The Barbarian (4 page)

When he released
her wrists at last it was such a surprise that she did not move, but lay
stunned for a moment. While she was frozen, undecided on her next move, he said
calmly, "You're not my captive, woman." He spread her thighs apart
with his broad shoulders and lowered his head. "You're my bride."

"What?"
She struggled to sit up and got half way there on her elbows.

"I'm Stryker
Bloodaxe," he confirmed proudly, his hot breath kissing her exposed pussy.
"Save your swoons till later, my little lust bucket."

He was laughing
when he pressed his mouth to her sex and then his tongue stabbed between her
nether lips in quick, hard, hungry licks.

Finally she realized
the truth. She had not been set upon by robbers. This man between her thighs,
penetrating her with his tongue, was her new husband.

The younger man on
horseback still watched intently. His horse stomped in the ruffled leaves and
snorted, impatient to be off again, but the rider was going nowhere. His hand
disappeared under his chainmail tunic and she knew he rubbed his cock while he
watched her on the ground.
 

Oh, now the
bonfire roared. The spring she'd felt churning to life quickly transformed into
a summer heat wave. The pulsing ache was too much. Ami grabbed Stryker's hair,
meaning to pull him off her, but even as she slid backward on her buttocks
across the dead leaves, he followed, his hands under her, grabbing her arse,
his mouth claiming her hungrily. Her sex opened under his merciless teasing,
her hips moved of their own accord, and she feared losing herself to this
wicked magic.

She slid back
again until her head contacted the gnarled roots of a tree and then any further
attempt at escape seemed fruitless. Her body was weak and he was too strong.
Ami had no choice but to forget about the other man watching her succumb to
untamed desire. Her maiden's body was possessed by a yearning too fierce to be
denied.
 

The brute between
her thighs laughed again when he sensed the moment of her capitulation and then
his tongue paid fierce unremitting attention to one particular spot at the
crest of her labia.

Ami's screams
echoed in the forest and a flock of crows rose up out of the bare trees in a
great startled flapping.

Chapter Two

This noisy
cantankerous woman was giving him a headache. Despite the servicing he granted
her with his tongue, her temper was vanquished only temporarily. The moment he
was in the saddle again and her body slung over his lap, she resumed a steady
tirade, threatening his person with a gruesome variety of imaginative torture.

"I hate you!
You will never do that to me again. You're a dumb ox, a common Saxon pig."

"I am an ox
and
a pig?"

"Yes,"
she screamed, "both."

"But I am not
Saxon. I am of Norse blood."

"Pagan filth.
A Viking! Lawless, ignorant—"

"And you are
Norman
, also descended of
Viking seed."

But she would not
hear of it. The idea of herself as an elegant, cultured lady misused by a
primitive pagan brute apparently suited her better than to recognize a common
bond, even one several hundred years in the past.

Stryker was a firm
believer in the importance of history. A man should know from whence he came.
He was in the process now of drawing up a document—with the help of a monk who
had traveled there from Exeter—that would detail his own lineage and eventually
hang in his great hall. Most of what he knew came from stories his father had
told and his father's stories had come down to him through past generations in
the same way. Now it would be written down, a permanent record. What was
forgotten, Stryker embellished with his own vivid imagination, and he felt no
guilt about it. Other men, he had no doubt, made up stories too.

His stories would
be better than theirs.

"You are to
be my bride," he reminded the furious woman slung over his lap.
"Therefore I am entitled to do as I please with you."

"Try it again
and see what you get."

"I did not
hear many complaints once I proceeded in earnest."

"You took me
by surprise," she yelled. "It won't happen again!"

Well, he mused,
that made two of them. She took him by surprise too.

He would have
thought she was too hoarse after all that screaming and begging for more in the
forest, but she had a never ending supply of curses, it seemed, and plenty of
breath left with which to fling them at him. He had saved her life that day and
she was not grateful. He had brought her to swift orgasm that day and still she
was not grateful.

Stryker was amused
by his error in mistaking her for one of the whores from Marazion, but she did
not find it so hilarious. The prideful woman failed to recognize his rights.
She was to be his bride, therefore his property, and he would do as he wished
with her. Now she knew who he was, he expected the wench to thank him for
rescuing her from the flood and then fall respectfully silent, but she was not
yet done throwing out complaints.

"Is this how
you generally welcome visitors to your manor, oaf? Are you all savages here? I
did not hope for too much, but some manners surely are not beyond the realm of
expectation. I am a ward of the king, a lady—not a sack of grain."

Despite the wounds
she'd already caused, and every insult she threw over her shoulder in a shower
of spittle, his cock still thickened. His pulse kept rhythm with his horse's
hooves. Perhaps this high level of excitement was due to the success of the
hunt earlier and then the rescue. The expected arrival of those whores from
Marazion—part of the celebration before his wedding—had also put him in the mood
for sport. When he saw this one peering out of the stranded wagon, Stryker
chose her instantly as his exclusive playmate, not realizing that she was, in
fact, his bride to be. The whores were late; his bride was early.

And Stryker's
blood was up, as it would be after a good battle. He'd given her release
several times over, but allowed himself none. His cock ached, teased by that
female form—all tantalizing curves— thrown across it.

"It would not
occur to you that some introduction was required before you grabbed me by the
ankles?" the upside down wench demanded.

"Why should
it?" he muttered. That river had broken its banks once before and swept
the old road away with it. She was a lucky wench that he had reached her when
he did. There had been no time for polite conversation. "The situation was
one of urgency."

"Still,
common courtesy would not have gone amiss."

"Next time
your life is in danger, I'll stop and discuss the weather first." The
sensations throbbing inside his thigh muscle, where her full breasts pushed
into his leg, multiplied as the horse raced toward a ditch.

"I need my
maid," she shouted above the thundering hooves. "She is very young
and sheltered. If any harm comes to her you'll be to blame."

His mount soared
into the air, clearing the ditch with ease, despite the extra burden he
carried. Stryker gave a grunt of satisfaction as they came down again with a
jolt and raced onward, hooves flinging up clods of earth in all directions.

"Your maid is
safe with my men," he assured her, slightly breathless, cold wind sucking
the air out of his lungs.

"She had
better be!"

He wanted to
believe he misheard. His wife-to-be had not dared say that. Surely she had not
spoken to him as if he were a servant. She must be suffering shock.

They entered another
border of naked, winter-ravaged trees. When Stryker slowed his horse to
maneuver through the low arches of knotted limbs, his bride tried sitting
upright and the fur-lined hood of her cape fell back, revealing long, thick
dark chestnut hair, tied in braids. He quickly pressed her down again over his
lap, his hand in the small of her back. Once more he felt the promising lure of
that soft curve where it lead to her rounded arse, barely covered by a rumpled
woolen gown and shift. The warmth of that restless body teased his palm just
enough to shorten his breath and speed the awakened hammer of desire beating in
his temple. Fortunately they were now in sight of his manor.

"I'm
dizzy!" she complained.

"Nearly
there. Be still." He could barely get the words out. Perhaps it had been
too long for him since his last swiving, in which case he must amend that very
soon. Ducking as they passed under a series of low branches, he caught the
sweet scent of her hair, which had begun to fall loose from the braids. She was
still fighting to sit up as he bent over her, and when her brow briefly
contacted with his cheek, a lock of soft hair brushed his lips like a kiss. His
pulse stalled. He straightened up so quickly that he hit his head on a branch
and was almost knocked out of the saddle.

"How much
further?" she demanded. "Just when I thought things could not get any
worse, here I am, battered and bruised, tossed about without a solitary concern
for my well being and thrown over a great, sweating, stinking beast."

"We just came
from a successful day's hunt, of course my horse sweats and stinks."

She twisted her
neck to look up at him. "I refer not to your horse."

Oh, there was no
mistaking her tone this time, no excusing it on shock. "Woman," he
roared, "cease your rattling or I'll fill that mouth with something!"

"And I'll
bite it off. Arrogant wretch!" To prove her point she sank her teeth into
his thigh. Even through hide breeches, he felt the sharp pinch and knew she'd
left a mark.

Stryker was
appalled, enraged. Even worse, he heard laughter behind them and knew his
friend, Ifyr, was close enough to see and hear it all. If Stryker did not act
at once, this woman could severely dent his pride and his reputation. Clearly
his wife thought to get the upper hand in their marriage. In which case she
needed a lesson.

He must begin as
he meant to go on. Couldn't let his people witness her get away with this bold
behavior.

Cantering through
the gates of his manor, Stryker assessed the possibilities hastily and his gaze
settled on a small, thatched hut in the center of the yard. This is where any
man accused of a crime was kept until his innocence—or guilt—could be
ascertained, but the hut's most common use was to hold the drunk and unruly in
custody until they came to their senses. Perfect.

He leapt down and
dragged the woman over his shoulder.

"Now
what?" she cried, her long braids slapping him in the face as she twisted
about, trying to see where he took her. "Now where—? Put me down! I
insist, you filthy barbarian!"

"
You
insist? I am the master here, woman.
You do naught but obey."

Stryker tossed her
onto the heap of straw inside the hut, slammed the door and locked it with the
large ring of keys he kept on his belt. Speaking through the small barred
window in the door, he assured her, quite calmly, that she could remain there
until she showed some humility and gratitude. He would not even look at her
again until she complied, he assured her.

"Good,"
she yelled through the door.

He rubbed his sore
thigh where she'd bitten it. "When you cool your temper, woman, apologize
for the wounds you gave me this day and grovel for my forgiveness, I will let
you out. Then we can be married and you may enjoy more of what I gave you this
afternoon."

A curt laugh cut
through the crisp wintry air. "Be still my heart."

Why bring hearts
into it, he wondered. Theirs had no chance of being a love match so he hoped
she wasn't the romantic sort. Stryker had endured his fill of being in love. It
left him abandoned before, made him a laughingstock. "You will comply,
shrew, or stay there under lock and key."

"Excellent. I
know already my choice."

Unfortunately,
Stryker Bloodaxe, product of a long line of reckless adventurers, was not well
known for thinking a plan through. A creature of instinct, he had a tendency to
act on a situation the moment an idea entered his mind, even when it was not
fully envisioned and assessed for potential problems. Having been criticized
for this before, he was sadly aware of it, but that resemblance to a charging
bull also made him completely unable to change his ways.
 
Besides, as Stryker took every opportunity to
remind his foes, he had strong Norse blood in his veins. A descendant of Danish
King Harald Bluetooth and therefore kindred to the proud race of Viking
warriors, he had inherited a force of will that seldom failed to triumph. At
least in his own stories.

But as he strode
away from the hut and heard her yelling that he could wait until the cows came
home, he realized that until he let her out there could be no wedding. Which
meant no bride purse—an item that would be sent only when her uncle had proof
of the ceremony safely completed. It also meant no wedding night until he let
her out. And his cock ached with need to spill inside that sweet cunny he'd
tasted.