The Viking Wants Forever (25 page)

“Matters little to me what my bride thinks, since she is not the one I want,” he returned darkly.

“A word of warning. Do not say to Ivar what you have said to me
before
the wedding.”

Upon their arrival, a contingent of almost fifty men awaited them on the riverbank. Since it was unusually shallow, Eirik and his men had to lay anchor several yards from shore, jump over the side, and wade the rest of their way inland.

Like a berserker of old, Ivar stood at the head of his armed garrison, a battleaxe in his hand and his bare arms riddled with white scars. His shock of gray hair —looking to have a life of its own —would have been ridiculous on anyone else, but seemed appropriate for him.

“
Velkhommen
,” he offered, presenting his arm palm up in a welcoming gesture. Eirik kept his eyes on his host as he took the man’s hand and forearm. “I hope your trip was a good one. We have prepared a feast for your arrival. Come, let us talk over a tankard of warm mead.”

Ivar turned toward his settlement, and Eirik fell in step beside him. “Talk first then mead,” he insisted. If he was going to talk a marriage contract, he needed to have all his facilities about him. Afterward, he would accept a bathtub full and drown his sorrows in it.

Ivar stroked his beard. “It is good you want to maintain a clear head during our negotiations. It shows the mark of a good leader. Too bad my daughter refuses your suit.”

Eirik stopped in his tracks. Had he heard wrong?

“I am not averse to having you as a son-in-law, but I will not allow Haakon to use my daughter to pacify either me or the other discontented majority who are disgusted with his loose living and tyrannical leadership.”

“So the rumors about there being a faction to usurp my brother are true?” Eirik asked, his heart beginning to beat wildly.

Not shying away from an accusation of treason, Ivar met his gaze head-on. “I know the same blood runs in your veins, but I...we were hoping the past was still fresh in your memory, and you could be persuaded to join us.”

“You are not afraid I might walk out of here and sail straight for Haakon?”

“
Nei
. He threw you and your mother off your father’s lands and claimed your inheritance.” Ivar stepped closer and rested his hands on his shoulders as if they were old friends and not newly met.

“You are talking treason, for which the punishment is death,” Eirik charged. “I am against this marriage, but I am no fool and neither am I selfish. What you ask is to put not only my life on the line, but also the lives of all my men. And for what is sure to be a losing cause.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Ivar conceded. “If you would have seemed too eager, I would have had your head on a platter before nightfall. Stay with me for a fortnight. Let’s get to know one another. Talk strategy for there is much to discuss. Not only are the Tronders looking to usurp Haakon, but there are rumors the Celts have a king who is a direct descendent of Harald the Fair-haired. So whether you like it or not, you must choose sides, because Haakon’s days are numbered.”

* * * * *

“E
irik has returned!”

Reese looked at Pieter, who stood at the door of the barn, and despite his look of pure happiness, she couldn’t summon the same feelings. In their place was self-directed anger for being such a damn fool. When she could have left, she’d stayed behind, awaiting his return.

Mooooo.

Reese released Brunhild’s teats before she ruined her for milking. “I’m sorry, big girl, but I had a moment,” she cooed, stroking the short hairs on the side of the cow’s belly in an attempt to placate her.

While she continued to soothe the milking cow, she heard the distant sound of Eirik and his men receiving a hero’s welcome. The sound of laughter and raised voices filtered through the barn doors until the racket finally faded.
The bastard probably took his new bride into the main hall, no doubt carrying her over the threshold.

Reese ground her teeth so hard she thought she might lose a filling. Unable to sit much longer, and needing an outlet for her volatile emotions, she bounded from the short stool and began to pace angrily back and forth in the tiny space between Brunhild and the railing at her back.

But pacing didn’t help, for it only fueled her anger. That and visions of Eirik and his new wife lying in the bed they’d once shared. Her anger at a boiling point, she hauled her foot back and kicked over the milk bucket.

“Is this any way to greet your lover...?”

Reese swung around at the sound of Eirik’s deep voice. She couldn’t help the satisfied smirk pulling on her lips as he stepped out of the puddle of milk pooling around his boots.

“I think it’s a perfect way to greet a
former
lover.!” She snorted in derision. Reese pulled up her skirt and stepped past him. She didn’t get very far, because he grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her back around to face him.

“What do you mean
former
lover? Have you already taken another?” he growled, pulling her against him. Reese winced as he increased his pressure on her upper arms, but she refused to give him any quarter. “
Snakke
...Speak!” he barked, slamming her against the stable door at her back. Reese gasped, more from surprise than actual injury. Before she could recover from his harsh manhandling, he lowered his head and slashed his mouth across hers, his tongue plowing its way past her lips.

His kiss conveyed more fury than passion, yet Reese could not keep her primitive instincts at bay as her clit began to jump in time with her erratic heartbeat. Inching closer to him, she rubbed her pelvis against the bulge in his leggings.

“Does your new lover make you crave his cock as much as I do?” He chuckled, running his tongue over her bottom lip.

His words like a bucket of ice water to her overheated libido, Reese stiffened while he continued to rain kisses down the side of her throat, his arms snaking around her waist. She slid her hands over his muscular arms, until she reached the wide expanse of his shoulders. Then, without warning, she lifted her knee in the vicinity of his groin while at the same time she pushed on his shoulders.

Even in an amorous mood, his warrior instincts had not taken a backseat, Reese realized, when her knee made contact with only air. Although her ploy didn’t cause the pain she’d hoped for, it still had the same result, because he released her.

She picked up her skirts once more and ran toward the barn’s open doors.

“No!” She shrieked when he lifted her from behind. She kicked and butted her head backward like a wild woman. Her efforts were futile as he carried her like a sack of potatoes to the nearest empty stall and threw her onto of a pile of hay stacked in the corner.

Reese tried to get up, but he landed on top of her. “Get off of me!” she shrieked. Mindless of the repercussions, she kicked and punched at him, and even got in a few licks, before he grabbed hold of both of her hands and pinned them above her head.

“Quiet down,
kvinne
!” he barked. At a stalemate, she had no other choice but to follow his directive. “Do you play me false?” he asked.

Reese turned her head away from his intense scrutiny, fixing her gaze on the far wall, but he grabbed her chin and brought her face around so she had no other choice but to look at him. She returned his stare. She didn’t falter even when he dropped to his forearms and settled between her legs.

“Answer me,” he commanded, his mouth mere inches from her ear. His warm breath sent a shiver of pleasure shooting through the delicate nerve endings to the rest of her body. Reese squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to regain a smidgen of self-control. Yet it became tenuous when he started to rock the growing bulge between his legs against her pussy and rimmed her earlobe with his tongue.

“Arrrrgggghhhh!” she roared. “I haven’t been with anyone else, unlike
you
!”

“I have not been with anyone else,” he murmured, his warm breath tickling her ear.

“But what about Ivar’s daughter?”

“I did not take her as my wife. She and her father refused my suit.”

Reese felt like a heavy load had been lifted from her shoulders as the implications of his words sunk home. “Oh, Eirik!” she cried. As soon as he released her wrists, she flung her arms around his neck and planted a barrage of kisses all along his strong jawline and throat.

“That’s more like it,” he crowed.

Reese slipped her hands under his leather tunic and pushed the buttery material up and over his head. His bare skin exposed, she rubbed her hands over his sinewy hard flesh, exulting in the firm warmness. Unable to resist, she rose up and nipped at a peach-tipped nipple. It hardened and she leaned forward and captured it between her lips. She circled her tongue once twice, delighting in the salty taste.

“Blessed Odin! What you do to me!” he hissed as he ground his pelvis against her. “Do you remember lesson one?”

“Remind me,” she purred, flicking the captive nipple.

Eirik sat back on his haunches, and Reese whimpered her displeasure at the sudden loss.

“Is this a good enough reminder?” he asked, placing his arms behind his back and thrusting his hips forward.

Reese’s eyes met his. Her lips curled into a knowing smile at the telltale shade of violet she knew so well. She came up on her elbows, and her eyes wandered over his body. Not content with just looking, she lifted her bare foot, placed it on his crotch, and rubbed her sole over him.

“Reese,” he groaned, half warned.

Empowered by her effect on him, she slowly sat up. “Reese what?”

He didn’t mince words. “Free me so I can be inside you.”

Reese pulled the stays loose, unthreading the buckskin lacings until they gaped open and his cock sprang free —the head already dripping in anticipation. Reese bit her lip. She could taste him in her mouth already —all eight inches of him, banging the back of her throat.

She bunched her hands in her skirts, to adjust her position, but he lunged at her, knocking her back down into the hay. Reese held her breath as he loomed over her, his hair escaping from a man bun and his cock pressing insistently against her belly.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I wanted to take you into my mouth.” Reese reached up and plowed her hands in his hair, pulling the pale strands free.

“
Nei
...I would not last with you doing that to me after I’ve dreamed of this for nigh a week.” His fingers curled around the hem of her bodice.

Noting the glimmer in his eyes, she warned, “Don’t you dare!”

Of course, warning a Viking warrior was pointless. The splitting of the soft linen simply added extra background noise to her indignant shriek.

She looked down at the damage, but instead of being angry at the carnage, she was turned on. Eyes locked with his, a seductive smile playing on her lips, she removed the remainder of her dress.

Like a man just returned from months at sea, he pounced on her, taking one of her breast in his mouth. She almost became lucid with desire, but something he’d said earlier gave her pause. Needing confirmation, she pushed on his shoulders.

“Wait! Why did Ivar and his daughter refuse your suit?”

Eirik tensed. However, he quickly recovered. “Both Inga and I are in love with different people. Normally, this doesn’t matter in our culture, but she has a father who spoils her.”
And doesn’t like to be blackmailed by a tyrannical self-appointed king.

Thinking himself in the clear, Eirik removed his pants, kicked them aside, and then wasted no time regaining his seat. With a heavy sigh, he nudged her legs open and settled himself between them. Despite his troubles, being near her again gave him such immense peace.

“So...what now?” she asked.

Eirik looked down into her face, so full of emotional angst that he knew he’d made the right decision by withholding the particulars of his meeting with Ivar, that his returning unmarried amounted to treason, and that many of his men, including himself, would be soon be going to war for her.

“I have returned without a wife,” he murmured. Drawn to a pert nipple, he licked it, and an impassioned gasp escaped her plump lips. “All you need to concern your pretty head with is welcoming me home.”

Laughing, she held her arms out. “Welcome home.” The husky timbre of her voice hit a chord inside him and his entire being focused on being inside her. He planted his feet, drew his hips back and invaded her slowly.

“Now I am home,” he murmured. He licked out his tongue, tracing the pulse at the base of her throat as they both shuddered with desire. And when he was buried deep, to the hilt, she whispered, “I love you.”

Eirik groaned. He’d surely died and gone to heaven, so perfect was this thing between them.  It felt like he’d gone his entire life with only one hand, and she was the missing appendage. Since finding her, he now felt complete.

“While I was gone, I almost went mad thinking about you. From now on, you will always be by my side.” Erection swelling, he moved in her, his happiness filling his mind, body and soul to busting.

“I’ll hold you to that promise,” she panted, moving her hips in an intoxicating rhythm, slippery and wet around him.

Caught up in the emotions of their reunion, overwhelmed by a carnal hunger, eons beyond impatience, he pulled back and surged forward, driving deep, filled her, crushing her into the hay.

And she wrapped herself around him, wiggling her hips at the base of the downstroke, greedily following him on the upstroke. She welcomed him, chanting his name, egging him on with each thrust.

He slid his hand under one of her legs and lifted it, penetrating even deeper. “I am home,” he growled, already spilling inside her.    

* * * * *

“
God morgen
!” Reese called to Gurta as she took a seat at the kitchen table.

“Good morning to you,” the older woman replied, her lips turned up into a knowing smile.

The old Reese would have blushed in embarrassment, but, as she’d learned of late, she no longer cared what people thought. Now, she was a woman well-loved, and that was all that mattered. Plus, she’d faced down the majority of such looks last evening, because it was no secret she and Eirik had made love in the barn for several hours after his return —thus the reason for her rising so late and Eirik still being abed.