Viking Ecstasy (33 page)

❧

Tabor propelled the rowboat through the water. He had his back toward shore; and over Tanaka's shoulder, he could see his own longboat and Sven's. The boats would wait off the English coast exactly seven days and then sail on, with or without Tabor and Tanaka. It was Tabor's order that should the ships be confronted—which was decidedly possible, since Tabor had made his fair share of enemies in

England—they were to flee northward. But in his heart he doubted that Sven and the rest of his Viking crew would leave him behind in the den of his enemy, and he knew the Egyptian sailors would not desert their high priestess. Even though many of the men did not approve of Tanaka marrying (especially a pale-skinned foreigner), she was their high priestess and they would defend her with their lives to the end.

"You're sure about this?" Tabor asked, putting heft to the oars as he rowed the small boat toward shore.

Tanaka nodded, her mind unclouded by even a hint of doubt. She did not mention the tarot, which had first directed her to England, because she knew that Tabor took no stock in such things.

"I feel it here," she said, placing her hand lightly over her heart.

Tabor grinned wickedly, continuing to pump away at the oars. "That is not where you feel a baby."

"It is to begin with. It is only later when you feel a baby here," she said, moving her hand to her stomach.

Tabor wondered why he was following Tanaka's direction without more complaint. Perhaps it was because she seemed so unwaveringly certain of herself or maybe it was his overwhelming desire to have a child —a son —with this extraordinary woman who could "know" things without having to be told them and "feel" things, which no one else sensed.

When they reached the shore, Tabor began to hide the boat, but Tanaka stopped him.

"There is no need to hide it. No one will steal the boat. No ships will approach Sven. When we return, no one will ever know that we have been here."

"If this boat is stolen, we will have no way of returning to our ship," Tabor said.

He looked out to his boat, which was several hundred yards off the coast, safe in waters deep enough for its impressive keel. He knew he could swim to his ship, if need be, but he doubted Tanaka would have the necessary stamina.

"The small boat will still be here when we return, as will the longboats," Tanaka said complacent with confidence. "Come, we must travel in this direction." She picked up the satchel that held the dried fish and bread they would live on during their time on land.

"What lies this way?" Tabor asked, the first hints of disbelief now coloring his tone as he hefted the waterskin onto his shoulder.

"I do not know. I know only that it is this way, and it is where we must go."

They headed from shore, Tanaka leading the way, following what to Tabor appeared to be no particular path or direction, moving inland and slightly northward. He followed her; and when he began to doubt, he used his Viking will power to chase the thoughts away.

For the first time, Tabor was following another person's lead without question or explanation. He was, fully and completely, trusting Tanaka, even though she could provide for him not one single bit of information to make him believe that there was a reason for her confidence.

❧

He saw it in the eerie, moonlit distance, and it was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Huge stones, each one many tons in weight, stood in a circle in the grassy valley. Some stones, extraordinarily large, had been placed across two of the huge monoliths to bridge them.

It was a temple, and even from a distance Tabor felt its eerie, mystical power. He knew now why he had followed Tanaka.

"What is it?" Tabor asked, placing his hand on his wife's shoulder, pulling her against his side as he looked at the monolithic boulders in the distance.

"It is called by some a temple," Tanaka answered.

"How do you know that?"

"I just do." Tanaka raised her hands, palms outward, toward the stones as though testing the comforting heat of a campfire. "This is what has called me," she said. "This is why we have come all this way."

They picked up their belongings and walked into the valley, Tabor holding the haft of his sword loosely in his hand, his senses alert, his eyes searching the darkness, checking the shadows for unseen danger.

Tanaka's response was different. At first sight of the monolithic, outdoor shrine, a beautific, utterly serene smile creased her mouth. She felt the power of the place, felt it in her bones, in her soul. She had been right to follow her intuition.

"This is where we are supposed to be," she whispered.

Tabor did not answer her. He, too, felt a strange, mystifying power, but to him, feeling anything that was mystifying meant that he must be wary. He held his sword at his side, prepared to strike out at anyone or anything that approached them.

"Yes, this is what has called to me," Tanaka explained quietly, speaking in a reverent whisper, though there was not another soul around. "This is what spoke inside my head."

When they reached the nearest boulders, Tanaka placed her palms flat against the stones. She felt a tingling sensation race through her, and her smile broadened.

"Touch this," Tanaka said. "Feel what I feel."

Tabor's brows pressed together in confusion, but he held his tongue. He placed his palm against the boulder near Tanaka's, but all he felt was the cool, rough texture of the stone. Tanaka realized he did not sense what she did. It was not easy for her to accept that they were different people and that their views on life and perceptions in and of life also differed.

"What is this place?" Tabor asked, at last breaking his silence as they moved inside the circle of stones. He was finally convinced that they were alone and that enemy soldiers would not ambush them from the boulders.

"It is our place," Tanaka replied simply, without the slightest doubt that she might have made some mistake.

She had no name for the temple, though she knew in her heart that it was the place she was meant to be with Tabor. She did not know that other people —ancient people —had named the temple Stonehenge.

Tanaka walked to the center of the circle of stones, took Tabor's cape from him, and spread it out on the moon-silvered grass.

"I know you want to look around," Tanaka said, aware of her husband's inquisitive nature. "Do what you must, then come back to me."

Tabor, pleased that his wife knew him as well as she did, bent to kiss her briefly, then left to investigate the mysteries of the stones.

Tabor felt he was being watched, though his investigation assured him that he was alone with Tanaka in the grassy valley.

From all that Tabor could glean, looking at the huge boulders in the moonlight and studying their location, the temple had been made many years before and was not in continual use. He thought that perhaps the area was used as a gathering place once a month, perhaps only when the moon was full. The temple couldn't be used much more often than that, Tabor reasoned, or the grass would be more trampled down than it was. Whatever the answer, the stones meant something, but what, he could not say.

Confused, Tabor leaned against one of the upright stones and turned his attention toward the center of the circle.

Tanaka was sitting cross-legged, her head tilted slightly back on her shoulders as though to look up at the moon, but Tabor could see that her eyes were closed. He looked at her, wondering what she was thinking, whether she was praying, whether the gods could, in fact, speak directly into her mind. That might explain how she had known about this mysterious place on the island of England, though Tabor, ever doubtful, found the explanation too difficult to accept.

Will this place really give me a son?

The question taunted Tabor. He wanted a son with all his heart, but it was not this strange temple that would give him a son, it was Tanaka.

And it was at precisely that moment, when he was thinking about the joy he would know at being a father to a child that Tanaka would bear him, that she stood, in a single, fluid motion, and raised her arms high above her head, as though reaching to touch the moon. In her diaphanous white robes, she looked ghostly, and for the most fleeting moment, Tabor wondered if perhaps he did feel something, some strange power that emanated from the ground or from the stones or perhaps from the moon glowing overhead. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the power, but whatever he had felt vanished or, more likely, had never actually been there in the first place.

He opened his eyes again, looking to Tanaka, and watched as her hands came down slowly and she unfastened the knotted stays at her throat, then at her hip. With a shrug of her shoulders and a tug at a sleeve, her garment fell down around her ankles and she stood in naked splendor.

Once again, she raised her hands toward the moon, tilting her head far back on her shoulders, her wavy hair shining blue-black in the moonlight, cascading down over her shoulders and breasts.

The sight of her took Tabor's breath away.
I'll never tire looking at her,
he thought, pushing himself away from the stone, approaching his wife slowly, quietly, drawn to her with the same inexorable force that she had been drawn to the temple.

T
he closer he drew, the more clearly he could see her and the more beautiful she became. Her skin, olive-hued, literally glowed. With her hands raised toward the moon, her breasts were pulled high and, though hidden by her hair, their roundness was undisguised. Her stance exaggerated the line of her ribs and the narrowness of her waist, the delicate, womanly curve of her hips, the graceful tapering of her thighs. From the distance that separated them, Tabor could not distinctly see her womanhood, but what his eyes could not see, his mind could recall with enticing clarity.

Tabor tried to speak, but he could not. The beauty of this woman rendered him speechless. He felt virginal.

And then, breaking the spell, Tanaka turned her face from the moon and smiled at him, her arms still raised high as though reaching for something celestial that she could see but Tabor could not. Everything in Tabor screamed for him to take action, to rush to her and throw her down upon the cape beneath her feet. His Viking blood called out for him to do it, but he listened to the mystical blood of his Egyptian high priestess wife who, for this one magical evening, directed his actions. Hastily, he cast aside his own clothes—along with any doubts he might have had about whether this was a trap set by the gods to separate him from his men, any doubts that Tanaka might be wrong to think that in this strange place they would conceive a son who would be the leader of men.

He stepped up to Tanaka, placing his palms lightly on the curve of her hips, and looked down into her shining eyes. He bent down to kiss her, and she twisted her arms loosely about his neck in greeting.

"Thank you," Tanaka whispered after the tentative kiss. "Thank you for bringing me here . . . and for trusting me."

"You are my wife. What is important to you is important to me" Tabor replied, but he did not understand why or what had directed Tanaka here. He accepted, though, that she could feel things he could not and hear voices that did not speak to him.

She brought her hands down slowly from his shoulders, touching his chest lightly, scraping his small, blunt nipples with her fingernails to draw a low, raspy groan of pleasure from him. Tanaka marvelled at Tabor's body, at its sculptured perfection, at the curving, hard line of his pectorals, and the rippled, granite-hard surface of his stomach. And letting her gaze and her hands roam lower, she marvelled, too, at his manhood, long and rigid. Slowly, almost cautiously, she took him in her hands, squeezing firmly to draw another groan of pleasure from her husband.

"So beautiful," Tanaka whispered.

"That?" Tabor asked with a deprecating grin.

Tanaka looked up into his eyes, smiling. "Yes, this." She squeezed him again, leaning forward just enough so that the sensitive tip pressed against the warm, smooth surface of her abdomen. "This and everything else about you."

"I am a Viking warrior, scarred in many places," Tabor said dismissively, never one to easily accept compliments.

I have many scars, too, only they are not visible,
Tanaka thought.
But the scars are healing, thanks to you, my barbarian husband with the tender heart.

She released him, then tossed her hair over her shoulders, knowing that her husband enjoyed seeing her breasts. At the sight, he inhaled deeply, and Tanaka felt a deep, heated rush of emotion. Her legs began to tremble. She reached out to Tabor, taking his hands.

"Sit," she whispered. "Lie down."

Tabor hesitated. It was not his style to accept orders, especially not under such intimate circumstances, but then nothing about his life now was the same as it had been before — before Tanaka. Still loosely holding Tanaka's hands, he sat down on his cape. He tugged at her, but she resisted, slipping from his grasp.

"Not yet" she whispered, and the glint in her eyes said that if Tabor were patient, they would both be happier.

Leaning back on his hands, Tabor kicked his long legs out in front of himself, looking up at his wife. His desire for her was so strong that he ached to take her into his arms, to feel her naked body pressing against him, writhing against him as he plunged deeply into her. His manhood throbbed painfully, fully engorged, woefully neglected.

"Can you feel it?" Tanaka asked, moving so that she straddled Tabor's legs.

"Feel what?" Tabor asked, his voice strained with suppressed desire.

"The power. The energy." Tanaka extended her hands in either direction, fingers spread, palms toward the stones. "Perhaps you can't. No matter. I can feel the power, and it is going straight into me . . . into my blood."

Looking up at her, Tabor groaned softly, a sound of pain and pleasure woven together. His restraint, his will power, was being tested beyond endurance. Tanaka stood over him, her smooth, shaven petals glistening invitingly in the moonlight, shining with the honeyed moisture of desire.

"I feel the power," Tanaka repeated.

She looked down at him, her body trembling, her skin tingling. Tabor sat, his hands behind him, his magnificently sculpted, powerful body tensed with self-control. She stepped forward then, audacious and bold, and bent just slightly to push her fingers into Tabor's hair.

"Kiss me!" She pulled Tabor to her.

He kissed her between her legs, his tongue flashing with knowing expertise, devastating her. Tanaka cried out sharply, her body jerking at the exquisite contact of Tabor's moist tongue against the fulcrum of her sensations.

She allowed him to kiss until she could no longer remain standing. She sank slowly, pressing herself against Tabor as she bent her knees, taking his face between her palms.

"My lover . . . my husband," she whispered.

Their union, the joining of their bodies in the center of Stonehenge, was directed by unseen powers. As Tanaka slowly lowered herself onto Tabor, his manhood entered her easily, without hesitation, without guidance. She paused briefly, not yet fully engulfing Tabor's manhood, and kissed him deeply, parting her lips to receive his searching tongue.

"He will be a wonderful son," Tanaka whispered, lowering her lean hips a little more, taking more of him. "He will be a man good men respect."

Tabor could not speak. He remained with his hands behind him, holding himself up as his wife slowly descended upon him until he felt the silky backs of her thighs pressing against the fronts of his.

"Complete ... I feel so complete with you inside me," Tanaka whispered.

She contracted around him, and the pleasure it brought was such that Tabor could not stop a low moan from escaping. He wondered if he would be able to contain his excitement long.

"Lie down," Tanaka whispered.

Tabor was almost grateful for the command. He relaxed his arms and lay back immediately, feeling the cool, smooth fabric of the Egyptian cape beneath his shoulders and buttocks and the prickly sensation of the grass against the backs of his long legs. Once on his back, he reached up to fill his hands with Tanaka's breasts.

"Yes-s-s!" Tanaka purred, placing her hands over Tabor's, forcing his fingers to press even more deeply into her.

She began raising and lowering her hips, moving to bring the maximum amount of pleasure to herself. She watched Tabor's face, seeing the ever-changing tapestry of passion painting color and light over his handsome features. Part of her was curiously detached from the blinding pleasure, as though she were watching two other lovers instead of being one of them. But this detachment in no way diminished her pleasure.

"You will be a wonderful father," Tanaka whispered, her hands on Tabor's chest as she impaled herself upon his thrusting manhood. "You will teach him everything you know and I will teach him all I know. . . . and he will be the best of both of our worlds."

Tabor focused his vision. His hands were filled with Tanaka's taut buttocks to guide her movements. His manhood felt searingly hot, and surely it was either burning Tanaka or being burned by her. ... or, more likely, it was the fire of their shared passion that fueled him further.

Tabor felt the pressure building inside him. He could not withhold his passion much longer. Hooking a hand behind Tanaka's neck, he pulled her down so that their lips met in a heated, breathy

"He will be the best of both worlds," Tabor said, the strain of passion strident in his tone, "but you are my world!"

His words triggered her response. She bolted upright, tossing her head and flinging her hair against him. Her eyes, glazed with the fiery emotions steaming through her, could barely see the glowing moon high overhead. With a tremulous cry of ecstasy, Tanaka reached her pinnacle of pleasure, and the contractions that shuddered through her stimulated Tabor and he followed her into that mysterious, magnificent land.