she did.

His whole world was suddenly warm and wet and velvety soft. She engulfed him, drenched him, rained kisses on him. She sucked. Her tongue massaged him.

Here’s a tongue-lashing I’ll never mind.

She giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

She tucked her hair behind her ear and licked him while she met his gaze. “Not a thing.”

He warred against the downward pull of his groin.

The sight of his beautiful wife bent over him with his cock slipping in and out of her lips was almost more than he could bear. Pressure rose in his shaft. He fought to keep from spewing his seed in her mouth.

“Do not come until I tell you,” she’d said.

Why did she think it was that easy?

She took in as much of him as she could and began fondling his balls again. In. Out. Her wet lips brushed the sensitive spot near the head with each pass with just the right amount of pressure to send him into ecstatic torment.

Was this the vengeance she meant to wreak on him from the beginning? To make him want her beyond bearing while she denied him release?

A pinprick of pain stabbed the base of his skull.

“Brandr.”

Her mouth never left his cock. How had she said his name?

“Brandr, my love.”

There it was again, echoing sure and sweet in his head.

“Katla?”

He heard her laughter, giddy, ecstatic laughter, but not with his ears. The sound danced through his mind. Joyful. Triumphant.

So she wasn’t imagining it when she said she could hear his thoughts, because now he was hearing hers. If they were mad, at least they’d tumbled into lunacy together.

“Beloved.”
Her soul’s voice caressed his.
“Come.”