Page 51 of The Blue Viking

“Not yet,” he explained, giving her a quick kiss before he sat back on his knees between her widespread thighs.

In a rush of embarrassment, Maire tried to cover herself with her hands, but Rurik would have none of that. He pushed her hands aside. Then he did the unthinkable. Before she had a chance to blink or say him nay, the brute grabbed for the pillow and shoved it under her hips, lifting her higher and more open to his perusal. And peruse her, he did. Not to mention other things, which were surely sinful.

No one had ever gazed at her there.

No one had ever touched her there.

No one had ever told her how she looked there.

No one had ever praised her wetness there.

No one had ever explained in explicit, sexual detail what he intended to do there.

No one had ever prepared her for the feel of a man’s tongue there.

Everything in Maire centered on him then … this man who obviously reveled in a woman’s body … whose every gesture and touch were attentive and unhurried.

By the time Rurik was done tending to her there, Maire was a mewling, fist-pounding-on-the-mattress, shivering mass of female desire. She felt as if she were … well, climbing a mountain. If only she could reach the peak! Only then would this horrible-wonderful throbbing ache be relieved.

And Rurik knew of her distress. She could see it in his admiring eyes. And she saw something else in his eyes, too. Intense, bone-melting desire. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him. And yet he held back. Why?

Before she could ask, he delivered a message to her in a low, masculine growl, “Heed me well, Maire. This is my mark on you.”

While she observed, his long middle finger flicked back and forth, rapidly, against the slick surface of an oversensitive part of her she hadn’t even known existed. Maire keened and bucked, but he would not stop. Inside and outside, she began to spasm with the most incredible sensations. Not pleasure … more like the foreshadowing of some great event. But then the pleasure came, too, like a lightning bolt between her legs, and his mouth and tongue were there again, relentless, hurtling her up and out over some great abyss.

Ecstasy, that’s what this was. Sheer ecstasy.

Ecstasy? Maire eyes shot wide open at remembrance of that word… a word that Rurik had used just that evening. “What… was … that?”

“That, my dear, was an orgasm.”

“Oh. That was one of your sex fits?”

“Yea… I think so. Did you have tremors?”

She was not certain, but she thought he might be teasing her. Risking his mockery, she nodded.

He cocked his head to the side. “Perchance you did, then. I was too busy rolling my eyes up into my head to notice.” Hah! The rogue had noticed every blessed thing. And he was teasing her.

Her gaze immediately went to his groin, where a rampant erection still raged up out of a nest of black curls. It was bigger than before, if that were possible. Maire sensed the tightly coiled power that he held in check. “You did not have an or-gaz-him yet?” she asked tentatively, not sure she was using the right term, or in the correct way.

He tried to smile but a choking sound came up from his throat. At the same time, his male member jerked. Just because she was looking?

“I thought it was painful for a man to wait too long.”

“ ’Tis true. ’Tis true. I am definitely in pain.” He stretched himself over her then, bracing himself on his extended arms. Adjusting his hips from side to side, he maneuvered his sex into her wet female channel. “Will you be helping to relieve my pain, dearling?” he asked then.

Maire did not have to consider for even a moment before she decided that she, indeed, would… because, surprisingly, she was developing a new pain of her own.

Chapter Ten

Maire must be a true witch, for Rurik was surely under her spell. Had she somehow given him a love potion, or just surrounded him with her enticing aura?

As he stared down at the now willing, most alluring maid, he was more than prepared to join with her in the way of men and women through the ages—God’s pleasure gift to men… and women, too. He knew with a certainty, though, that this time would be different … life-changing. And that was frightening to a man who prided himself on self-reliance. Had he not told himself from the time he was a boy that he needed no one?

But he needed Maire now … desperately.

Would that need be assuaged once the lust-mood had passed? Damn, he hoped so! Never, in all his misbegotten life, had he wanted a woman the way he wanted Maire now. He was a man who loved women and sexplay. He savored both the giving and the taking of passion-joy amongst the bed furs, and it had been especially important to him with Maire to bring her to ecstasy first, which he had done … and done well. But it had never been so difficult before for him to forestall his own satisfaction, and he truly feared now that there would be no satisfaction even when he spurted forth his seed. But he had to try.