Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 05] (29 page)

Maire noticed the instant a transformation began in Rurik. Just before he drawled, “I like the necklet fine,” his posture relaxed and a slow smile emerged on his lips, which twitched with the effort to remain stern and unmoved. But he couldn’t fool her. He was moved. Maire could tell… even without examining that part of him which she knew to be highly movable.

Not giving herself, or him, a chance to think, Maire launched herself at him like a rock in a catapult, exclaiming in a long moan, “Ruuuur-iiiick!”

He had no choice but to catch her by opening his arms, then holding her up by the buttocks till she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Why are you doing this, Maire?” he rasped out, already backing up and sitting on the bed, with her straddling his lap.

Now he wants to talk? Is he demented? I cannot answer logical questions when my blood is nigh boiling and every fine hair on my body is practically dancing
. Still, she mustered the strength of will to tell him, “Because there are things I need to talk about with you, and you kept ignoring me.”

Rurik was already undoing the waist laces of his trews and clumsily shoving the garment down his thighs, even though she had not moved from his lap. When he’d gotten them as far as his knees, he looked at her and smiled.
Blessed Bones of St. Bartholomew! He has a fine, fine smile
. “I could develop a fondness for your method of talking,” he drawled.

Who knew a drawl could be so … sexual? Was it a Viking trick, or did all men have this knack for twisting a woman into sensual knots with a mere lowering
of the voice? “You wouldn’t pay attention to me,” she complained.

“I’m paying attention now.” The drawl was more pronounced than before. Without any preliminaries, he lifted her bottom up, then down, till she was filled with his rampant erection.

Aye, he was paying attention
.

Maire closed her lids briefly, just in case her eyes were rolling. When she opened them, she saw that his teeth were gritted and cords were standing out in his neck. The man couldn’t drawl now if he tried, Maire would bet.

Sure enough, he finally grated out, “Do… not… dare … move.” He anchored her hips to make sure she complied. That created an overwhelming compulsion in Maire to do just the opposite of his bidding. In fact, if she did not move soon, she was certain the butterflies fluttering beneath her woman hair were going to burst free. So she tightened the inner walls of her body to hold them in.

Rurik’s member lurched, and he groaned, but he still held her firmly in her place. “So,” he said, once he appeared to be more in control, “talk.”

“Now?” she squealed.

“You said you came here to talk,” he reminded her. “Are you demented? I can’t talk now.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because I feel as if I’m sitting on a flagpole. That’s why. Mayhap you can do various things at one time, but simple woman that I am, I can concentrate on only one thing at a time.”

He was smiling. The lout! “And that would be?”

“The fact that you’re not moving.” She tried to squirm in place but he would not allow even that small motion. “Move, damn you, move!”

“Not yet,” he replied.

Is he trying to punish me?
She eyed him suspiciously, then entreated, “Make love to me, Rurik.”

He held her eyes and answered, “Convince me.”

Aye, it’s punishment he’s after. But no rack or whipping post for this rogue. Nay, he has a more devious torture in mind
. “I am not experienced in the love arts … you know that. How would I convince you?”

“Use your imagination.” He let go of her hips and leaned back on his elbows. The brute was going to make her initiate all the moves, when she didn’t even know what the moves were.

“Rurik, we don’t have much time.”

He shrugged. “Then you’d best think quick.”

She tried clenching her inner muscles again, and holding them taut. That was an exercise he’d seemed to like before.

Rurik bit his bottom lip as if stifling a cry.

Aha! A small victory, I spy
. She repeated the maneuver, this time engaging a rhythmic hold-release, hold-release pattern. “How was that?” she asked.

“A start,” he choked out.

A
start? Just a start? Hah! I’ll show you, Viking
. She spread her legs wider and glanced down to where black curls blended with red, both glistening with her woman dew. When she looked back up, she saw that Rurik had been staring at the same spot… and he liked what he saw … oh, yes, he did! His face might remain impassive, but a part of him he could not control
flexed and swelled, filling her even more.

Even so, the man still did nothing to initiate the undulations that her body craved. What could she do that would knock the complacency out of him?

Her gaze fixed on the chain shirt that came to a vee in the front under his tunic. Some soldiers pulled the mail all the way down and between the legs, with padding underneath, to protect the genitals. His lay open. That gave her an idea… a wicked idea.

Did she dare?

Did she dare not?

She pulled back slightly so that Rurik was still embedded in her but the base of his staff was exposed. Then she spread her legs even wider so that nub of woman pleasure Rurik had introduced her to was clearly visible to him.

She was too embarrassed to let her gaze connect with his. She thought she heard a hitch in Rurik’s breathing, though, which she took for a good sign.

Then, garnering every bit of nerve she had, Maire took the flexible mail by its pointed front tail and ever so lightly stroked the base of Rurik’s column, back and forth, side to side.

“For the love of Frigg!” Rurik roared.

There was no doubt in Maire’s mind now. She was on the right route. Still, she asked, pretending uncertainty, “Dost want me to stop?”

“Bloody damn … bloody damn … whffffffff.”

“Oh,” she said coyly, stroking him again with the cool metal. “Does that mean you like it?”

“Yea, I like it.”

“How much?” she teased with the metal poised a hairbreadth away.

“Immensely.”

“I wonder if you would like it more or less if I did the same with my tongue.”

He let loose with a strangled laugh. “Unless you are as double-jointed as Ivar the Boneless was said to be, I would say that is an impossibility in your present position. Perchance you could save that sex feat for another time.”

Would there be another time? Would Rurik come back, alive and whole? Would he then mention the “bride gift”? Would he stay in the Highlands? Nay, Maire could not think of those questions now.

“But, yea, witchling, I would enjoy having your mouth on me there,” Rurik continued in a low, husky voice. “More than you could ever imagine.”

While she was pondering what to do next, the V edge brushed across her woman hair… just a feathery pass, but the fiery sensation it ignited was exquisite. Tentatively, she let the metal edge make a return pass … this time just barely touching the distended bud that held such prominence there. ’Twas like lightning striking her most sensitive body part. Or warm honey spreading out to all her intimate folds.

Maire was utterly shocked at the wantonness of her act, and the pleasure she took from it. Though her hand still held the supple metal fabric, she jerked it away, lest she be tempted to repeat the sweet torture.

Rurik grabbed her by the wrist and gently placed her hand back at the joining of her thighs. In a voice thick as the warm honey she’d imagined, he urged, “Do it again.”

Sacred Saints, she did, and almost swooned at the intensity of searing heat that pooled there.

“Again,” he prodded.

She had no choice but to comply, so far gone in arousal was she now. And the point of this whole exercise had been to arouse Rurik! This time, the warm honey and searing heat sensations were joined by an interior spasming… one, two, three sharp clasps of the thick spear on which she sat.

Rurik groaned … a long, lust-ridden, male sound. Even so, he pleaded, “One last time, sweetling. Come to the edge … just the edge of your peak for me … just a little higher.”

“I can’t.”

“Do it, Maire… one last time.” His command brooked no argument.

Maire stared down at herself and Rurik where they were joined. As if she were a puppet and Rurik were pulling her strings, she held the pointed fabric slightly above them. Then she let it swing from side to side like a rapid pendulum, creating a vibration against the ridge of her femininity.

She was keening almost continuously now, tears streaming down her face, as wave after wave of escalating excitement hit her. “Oh … oh … oh … oh … oh …” She must have swooned into unconsciousness for a brief moment, because the next thing she was aware of was being on her back and Rurik attempting to reassure her with soft crooning words, “Hush, now, pretty. You did good. Very, very good. There is naught to be ashamed of.” His soothing words were contrary to what he was doing … creating new waves and new spasms with long, slow strokes of his hard staff. As his strokes became shorter, he hammered against her, driving her body
from one side of the mattress to the other. And the only sounds were those of Rurik’s panting and their slick parts hitting one another. Then, finally, the explosion of every nerve ending in Maire’s body as Rurik pounded into her one last time with a delicious male shout of triumph. Then silence.

“I have to leave, dearling,” Rurik said a short time later, kissing the top of Maire’s head.

“I know,” she murmured, but made no effort to move from where she lay cradled at his side, her face resting on his chest, which had finally subsided from its passionate heaving.

And he was no better. His braies were still draped about his knees in a tangle. Holy Thor! The last time he’d been so anxious to have a female that he’d taken her with his braies about his boots he’d been an untried boy, not an experienced man. But that was how Maire affected him.

He looked down at his lady—and, yea, that was how he regarded her…
his
lady—and ran a hand over the mass of hair that was spread out over his chest, down to his waist, and over his upper arms. Like a massive skein of blazing silk, it was. “Amazing how I’ve developed a taste for red hair,” he commented idly as he rubbed several strands between his thumb and forefinger. “I always thought I misliked flame hair on a woman.”

“You do not like red hair?” she inquired, lifting her head to regard his face.

“I never did afore. I recall the first time I saw Tykir’s wife, Alinor. I could not understand how my
friend saw beauty when I considered her nigh homely.”

“Because she had red hair?”

“Well, because she was covered with freckles from head to toe, as well.”

“And now?”

He shrugged as if only mildly interested. “Now, I concede Alinor has a certain attraction.”

He kissed Maire lightly on the lips and made to rise. “I really must go. If I do not, we may find a troop of Vikings and Campbell clansmen barging through yon door.”

“Give me one more moment,” she said, pressing him back down.

I’d like to give you more than a moment, witch. I’d like to give you some memories that would sizzle the hair off your skin and put a permanent blush on that pretty face
. “That is what you said a short time ago, afore you bent me to your will and seduced me to your bed.” He chucked her under the chin playfully to show he had not been all that upset over the way things had turned out.

Her face turned bright red with embarrassment. How a woman could retain a speck of modesty after what she’d just done was beyond Rurik, but then, who could understand the workings of a woman’s mind?

“The seduction was not all one-sided,” she protested.

“It was at first.”

“I beg to differ, not when … but that’s neither here nor there. There is something I need to tell you… something important.”

He tilted his head in question. “Let me dress whilst
you talk, then. I really do need to go soon. I would like to arrive at the MacNabs afore it is full dark.”

She nodded and moved aside so that he could rise. Almost immediately, she covered a good part of her body with the bed linen. Still visible above the cloth were her bare shoulders and the amber necklet, which suited her so well. How could he have ever thought of giving it to anyone but her?

While he drew on his garments, Maire tried several times to tell him something that was apparently bothering her, if her wringing hands and stammered speech were any sign.

“I should have told you long ago …,” she began and halted. Then she tried another route, “I hope you will control your temper till I get to the last because …” She abandoned that pathway as well. “It’s about Jamie, you see, and how …”

“Jamie! All this nervousness is about Jamie! What has he done now?”

“It’s not what he has done. It’s what I…”

“I know… you found out about him watching through a peephole in the scullery as Dora took a bath.”

Maire’s jaw dropped open. “He did
that?
Oooh, I do not need you to warm his bottom. I will do it myself.”

Hmmm. If it wasn’t that incident, what could it be?
“Oh. Surely you’re not this distressed because he and his friends spread honey on the garderobe seat?”

He could tell by the angry glint in her green eyes that she hadn’t been aware of that misdeed either. Jamie’s arse was going to be hot, not warm, Rurik would warrant.

“I am not the one who brought up the subject of his dinky,” he asserted, refusing to take the blame for that foolishness.

“His … his
dinky?”
Maire sputtered.

So, it was not that either. “Well, the only other thing I can think of that might have you this upset is his asking me if he could go a-Viking with me.”

The anger quickly disappeared from her expressive eyes and was replaced with hurt.
Why hurt?
“My Wee-Jamie asked to go away with you?” Her voice was barely a whisper and carried myriad emotions, mostly pain.

“Yea, he did … the rascal… but, of course, I told him it was out of the question.”

She breathed a visible sigh of relief, which struck Rurik as rather odd. Why would she think he’d even consider taking her young son away from his homeland and his mother?