Page 74 of The Caged Viking

Actually, there had been an uncommon number of toasts, and everyone, even Kirstin and himself, was halfway to drukkinn. “Methinks it’s time for us to end this feast. I must be up early to travel with the hunters.”

“Y’know, Hauk,” Thorkel slurred out, “by marryin’ in the Saxon lands, you deprived us of the brud-hlaup.” He belched before adding. “A good bride-runnin’, thass what we…” His words trailed off as he seemed to forget what he was saying, or maybe he was distracted by Signe walking by and deliberately ignoring him and yet swaying her hips suggestively.

Hauk looked at Kirstin and raised his eyebrows with exaggerated interest. “A bride-running?”

“Don’t you dare,” she said. But then, she jumped up and began to run along an outer aisle on the left side of the hall.

He laughed and ran after her in another aisle, leaping onto a bench and launching himself over to the other side of the table. Everyone in the crowd was laughing and cheering him on, a few of them making ribald suggestions. He arrived at the guest bedchamber just before Kirstin. He opened the door and stood aside, waving a hand to bow her in.

She gazed at him suspiciously.

The ritual called for the husband to smack his new wife’s arse with the flat side of a sword to indicate he was the master of their household. Since he had no sword on him, he used the flat of his hand to swat her bottom. “Now we are truly wedded, wife.”

“Hah! Just because you touch my ass doesn’t make you a husband.”

They were both in the bedchamber by now, and he slammed the door behind him. Leaning back, he crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “What would make me truly your husband, in your mind?”

She told him in terms so explicit that his jaw dropped.

He didn’t even know what one of those words meant. Still, he boasted, “Any time, sweetling.” He was a Viking, after all. He would figure it out.

* * *

Beware the very virile Viking…

Kirstin was confused. And being confused when a superb specimen of Norse virility was stripping in front of her and urging her to do the same…well, her brain just wasn’t working properly. In fact, women often said that men’s brains were located about three feet below their heads; the same could be said of her at the moment. And she was a person who’d always placed such emphasis on her brain.

Jeesh!

Maybe she could blame the amount of ale she’d imbibed with her dinner. She was a little tipsy. And she did feel dizzy, like she had an internal pendulum. Yes, I will/No, I won’t. I should/I shouldn’t. What would be the harm/The harm would be monumental. It would be fun/Fun is overrated. Come to Mama/No, no, no, I am not a Mama.

Jeesh!

There were two candles burning in the room, along with a small wall torch…extravagances that people rarely used in this time period. Hauk had gone to a lot of trouble for some very obvious purpose. Me.

Jeesh!

“Hauk…,” she started to say.

“Nay, nay, nay. Do not say we need to talk. No more talking! I am not listening.” He put his hands over his ears.

How did he know I was going to say that?

Jeesh!

He must have read her thoughts, because he just smiled, even as he was stepping out of his braies, at the same time doing some more beckoning of his fingertips for her to take her turn in stripping, now that he’d dropped his hands from his ears. He stood in front of her, wearing only his smallclothes, sort of a loincloth type of garment. He’d already removed his belt, tunic, and boots.

Jeesh, jeesh, jeesh!

She backed up a step and hit the side of the bed, almost toppling over. It’s not that she didn’t intend to make love with him, despite all her vacillating. That was a foregone conclusion hours ago, probably back when he’d dealt so sensitively with the little boy, Gorm, then cemented when he managed to handle the Zoya situation without Kirstin being humiliated. Besides, she’d already made love with him back in the bathing hut, even though it had been a mistake. In truth, every time she succumbed to his temptations, it was a mistake, knowing that she would eventually be returning to the future. Probably. And she was risking pregnancy. Possibly.

Her reluctance at this moment was due to something else entirely. Her overactive hormones. She didn’t want to appear overeager and jump his bones without any foreplay. Now that would be humiliating.

Pushing himself away from the door and taking one step, and one step only, he asked in a voice that sounded sex-husky, “Do you know what I want to do tonight?”

She glanced pointedly at the tent in his loincloth and arched her brows.

He laughed. “Nay, not that. Well, yea, that, but later. I want to take my time tonight. Deep, wet, tongue kisses, the kind you taught me to appreciate, you know, the ones that go on and on and on until you are mewling your need. Then caresses of your body that alternate between soft and skimming, with hard and squeezing. All this I will do until you are begging me to enter you, but I will make you wait while I pleasure-torture you some more. Finally I will enter you, and I promise, my stubborn wife, I will remain hard through many, many thrusts, long and short, gentle and strong, slow and fast till you are screaming with your peakings, coming one on top of another.”