Loki's Daughters (49 page)

 
With a swift arm behind her back he swept her down onto soft furs so quickly that the breath was almost knocked from her. Just as quickly, he threw his huge body atop her, pinning her down from her lips to her toes. His knee slid between her knees as his hands laced into her hair and wound it through his fingers. "I'm going to make love to you until you are silly with passion and pleasure."

His lips descended to capture hers, slanting across her mouth and gently forcing access. She savored the lush, sensual pleasure. "You're going to ravish me?"

"Won't be necessary," he retorted. "You'll give me everything I want."

That was the truth.

The dark fringe of his eyelids shuttered down over his eyes as he lowered lips to capture hers. Above her head, the early morning sky lightened and flickered through the bower of bent branches. She wiggled her arm around his waist beneath his tunic. He stiffened and groaned.

Once again his lips found hers, but did not linger long before blazing a searing trail down her throat while his fingers caught the hem of her kirtle and raised it.

A shiver fluttered up her skin from the cool air and his fingers that skimmed along her hips and up her sides as the garment lifted, momentarily blocking her view of him.

Both of his big hands shaped over the curve of her shoulders, then descended to cup and lift her breasts. Dizzy with the sensation, Arienh wanted just to stop and feel his touch, yet wanted as badly to touch him. She ran her fingers beneath his tunic and wriggled it over his head as he had done her kirtle. His hands stopped their exploring as he lifted himself away and sought the knot of the cord at his waist. His breeches dropped, exposing the stout length of manhood among thick, dark curls.

She pushed the breeches free of his thighs, and remembering the tingling of his passing fingers on her flesh, slid hers along his bulky, hard muscles in the same fashion, meaning to give to him all the pleasure she could find to give
 
A passionate hum rumbled from deep in his chest. He kicked the breeches free.

Traces of first sunlight cast a dappling of elongated spots across his shoulder and chest as it passed through the leafy bower. The dark sprinkling of hair had a faint glow of gold where the light struck it. She followed its track downward with her touch, where it skipped across his belly, then began again in a narrow line and spread out to encompass his swollen organ. As she traced its length from base to tip, his entire body jerked into rigid agony.

A groan turned to a growl as he crushed her against him, his mouth hunting down hers and forcing it to his will.

"Don't you dare," he said, his words tinged with threat and desperation. "I want this to last."

"You didn't like it?"

He took several ragged breaths before answering. "Aye. But you'll send me to the stars long before I take you there. This time, this is for both of us."

He caught the tip of her breast with his tongue and nuzzled it between his teeth. Lightning jolted through her, down to that magic center of her that he controlled.

"You see?" he whispered, mingling the ragged words with nips and tugs against her sensitized flesh. "Don't you want your share, too?"

She couldn't form a word in her mouth. Only moans escaped, blending with his whispered pleadings, so that she did not know his voice from hers. Hazy, frantic desire flooded her as she ran her hands over the iron hard muscles that coursed and surged over his back like ripples on the open sea. She found the glorious curve of his spine and followed it down to strong, hard buttocks
 
She cupped them the way he did her breasts.

Sounds of lovemaking tangled with his heated breath and tingled her skin. His hands sought and found all the places she wanted them to be, in the creases and folds that had hidden the secrets of her womanhood from her, so recently awakened by him. Knowing, not knowing, wanting, he compelled her body to join his in its craving for completion.

He nudged his knee, and then his thigh between her legs, and eagerly she wrapped herself around him, enclosing him, enticing him to enter.
 
Moisture beaded on his brow. He pushed his way inside, and a great cry of victory burst from him.

She tightened her hold on him as he nuzzled at her ear with whispered, secret sounds. She sought his mouth with hers, wanting a complete joining, and pursued his tongue to mate with hers.

Slowly the rhythm of his body took over hers, slow and deep, filling her to endless depths, lingering, withdrawing, with each stroke leaving her to fear irrationally that it might be the last, when she was not ready for it to end. He lifted himself higher, away from her, joining only in the one place, yet coming deeper, faster, and the pace grew frenzied, as feral as wolves tangling for supremacy. She lost all thought, felt only the primeval power, need overwhelming them in its desperate rush for perfection.

The rhythm suddenly changed to urgent, violent thrusting, as if he could not go deeper, yet somehow did, his body rigid, straining.

The wave overwhelmed her, engulfed her, and washed her away. Washed away everything but Arienh and her Viking. Her beautiful, wonderful Viking.

Slowly, the world found her again. She opened her eyes to the dappled brightness playing through the bower on his golden skin, and the feel of his fingers threading lazily through her hair. The heavy fringe of his eyelashes traced a streak of charcoal just above his cheeks, hiding those wondrously blue eyes. Did he sleep? Had she? She didn't think so.

Yet it was as if eternity had passed and the world had been reformed. She closed her eyes, soaking in the pleasure of lying in his arms. And this time, slept.

She woke again to a warm sunbeam penetrating through the bower's canopy and catching her in the eye. The scratchy wool of the blanket tickled her bare skin, reminding her of how she lay, flesh to flesh beside him. Twice he had awakened her and sought her body, and she had given it freely, happily. Once she had been dreaming of a feather and woke to find his fingers stroking her cheek, the feather of her dreams.

His eyes opened and lazily surveyed her, as if she were his pirate's booty.

"You're mine," Ronan said.

"Aye." It seemed it was her heart smiling.

But the morning was in full bloom, and there was much to do
 
The Beltane was not over. Perhaps the men could join them now. She stretched lazily, reveling in the silken feel of the Great White Bear rug against her back.

"We have no Maypole. I did not want to ask you. But we could teach you the dances if we had a Maypole."

"Now?"

"It is still the Beltane. We have not had a pole for several years."

His eyes narrowed with a hint of suspicion.

"Just a pole. It is not all that hard. Except that it must be made of beech. The pole is the symbol of all the lovers of the night before. And the dance symbolizes their life together."

"Hmm. And you'll teach us the dances?"

It must have been delight lighting her eyes, for it seemed the Vikings were doing most of the teaching. "Of course. I danced with you last night, in a dream."

His face became suddenly solemn. "It was no dream."

Arienh bolted up to sitting. "You were there? When I danced with the old ones?"

He nodded.

"Did you see them, too?"

It was not quite a smile that quirked at the corner of his mouth. "Well, I am a Celt, too."

"But did you see them?"

"Well, no. I saw you dancing and went to dance with you. But Egil was afraid I would mess up the plan and called me back."

Arienh snickered, mostly at herself. Whatever everyone thought of her strange dance the night before, he had been there, and the old ones had accepted him. They had told her so. "I'm glad you came," she said.

He stretched as he rose, revealing interesting, languid curves and cords of muscles she meant to investigate further, later.

But they had many things to decide today. For everything had changed. Reluctantly, she rose to her knees, pulled her kirtle over her head, and fastened her cord belt as she watched him pull on his buckskin breeches.

A high-pitched scream pierced the morning air.

"Birgit!"

She glanced at Ronan's startled face. She jumped to her feet, dashed across the high meadow and scrambled through the forest down the steep slope of the knoll.

Behind her, Ronan crashed through the forest, making as much noise as a boar as he caught up with her.

"You said she'd be safe with him."

"She would. She is-"

Another scream. A high-pitched shriek.

"From the Bride's Well," he shouted, and dashed ahead of her.

Terror seized Arienh as she sped through the ash grove after him. They should have gone the other way and taken the horse.

Past the trees, across the open plateau, they ran, along the straight cut of the stream to the waterfall, as the shrieks grew wilder.

Not screams of terror. No, there was something oddly familiar about them. Something more like the Birgit of their childhood.

Ahead of her, Ronan stopped short the edge of the cliff, staring down where the stream plunged over the cliff, bracing balled fists on his hips. Screams and splashes echoed from the pool below.

Gasping for breath, Arienh caught up to him.

Below, two heads bobbed to the surface of the pool, and ripples in rings spread out from them. Birgit shrieked again, laughter rippling like the rings, her arms wrapped around Egil as he pitched her upward, to splash, shrieking, back into the water. Egil dove after her, scooping her up again. They paddled about, cavorting like otters.

Ronan peered down at the two water imps, his nostrils flaring with disgust. "That's your sister?"

Arienh nodded. She'd thought Birgit had forgotten how to laugh. "With your brother. They jumped, I'd say. He doesn't make a very good Viking, either."

"Jumped?"

"From the falls. We used to do that when we were children. But Birgit hasn't done that since... Egil must have helped her, because she can't see where the rocks are."

 
Ronan studied the splashing, screeching scene below, then turned back to Arienh. That smoky look of wicked mischief crossed his face again.

"You realize they're having so much fun they don't know we're here."

"True."

The wickedness broadened into an evil grin. "They wouldn't see us coming until it was too late. It would serve them right."

"Aye. It would."

His eyebrows arched wickedly and the corners of his eyes crinkled. "Shall we?"

She pointed to the jumping-off stone, the traditional spot from which Celtic children pretended, for long, exhilarating moments, that they could fly.

Stealthily, they crept up onto the stone like slinking foxes while the otter-like inhabitants of the pool below frolicked, unsuspecting of the coming attack.

Standing on the platform stone, they grasped hands and flung themselves into the air. Arienh's wild screech echoed off the canyon walls and mingled with the Viking's roar as they plummeted downward and smacked the water.

THE END

A Few Last Words...