The Viking Wants Forever (17 page)

She’d met the man of her dreams, and finally possessed the
cajones
to step up to the plate, and they didn’t have a future. She couldn’t win for losing.

Her vision suddenly blurry, Reese blinked. Those were so not tears!

I am so not Laura and he’s not Luke.
She was made of stiffer stuff. Like Storm and Jane Grey, she couldn’t forsake her mission for a thick dick and unbelievable sex. There was a bigger picture at stake. More than her life was on the line. And a fairytale ending, no matter how appealing, couldn’t get in the way of that. 

“You are taking too long to answer, woman,” he growled, and then bit her shoulder. Like before, his aggressive form of foreplay made her clit throb.

“I could ask the same of you, Viking. You are bigger and stronger than me.” Reese planted her feet on the back of his legs and ran them down and then back up. She smiled when he gathered her closer and pressed his lips against the sensitive hollow in her neck. “You could’ve resisted my passionate pleas and pulled out. Are
you
trying to trap
me
? Bind me to you?”

A beat passed, and then he said, “You are mine and I will never let you go.”

Stated with such conviction, his tone should have rubbed Reese the wrong way; instead, Reese experienced an odd flutter in her stomach. Not liking this one way street, she countered, “Is that the Viking way of saying you love and cherish me?”

He ran his calloused hands over her forearms in a light caress, and Reese shuddered. “What a good warrior you are. How easily you turn the tables on your enemies. Have them question their defenses.”

Only a few words and the air around them became charged. The pendulum swing of emotions, she’d just caged, broke free. Sure, she warred with her common sense, any kind of romantic entanglement could cloud her judgment, and still she hurtled down that path.

Heart pounding, Reese slid her hands into his hair. “What does a mighty warrior like you have to protect?” she asked softly, willing her voice into a calmness she didn’t feel.

With a defeated groan, Eirik flopped onto his back. Like a magnet drawn to metal, and seeing a victory she shouldn’t want in sight, Reese followed. She was actually trembling as she waited for him to say something. Her emotions pitched and rolled, until she decided she had to have more sense than to actually be dying to hear what he had to say.

“I keep underestimating you.” He lifted his head and smiled at her and it was so warm and intimate, he made her feel like he’d never smiled at anyone like this before. Or at least she wished it were so.

“Me?” She widened her eyes with feigned innocence, and experienced a confidence she’d never felt in her life. “I’m a mere woman...a slave.”

“With a deadly arsenal at your disposal,” he whispered. “One that kept me walking the floors at night. You belong to me, so it should not matter if you are willing to spread your legs for me or not, but it does.” His hand drifted down her spine, and Reese instantly excused his crudeness as desire shot through her. “I want more. I want—”

“You want everything,” she finished for him. Her toes curling as he squeezed a butt cheek. “Sooo like a Viking.”

“It’s in my nature to take all. Vanquish our enemies until they are cowed, obedient. Leave our mark on them. That is how we became legend. Most of our enemies are already vanquished before we even reach their shores.”

All this talk of crushing enemies and the stuff of legend had Reese so turned on she swung her left leg over him, so she straddled him, her thighs resting against his. His cock nudged hotly against her lower back. His gaze traveled over her in the most licentious way, she felt singed from the roots of hair to the tips of her toes.

Slowly rocking her hips back and forth, Reese placed her hands on his chest for balance. “Did you know where I come from geek girls are legendary?”

“Geek girls?”

Blood rushing to her head, slightly out of breath she nodded her head. “Kick-ass females with an uncanny ability to steer clear of Twilight and Justin Beiber. We possess a superhuman knowledge only gained through our insatiable lust for books. When we indulge in cosplay, we bring nerds to their knees.”

Eirik’s eyes narrowed as he wrapped his hands around her forearms. The touch of his warm fingers sent her libido into overdrive. “Who are these nurdahs?”

He sounded jealous! “It’s pronounced nerds and they are geek girls’ counterparts. Our mates,” she added for clarification when he frowned.

He remained silent for a beat, and then he said, “What makes a man...a nerd?”

His question was so engendering, a warm ball of the fuzzies unfurled in her belly and expanded outward. Smiling, she said, “Nerds are extremely clever.”  

“I am cunning. I have never been defeated in battle.”

“Did you win with this,” Reese touched his arm and then his head, “or this?”

“Brawn serves one well,” he sniffed, “but no one wants to follow a fool into battle.”

“Nerds usually are obsessed with outside the mainstream like technology, history, astronomy comic books and board games.”

“Board games you say?”

Reese nodded.

“I like to play runes and I’m quite good at
kvatrutafl
. I’m sure I could best you.” He suddenly gripped her hips and sat up. His cock bobbed between them. “I guess I’m a nerd.”

“Mayhap, but most nerds also like to role play...we call it cosplay.”

“And how do you do this cawzplay?”

“Cosplay is role-playing in costume. I’ve made all of my costumes for the annual Space Coast Con. Last year, I dressed up as the original BatGirl, the Betty Kane version. I won the Silver Age category.”

“Dress up is for children and I am a man.” His gaze narrowed. “Are you trying to make a cuckold of me?”

“Never! All the nerds I know dress up.” Reese almost retracted the lie, but she wanted to see how far he would go to prove himself to her. If he stepped out of his boundaries, dressed up for her he might abolish slavery. It was a stretch, but anything was worth a try.

“How does one choose a costume?”

“Costumes are based on our favorite super heroes, people we admire.”

“My father was my hero and I already dress like him. This cosplay will be easy.”

Reese didn’t let him off the hook. “What about the god Thor?”

He appeared to contemplate her suggestion and then said, “I have always idolized Thor’s mettle in battle. I always offer a sacrifice and pay homage after a successful campaign.”

Turned on by the thought of seeing him in costume, Reese felt her nipples harden. “If I wear this costume, will I be a nurdah?”

“The sexiest I’ve ever seen.” Unable to keep her hands to herself, she ran them over his pelvis.

“I’ll be
the
sexiest in this costume?” he asked innocently, but watching her through lowered eyelids. Bedroom eyes, and extremely potent.

As if any could after meeting him! He also didn’t need the help of a costume to earn to be the sexiest man she’d ever seen. Still, he didn’t need to know that since she’d discovered a crack in his armor.

Staring up at the ceiling’s wood beams, Eirik thumped his fingers on his chest. From the way he hedged, she could tell he didn’t quite like the idea. So she decided to play dirty.

“You’ll be the object of my deepest desire.” Reese palmed his cock. “No other man could compare.” She twisted her wrists as she lifted her hands and then slowly slid them down his length.

Reese watched his expression change, captivated not only by his masculine beauty but his visible response to her strokes. Her increasing rhythm had him arching into her hands. His lashes fluttered, fanning against his flushed cheeks.

“You are going to make me come,” he choked out.

Literally having the upper hand, Reese rested her hands at the base of his shaft. “Not until you give me your answer. I can have our costumes made up before the end of the week. I know just the place where we can enact our adventure.”

To her consternation, he started chuckling. “I am a warlord,” he admonished, “dress up is for children.”

She felt the heat of embarrassment all the way to her toenails. “No one would have to know,” she said tightly.

“I would know.”

Wheels spinning in her head, Reese recalled overhearing Gilda and Brita discussing the preparations for
vetrnætr
or the winter night’s festival. What she could glean from their conversation, the celebration lasted three or more days. Pagan in nature, there would be an animal sacrifice as protection against a long, harsh winter followed by several days of food and drink. So much ale and mead, each farmer had been required to donate three bundles of barley to the festivities. Add this to Eirik’s harvest, and three dozen gunny sacks already lined one of the storerooms floors. Drunk, people were liable to do anything. Loaded on too much bubbly, she sang
I’ll Always Love You
on a baby grand at Disney’s Swan and Dolphin on New Year’s Eve.

“What if...your people, your men were also in costume?”

He snorted, “I would throw them out on their arses.” Sitting up, he gripped her waist. “No more talk of costumes or nurdahs.” He lifted her up then slammed her onto his erection. No foreplay. No kisses, no caresses. He didn’t need to. Once seated, her motivation switched gears and centered in the vicinity of her groin.

Leaning in, he whispered hoarsely into her ear. “I want to come in you again. Coat your womb with my hot seed.” With a twist of his torso he flipped her onto her back, and shoved himself deep inside her. She didn’t fear getting pregnant because her birth control implant used to regulate her irregular period wouldn’t expire for another year. Of course, she refused to tell him about the impalon stick inserted in her arm to save herself a headache.

His fingers laced with hers, and pinned them on either side of her head. He moved deep inside her. His gaze icy hot, his breath hot and violent in her ears as he rocked between her legs, invading her slowly. He caressed her breasts and suckled them until she writhed and flowed wet.

“Do you like it when I set out to conquer you?”

“Is that...what
this
is?” Reese grunted. She could hardly think, so putting together a sentence was a struggle.

“I’m a Viking,” he whispered, smiling down at her. “It’s in my nature.”

He kissed her and she him, and the tempo quickly changed. The pitch shifting as if their very lives depended on release. Raw passion overrode all else. Each stroke should have driven her upward to the head of the bed, but he held her firmly in place, pushing him deeper with each thrust.

In turn, Reese gyrated her hips at the base of each down stroke, endeavoring to keep him deeply embedded. Like a bitch in heat, she locked her legs around him, opening her body to even deeper penetration.

Reese arched into him. There was no conscious thought, only a hot-blooded urgency. Moaning, practically breathless, she clung to him. Her imminent orgasm building inside her like a crescendo.

“Please,” she gripped him more tightly, “make me cum.”

“All over my cock.” Hands hard on her hips, he rammed into her. Each thrust merciless, bordering on animalistic.

Reese responded to him. Functioning at the most primitive level, she sunk her nails into the flesh of his shoulders and lifted her bottom into his hard pounding rhythm until he felt like he was tattooing her womb.

A fluttering sensation rippled over her. Her eyes locked with his, and before she could brace herself for the inevitable she began to climax, her scream echoing off the rooms four walls. He quickly followed, his large body, hot and sweaty, shuddering around her and coming inside her like a freight train.

A
fter spending another day of twisting Reese into a number of positions, Eirik finally came up for air. He untangled their limbs, kissed her sweaty forehead, her swollen lips, and, rising from the bed he padded over to the bedchamber door and threw it open. He did the same to the room’s only window.

“Mmm...fresh air.” Breathing in deeply, eyes following him, Reese took pleasure in watching him stalk over to the wash stand, his hard body the epitome of every single one of her sexual fantasies. “I wondered when you’d take pity on me,” she lied.

“You are not out of the woods...yet.” Water pitcher in hand, he glanced over his shoulder, caught her gawking at him, and smiled. “And by your ravenous gaze, I do not think you are ready for me to take pity on you.”

“Maybe,” she whispered, her body immediately awakening with a sensual heat, her well-loved core throbbing. She didn’t think she needed any more cock for a good six months, but one look at his muscular ass and she was already spreading her legs.

“Good.” He soaped his arm, followed by his shoulder and then his chest. “I still want you very much and I aim to take you everywhere. On one of my ships. On the table in the main hall. In my sleigh. Atop my horse. In the...” His eyebrows arched in lecherous curves.

“Where?” Heart now thundering in her chest, Reese recognized the devilish glint in his eyes. She’d seen it no less than a hundred times since they’d been shut away.

Eirik dropped the wet cloth in the bowl, splashing soapy water over the edge. “It is late, so the bath house should be empty.”

He only needed to plant the seed and Reese rolled from the bed. She scooped up the remnants of her linen shift and shrugged into it. “You lead and I’ll follow,” she said cheerily while wrapping her garment around her. “I needed a real bath three days ago.”

“Take care with that.” He glared at her makeshift covering. “I do not want anyone to see the treasure that lies beneath.”

Charmed by his description of her lady lumps, Reese grinned. “Treasure?”

Grunting, he tugged on a pair of deerskin trousers. “And coveted by more than me.”

Reese ambled over to him and propped her elbows on his chest. His powerful physique easily supported her weight.

“Who could covet little old me?” she asked, batting her eyes up at him.

“More than care to admit, less they want to see the sunrise.” he growled. Expression hardening, he turned on his heel, leaving her teetering and struggling to maintain her balance. “...and one who remains a thorn in my side,” he muttered.