Page 74 of My Fair Viking

"I should go see her," Tyra suggested.

"Not now!" He immediately realized how shrill his voice sounded. More calmly, he informed her, "I gave her some healing herbs that will make her sleep deeply through the night."

I cannot believe I am sitting here with my hand up my lady's gown, about to part her most intimate folds, with an arousal that could scorch the hair off a hog, and I am discussing medical affairs. Can this conversation not wait till the morrow? If Drifa overhears and starts asking me which herbs I used, I think I might just weep.

"Adam, you look as if you are about to weep," Tykir commented. Adam saw the twinkle in Tykir's eyes. He was looking from him to Tyra and back to him, his head cocked in question. He might not know exactly what was going on, but his suspicions had been aroused.

"This is the story of Ala Din and his amazing adventures with a magic tapestry."

Never in all his life had Adam thought he would be relieved to hear Rashid begin one of his never-ending stories. It would probably involve harems in one way or another. The hall went silent as everyone leaned forward and listened intently, not wanting to miss a word of the tale. Vikings ever did love a good story. Adam did, too, but not now. For God's sake, not now!

Alinor turned forward.

And Adam said a silent prayer of thanks.

"Thank you for staying with Dagma," Tyra whispered over her shoulder at him, then turned to stare at Rashid, who sat on a high stool, surrounded by candles and torches, which gave an eerie cast to his Eastern features. Then, for the first time since he'd pulled her onto his lap, she relaxed and let her head loll back onto his shoulder.

Well, hell, if I'd known a little sympathy or a little thankfulness would gain me this result, I could have told her about the old crone with the pus-oozing eyes I helped today. Or the little, boy's broken leg I set. Or the burn I soothed with ointment on Alrek's palm from picking up hot kindling.

Tyra squirmed on his lap to get more comfortable, and Adam saw stars before him, so intense was the pleasure-pain in his groin. Good thing she could not feel him pressing against her buttocks! He did not want to shock her.

"You may resume now," Tyra said.

"Huh? Are you speaking to me?" he asked. She must be addressing me, because Alinor is not even looking in our direction, and there has been no break in Rashid's talking. The only thing she could be referring to is … oh, my God!

"Of course I'm speaking to you, lackwit," she said with as much cordiality as a captain addressing a thick-headed soldier. "You may continue the finger-pleasuring game now."

Game? She views this as a game? So much for her being shocked!

"Have I shocked you?" she asked, apparently having second thoughts.

Nay, no second thoughts permitted. "Yea, you shocked me," he said, "in the nicest possible way."

"Shhhh!" Ingrith, Breanne, and Drifa all hissed at the same time. They were engrossed in Rashid's tale and wanted no chatter to distract their hearing.

And so, while Rashid told his tales of magic in an Eastern land, Adam began to weave his own form of magic.

He teased the hairs of her woman's nest with fluttering fingers, then palmed her, rotating the heel of his hand against her. She arched her back and whimpered softly. He would have liked to touch her breasts, but that would be too open a demonstration in front of an audience. Instead, he whispered into her ear, "Open more," and when she did, he dipped his fingers into the honey of her arousal and spread it up and down over her slick folds till he came to that bud which was the essence of a woman's pleasure. When he touched her there, she jerked and moaned aloud.

"Is something wrong?" Alinor inquired.

He was strumming Tyra there now, and at first she was unable to speak.

"Nay, just a little indigestion," Tyra said.

Tykir snorted his disbelief.

"You should chew on mint leaves," Drifa offered. "That is the best thing for cramps in the abdomen."

"I told you the pig's liver in dill sauce was not for you," Ingrith said huffily. She must have come back to the hall to escape Bolthor's sagas in the scullery.

"Shhh!" someone down below protested.

Meanwhile, Adam was doing his best to contribute to her "indigestion." Strumming, and strumming, and strumming, till the bud became bigger and harder, and the folds furled open like the petals of a flower, and the dew was hot and thick.

He was feeling rather hot and thick himself.

Sensing that she was about to reach her peak, he eased a long middle finger up inside of her, and was rewarded by the rhythmic spasm of her inner muscles welcoming him to her world. Her hands grasped his forearms in an iron grip, trying to fight the overwhelming ripples that passed through her. He would have bruises tomorrow, for a certainty… bruises that he would relish as a reminder of her sweet surrender. In the end, just before she crashed through that barrier that separates a woman from ecstasy, her knees gripped his and she put a fist to her mouth, trying to stifle her cries, but he heard, "Oh… oh… oh… for the love of Freyja!… oh!"