Page 59 of The Last Viking

He could tell he made her uncomfortable. She made him uncomfortable, too. “Hmpfh! With all the people coming in and out of this keep, when do you and I get to have some much-needed privacy? It occurs to me this is the only chamber with a lock on the door.”

Looking askance at the bubbles that were starting to diminish slightly—not enough, to his mind—she reached over to a low shelf and poured a dollop of liquid into the tub, causing more bubbles to erupt. At the same time, she lifted a big toe from the water and flicked a silver lever, which immediately caused water to gurgle out. Then she flicked her toe in the opposite direction.

“Blód hel! Do that again and you will have one large Viking in the tub with you.”

“Do what again?” She cast him a startled sidelong glance.

“That exotic trick you just did with your toe.” He smiled at her. His wench was very talented. He wondered idly what other talents lay hidden beneath her prim exterior.

“Stop smiling at me like that.”

He smiled wider.

“And stop staring at me. It’s not decent. Oh, what are you doing?”

After locking the door, he’d pulled a short stool closer and sunk down onto it wearily. Then he stretched out a hand to the bottle of bubble lotion, placing it at the opposite end of the ledge, out of Meredith’s grasp.

Meredith studiously avoided looking at the hem of Rolf’s tunic, which rode up when he sat down, knees spread, exposing way too much hairy calf and thigh. “I asked you a question. What are you doing here?”

Resting his elbows on the side of the tub, he smiled lazily. She hated it when he smiled lazily. “Waiting for the bubbles to evaporate,” he said.

“Oh,” she squeaked out and sank a bit lower in the tub.

Now, he was tracing a forefinger through the thick layer of bubbles, making a path of letters that immediately melded together. “I-L-O-V—”

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked in a panic. Surely, he hadn’t been writing what she’d thought she’d seen.

He jerked back his hand, as if just realizing what he’d been doing. “Practicing my alphabet,” he said.

Liar.

“Mayhap you would like me to practice my letters on your skin. Prune skin, did you call it when I walked in?”

She closed her eyes as a tingling awareness passed over her, almost as if he were actually tracing the words on her flesh…words she yearned for and at the same time resisted with her whole being.

“Merry-Death,” he said gently, a note of desperation in his voice, “do you tingle when I touch you?”

Her eyes shot open. Could he read her mind now, too?

“Not when I touch you intimately, but just in passing. Like that fleeting kiss I gave you earlier? Did you tingle then?”

He gazed at her with such abject bleakness as he asked the question.

She frowned with confusion. “What’s wrong, Rolf? Why are you asking me these questions?”

He shrugged. “’Tis something your sister suggested to me.”

Meredith bristled. “Was that before or after she attempted to jump your bones?”

The grimness of his expression lightened and he chucked her playfully under the chin. And she did tingle, darn it.

“After.”

“Well, then, what did my sister suggest that has turned you so grim?”

He was back to tracing letters in the bubbles with seemingly idle concentration, but she could tell that he was deeply troubled by something…something Jillie had suggested to him. What could it be? Meredith had no deep, dark secrets.

He lifted his head and held her eyes. “She said…she said that I am in love with you.”