Sandra Hill (20 page)

“Because I want you so bad my teeth hurt and my loins ache. I have never wanted a woman as much as I want you.”
And because my cock is so hard it hurts and must soon find a sheath. And because you are driving me eye-rolling barmy. And because I keep picturing candles. And because I want to see for myself if you have turned into a raisin down there
.

He could tell that his words pleased her. Good thing he’d kept his coarser thoughts to himself. “Besides,” he said with a grin, “Toste wants me to.”

She grinned back at him. “Been talking to your dead brother again, have you?”

“Yea. All the time.” He reached across the table and took one of her hands in his. Just that gesture gave him a thrill, so besotted was he. When he laced the fingers of her hand in one of his and their wrists pressed against each other, he had to close his eyes against the intense emotion he felt. He could not imagine the outcome of this strange pact they were making, but it felt right. “Will I come to you tonight, or will you come to me?” he asked in a voice raw with need.

“I will come to you.”

And so their fate was sealed.

When a man loves a woman…

Vagn had told Helga that he was a full-grown man who was too old for games, but he felt like a youthling now. And games were beginning to hold way too much appeal. Sex games, that is.

He swept the stale rushes from his bedchamber and replaced them with new fragrant ones. He put clean linens on the mattress and shook out the bed furs. An extra candle burned on a low table. A warm fire burned in the small hearth. All this he did himself, wanting to please Helga with these intimate courtesies.

As for himself, he bathed, shaved off his facial hairs and braided war braids on either side of his face. A man needed his hair off his face when leaning over a woman. Then he donned clean garments.

He looked down at his hands as he waited for her and saw that they trembled. The sight pulled him up short.

Was the trembling from excessive arousal? After all, it
had been almost a year since he’d lain with a woman, thanks to his and Toste’s forced celibacy as Jomsvikings.

Or was he suddenly nervous about his talents in the bedsport? That could not be. He’d been making love for fifteen and more years, and his expertise had never failed him.

Then it must be Helga who turned him into a jittery halfling. Scary prospect, that. No woman had ever had such an effect on him. It made him feel vulnerable and lacking in his usual self-confidence. Like a needy milksop, for the love of Frigg! Good thing his old friend Bolthor the Skald was no longer in this world. He would compose a horrible poem about Vagn’s present dilemma…something like “When Viking Men Lose Their Swagger.”

It was unacceptable, he decided, slamming his cup of ale down on the table and causing the candle flame to flicker.
I am Vagn Ivarsson. I do not humble myself for anyone. Not even a woman for whom my lust is high
.

He undid his belt and jerked his tunic over his head, tossing it to the floor and no doubt mussing his hair in the process. He did not care. He was angry with himself. Next he sat down on the bed and pulled off his half-boots and short hose, pitching them across the chamber to land hither and yon. He was about to shimmy out of his
braies
when he heard her soft knock on the door. He stopped in mid-shimmy, unsure whether to take them off or not. But Helga took that decision out of his hands by entering without waiting for his response to her knock. He yanked the breeches back up.

Before she even looked at him, she turned and made sure the door was locked so they would not be disturbed. Smart thinking. At least someone in this room was thinking with the right body part.

She wore the same blue cloak she’d worn to his chamber afore, but she was not nude underneath as she’d been then. He saw that when she dropped the cloak. She was covered from neck to wrist to ankles by a thin linen bed rail. The shift was plain, but Helga was not. Her blond hair hung loose about her back and shoulders and chest.

Her wide blue eyes took in his state of undress. He saw fear there and in the clenching of her fists at her sides.

In that moment, Vagn forgot his misgivings over his own seeming vulnerabilities. “Helga,” was all he could manage to say.

As if given a cue, she flew at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face in the crook of his neck. “I thought this would be easy,” she confessed.

So did I
. “It will be.”
I hope
.

At first, he just held her tightly against him with one arm around her waist and the other hand up under her hair, kneading her nape. He kissed the top of her fragrant head and murmured nothing words to soothe her.

Helga was tall, only a half-head shorter than he. So, with her on tiptoe, they stood breast to bare chest, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, woman-place to manpart. It seemed they fit perfectly together.

In that instant, Vagn realized something important. All his experience in bedsport, all the charm acquired during years of dealing with women—none of it mattered. This joining with Helga was special…different. He couldn’t say how or why. It just was. In some ways, he would be as much a virgin as Helga. He thought he heard Toste laughing in his head at that outlandish notion.

Helga raised her head finally and looked at him.

He kept one hand on her nape and used the other to
cup her cheek. He kissed her then, searching, slow and soft. Seeking the perfect fit.

She kept her hands on his shoulders and followed all his signals with her own mouth. She mimicked his movements, shifting and adjusting. He ran the tip of his tongue along the seam of her mouth; she did the same to his. When he deepened the kiss and filled her mouth with his tongue, she sucked him in welcome.

He hadn’t realized that his hands had moved, but they were everywhere, learning the curves and planes of her body. The soft places and the hard. His big palms moved the fabric of her bed rail as he caressed her. Sweeping her shoulders and back. Kneading her buttocks. Testing the smallness of her waist. And all the while, he kept kissing her hungrily.

And, praise the gods, she kissed him back, just as hungrily. And ran her small hands over his shoulders, the flat nipples on his chest, his backside.

“You won’t be sorry, dearling,” he murmured against her wet lips when he came up for air.

“I know,” she said and smiled.

That smile caused his heart to lurch.

He was aroused beyond anything he’d ever imagined, and yet totally in control now. He would go slow. More than anything, he wanted to please Helga as much as himself.

Finally he took hold of Helga’s forearm and held her away from him. Maintaining eye contract, he shrugged out of his
braies
and took supreme male pleasure in the way her mouth opened in surprise at the size of his thickening. He was pretty surprised himself. Blue-veined ones were rare and to be prized. Leastways, that’s what Toste always said. Then he stepped forward and raised her bed
rail up and over her head, leaving them both naked to observe each other.

She was as tall and willowy as a young sapling. Fine-boned, with a narrow waist tapering out to small hips.
How does she ever expect to carry a babe there?
Her breasts were so small they would not even fill his hand, but they were capped with big pink nipples that made up for any lack in size of the whole.
Would she nurse a babe? Would her breasts change then? Do not think of that, Vagn. Do not even think it
. Her long, long legs were thin but shapely.
Would her sons be long-legged, too? Dangerous thought, that
. Her woman-fleece matched the blondness of her hair, but was curly. She was different from the women he’d been attracted to in the past. But better. Way better.

He smiled then.

And she did, too.

With a joyous whoop, he took her by the waist and threw her onto his bed, then landed himself at her side. The bed ropes creaked, but fortunately held.

“You must tell me what to do, Vagn.”

“Nothing. For now. Just let me look.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “And explore. If there is one thing we Northmen are good at, it is exploring.”

“Comes from a-Viking all these years, no doubt,” she teased.

“For a certainty, my saucy maid.”

And explore he did. With his eyes, his fingertips. And finally his mouth…he had been saving that for last. Well, not last. But he’d been putting off this particular feast. He fingered her nipples, then put his mouth over one of them.

She gasped. “You have no idea how good that feels.”

“I know how good it feels to me.” He sighed at the
sweet taste. “Like succulent raspberries they are.” He laved them, and nibbled, and kissed, then suckled and suckled and suckled till it was unclear who was keening in pleasure, him or her.

“I cannot believe that I deprived myself of this bliss for all these years,” she said, pulling his head up by his ears. “Why do women hide this news from other women? Oh, I can see why. Fathers would have trouble keeping their daughters virgin if this temptation was waving in front of them.”

Vagn did not like this train of thinking. He did not want her to think that just any man could bring her ecstasy. “It is not always this good, sweetling.”

“Oh? Is it just you, then, who is so skilled in the bed arts?”

He nipped a nipple with his teeth for her making mock of him. “Yea, just me. And do not forget it.”

She probably would have said more, but he had his palm on her belly now, way down, and he could see that he had her attention…
there
. He pressed rhythmically several times and watched her face. Her lips parted with wonder, which made him feel…well, wonderful.

“Have I ever told you how much I adore your mouth?”

“About a dozen times,” she said. Then, “Tell me again.”

“I…adore…your…mouth,” he said against her mouth.

“What else do you adore about me?” she asked playfully.

“Your breasts.”

“Oh, that is such a lie.” She tried to sit up in indignation but he forced her back down.

“It is not a lie. You have made me appreciate small
breasts. I do not think I will ever be attracted to big-bosomed women again, and that is the truth.”

“You ooze charm like sweat, you rogue.”

“Flattery will get you everything, m’lady sharp tongue. But enough of this piddling around. ’Tis time to discover some truths about you, Helga.”

“Piddling? You call what we’ve done so far piddling? It does not seem piddling to me. What truths?”

“Like whether you have turned into a raisin down below,” he said and dipped his fingers into her damp woman-folds before she could shriek her outrage. Her warm honey welcomed him.

“And have I?” she gasped out.

“What?” Somewhere between her enthusiastic response to their bedsport and the wet signs of her readiness, Vagn had lost his power of reasoning.

“Turned into a raisin?”

He inserted a forefinger into her tight inner folds, which clasped and unclasped around him. He might have gurgled then, but he was not sure. “Nay,” he said, shaking his head. “You are more like a lush, succulent peach.”

“Good,” she said.

He rolled over on top of her, and she spread her legs wide for him. The ridge of his staff nestled in her woman channel, like a longship coming home. But there was one more thing he had to say. “There is still time to change your mind, Helga,” he said. “Once I enter, you can no longer claim virginity. If you choose to wed someday, your husband will be cheated.”

“Would you feel cheated if I came to you without a maidenhead?”

“Nay, but surely you know a maidenhead is prized by many.”

“I come to you willingly, Vagn.” She put a gentle hand on his cheek and let the fingertips trail down his jaw, his neck and the center of his chest. “It is time.”

He raised her knees and spread them wider, poising himself at her entrance, his arms braced on either side of her head. With a barely stifled grunt, he drove into her, to the hilt.

She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed.

“Are you all right? Am I hurting you?”

“Just a twinge. Don’t move. Let me get accustomed…oh. Oh. That is better. Oh, you fill me. And grow. I can feel you growing.”

Her voice carried amazement. Bloody hell, he was amazed, too. As her inner folds shifted to accommodate him, his cock had grown even bigger.

“I need to move, Helga. Can I move?”

“I don’t know,” she choked out with a little laugh. “Can you?”

Turned out he could.

He tried to be gentle. He tried to go slow. But it had been so long. And she was so hot and receptive as she flailed from side to side, crying out for something she did not yet understand. Too soon his long, slow strokes turned short and hard, especially as she bucked her hips reflexively, riding the peak that soon overtook her. With a roar of equal parts satisfaction and frustration, he pulled out of her and spilled his seed into the soft cloth he’d placed under the pillow for just that purpose. Later, he would throw it into the fire.

For now, he lay collapsed over Helga, probably crushing her. But she’d drained him of all energy. By the gods! What would she do to him when she knew how to use her body? He could not imagine. He could not wait.

“What are you smiling about?” Helga asked when he raised his head to look at her.

“I am happy.” And that was the truth, which surprised him mightily. Helga had managed to pull him from that pit of depression he’d been wallowing in of late. “And why are you smiling?”

“Because I am happy, too.”

“Because you might carry my seed?”

She shook her head. “Because you pleased me, Viking.”

Her words reached in and grabbed his heart. For a second, he could not breathe.

“Of course, if I’ve caught your seed, I will be even more pleased.”

But I won’t be pleased
.

Will I?

Why am I even asking?

“There is one thing I was wondering,” she said, twirling one of his chest curls.