Authors: Sandra Hill

Viking Heat (23 page)

BOOK: Viking Heat

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Splish, splash, they were (not) taking a bath . . .

Even though Joy was half-dozing in the deliciously warm water, she was aware of Brandr when he reentered the bathing house, carrying a stack of clean, folded clothing.

And then he locked the door.

Uh-oh!

Leaning back against the edge of the small pool, a glorified hot tub, with her butt resting on one of the lower steps, her body submerged up to her collarbones, she kept her eyes closed. As she listened to the rustling sounds of him undressing, she controlled her raging impulse to look up and feast her eyes on all six foot four bare skin of him. With a sigh, he eased himself into the water, then began to wash and rinse himself. When she opened her eyes just a slit, he had just soaped his hair, slipped under the water totally to rinse, then came up, shoving his braids and long strands of hair off his face.

“I know you are awake,” he said.

“I was not,” she lied. “You woke me when you splashed around like a harpooned whale.”

He leaned back on his elbows, grinning wolfishly at her.

“You shaved.”

“Yea, I did.”

“I need to shave, too,” she said, raising a leg and feeling the bristles.

He quirked a brow at her.

“Women shave their legs and underarms where I come from.”

“As long as you do not shave other parts, as is done in some eastern lands.”

“No, I don’t do that.”

He rubbed his fingers over his face. “I prefer to be clean-shaven after having lived one time in Jarl Hallstein’s vermin-filled hovel of a keep. I got a good and healthy lice colony growing on every hairy surface of my body, including my nose hairs.”

That was when Joy noticed that he was bare down to a very enticing belly button. The rest was indiscernible in the dim light cast by several torches and candles. But that was more than enough. The wide shoulders. Flat nipples. Even the slick, black body hair leading down in a vee.
I’d like to be a louse licking my way down that hairy water slide to . . . A louse? Oh, yuck! What a thought!

“Dost like what you see?”

Caught in the act.
“Oh, yeah.”

“What else do you like?”

She laughed. “Fishing for compliments, are you?”

“And why not?”

“I like the fact that you haven’t forced yourself on me.”

He made a clucking sound of disgust. “As if I would! What kind of backhanded compliment is that?”

“I like your loyalty to family.”

“There is naught to admire in that, either. Honor should be a given in any man.”

“And your concern for your people.”

“I have no choice but to be responsible. Dost think anyone asked me if I wanted to be leader of this wild clan?”

“I like your dimples.”

“I do not have dimples.” He tried his best to keep his lips tightly together so the traitorous dimples wouldn’t escape.

“I like your concern for Liv.”

“She is my sister. You had to know what a delightful creature she was before . . .” He choked up for a moment, then continued, “Liv was a pretty, lissome lass. Merry of heart. She laughed all the time. Never walked where she could skip. And dance . . . the little one could dance like a butterfly
drukkinn
on mead!”

“I like that you have a sense of humor just begging to emerge.”

“You think I am funny?”

“No, of course not. But you have the gift of being able to laugh at yourself. For a man who prides himself on his grimness, you’re doing a lot of grinning lately.”

“Anticipation.”

Oooooh, boy!

“Methinks you have a warped set of attributes you set for me. A man wants to hear that he is manly, and irresistible, and heroic, and—”

“Well, I must admit, I like your kisses.”

He flashed her a full-blown smile, dimples and all. “Now we are getting somewhere.” He stretched out one of his long legs and prodded her toes with his. Just that little touch was like an electric shock to her senses, and she could see by the way he jerked his foot back that he’d felt it, too. “What you do to me, wench!”

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “How about me? Is there anything you like about me?”

His eyes immediately went to her breasts, half-floating on the water.

She ducked a little lower. “Not that!”

“Why not?”

“Physical attraction. That kind of thing can happen with any woman.”

“I beg to differ. I have not felt this kind of physical attraction in many a year. If ever.”

“Really?”

“Truly.”

It was probably just a line, but if so, she didn’t want to know. “What else?”

“You make me laugh.”

“Oh, there’s a talent I aim for. Not!”

“I mean, in a good way. I have not had much to laugh about of late.” He rolled his lips inward, studying her, then disclosed, “You lighten me.”

What an odd but wonderful thing to say!

“You talk too much.”

“Hey, we’re supposed to be listing the things we like.”

“You are brave to the point of stupidity. Like jumping out of a castle turret.”

“I did not jump, and it wasn’t a turret.”

He winked at her, and, man, he had a sexy wink. “I like your wagging tongue . . . betimes. Of course, I have visions of said wagging tongue wagging in other ways.”

“If you think I’m going to ask you what other ways, you’re crazy.”

“I like the way you cuddle up against me when asleep, and the way you snore.”

“I do not snore.”

“I like your gentleness in dealing with Liv. I like that you managed to coax her out of her bedchamber. I like what you did in the kitchens today, although you could have done so without insulting one and all.”

“I didn’t—”

“I like knowing that you are mine.”

“No, no, no! Don’t start the thrall nonsense again.”

“I am not speaking of bondage. You are mine because I want you with a fierceness that cannot be denied, and you want me, too, though you resist your inner yearnings.”

“So, you’re saying you’re mine, just as I’m yours.”

He flushed. “Well, not precisely.”

“Thanks a bunch! That’s some one-sided relationship!”

“You missay me. There would be naught one-sided about it. Know this as well. I want you, and eventually I will have you.”

“See, there’s the difference between us. You mention taking me, while I want to make love.”

“They are the same thing.”

“Honey, they are miles apart.”

“You called me honey.”

“So? It’s an endearment in my time . . . an endearment that’s tossed about rather loosely, if you must know.”

“You said
your time
. Why do you keep harping on that far-fetched idea?”

“It is far-fetched, but I’m beginning to think . . .” She paused, searching for the right words. “Brandr, when I was hit on the head in Germany, it was the year two thousand and nine.” She held up a hand to halt the protest he was about to make. “When I woke up, I thought at first that I had landed in the model reproduction village of Hedeby that exists in two thousand and nine. Or that you were some lost tribe, like the pygmies that had somehow survived civilization undetected.”

“Dost compare Vikings to tribes of pigs?”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. Oh, I see what you thought. Pygmies aren’t animals; they’re people who . . . never mind. Don’t interrupt. When your brothers ‘bought’ me at the auction, I still thought it was part of some ridiculous charade, gone too far. Even when we arrived here, I tried to tell myself that it was just another model reenactment place. But then things started to get confusing.”

“I do not like to hear you say such things.”

“Why? Because then it would mean you’re attracted to a nutcase?”

His flushed face gave him away. “Amuse me then with tales of your time . . . a thousand years from now.”

She bared her teeth at his condescension, then figured it wasn’t worth arguing over. “Well, people travel from city to city in cars . . . which you might consider horseless carriages, and from country to country in airplanes, which are very large metal objects that fly in the sky, carrying up to hundreds of people.”

“Now I know that you jest.”

“People don’t hunt for their food, for the most part. We have supermarkets where a person can buy everything from fresh fruits and vegetables to meat of all kinds to hosiery to toothpaste to milk to hair brushes to . . . well, just about anything.”

He shrugged as if that was no big deal.

“Floors are covered with wood or carpets. No straw on the floor, that’s for darn sure. We have electricity to provide light and heat. The only way I can explain electricity is that all you have to do is flick a tiny lever on the wall, and lights come on.”

“Magic?”

“No. It’s done through wires and science and, oh, it’s too hard to explain. We have armies in my time, but the weapons are vastly different. No swords or lances or maces. Instead, we have weapons that can shoot metal bullets rapidly. Rat-a-tat-tat! And we have tanks that can take down a building in one shot. Heck, we have bombs that can blow up an entire country.”

His eyes were wide with wonder . . . and disbelief. “Moving on . . . women got the vote in my country almost a hundred years ago, meaning we are equal to men in all ways.”

“Why would they want to be?”

“Only a clueless idiot male chauvinist pig would ask that question.”

“What of the Vikings? What are we Vikings doing whilst all these changes are taking place?”

“Actually, there are no Vikings anymore.”

He gasped. “Our entire race has been destroyed?”

“No, not really. Instead, Vikings have blended into other countries by marriage and settlement. Women really liked Viking men over the centuries—”

“Of course they did,” he interrupted with a smile of self-satisfaction.

If they were closer, she would have smacked him. “Mainly because they bathed more often than other men of the times.”

“That, too, but it is incidental to our comeliness.” He made an exaggerated gesture of preening.

“The closest that exists to a Viking culture in modern times is Iceland.”

“Iceland! That gods-forsaken, frozen hunk of dirt is all we have left to us?”

“There is still a Norway, but the people there call themselves Norwegians, not Vikings. Same is true of Denmark, where they are Danes, and Sweden, where they are Swedes.”

While he remained stunned, she went on to another subject. “Back to women, one of the biggest enablers of independence for women over the centuries was the invention more than fifty years ago of the birth control pill.”

“Explain.”

She did, and with each word his smile got wider. “I suspect men welcomed such an invention as much as women.”

“They did . . . still do. And there are lots of other methods of birth control, too.” She explained those, too. “But the greatest invention for men is the little blue pill call Viagra. Actually, their partners are thankful for it, too.”

He hooted with laughter when she was done explaining erectile dysfunction. “A pellet that can keep a man’s staff standing. Oh, this is too much! Of course, we Viking men do not need such.”

“Ever?”

“Never.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Brandr. It happens to the best of men, especially as they age.”

Once he was done laughing, he commented, “Please do not tell me that sex has changed over the years, as well.”

It was her turn to smile. “No, not really, although women are much more uninhibited. And they demand satisfaction the same as their male partners.”

“Now, that I would like to see. More uninhibited females. Mayhap you would like to demonstrate.”

Joy’s heart melted a little to see a teasing Brandr. This must be what he was like as a boy . . . or even as a man before his life went to hell in a Sigurdsson handbasket. That must be why she lost her mind and blurted out those infamous words that, once said, could not be taken back: “I think I love you.”

Brandr froze in place and said nothing.
Nothing!

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“The comment I just made is one that usually warrants a response.”
Why can’t I just shut my mouth and slink away?

“What would you have me say? Those are women’s words . . . a way of romanticizing what men know is . . . wait! Where are you going?”

BOOK: Viking Heat

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