Page 58 of The Reluctant Viking

An insufferable grin spread across Thork’s lips.

“All right, what’s going on here?” Ruby demanded to know. “Something has definitely happened. First you run hot, then cold. One day, angry. The next, teasing. Tell me. Do I die or do I go free?”

Thork studied her, as if weighing his words carefully. “Neither. We have discovered the traitor in our midst. One of the hesirs who traveled with us from Jorvik was Ivar’s man. ’Twould seem was him, not you, who sought to entrap Dar.”

It took several moments for Thork’s words to sink in.

Then, shrieking loudly, Ruby sprang at him, pounding his chest, trying to scrape her nails across his face, biting his shoulder when he lifted her by the upper arms off the floor. When she hit his groin with her kicking legs, Thork twisted his body and lost his footing. They both fell to the pallet, which broke with a loud crash under the impact of his weight and the force of their combined fall.

“You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! You bucket of slime! Let me up. I’m going to cut out your stinking heart. Ouch!”

“Leave off, wench. Your voice—’tis shrill as a sea gull. Oh! Your nails are sharp.”

Thork pinned her down with his hard body, her arms above her head, her legs encased in his thighs. They lay in the midst of the broken bed on the floor, straw floating in the air above them from the torn mattress cover. Ruby tried to heave him off her and realized her mistake immediately.

“Oh!” she exclaimed on a whisper as the juncture of her thighs pushed against Thork’s manhood, arousing him instantly. She tried to correct her error by dropping back and turning her face away.

He wouldn’t allow it.

Wolfishly his lips stalked hers, forcing a response she didn’t want to give. When she fought him, Thork nipped her lower lip gently with his teeth. Ruby parted her lips to scream, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth, filling her with a pleasure she could not deny.

She could feel the smile on Thork’s self-satisfied lips. The boor!

Palm to palm, he held her hands pressed to the bed above her head, then levered himself up slightly. He moved his body from side to side across her, back and forth, the coarse wool of his tunic-covered chest brushing her T-shirt-clad breasts, the hardness of his manhood caressing the dream-sensitized vee of her thighs. She arched involuntarily, and Thork gasped out, “Oh, yea, sweetling! You do that so nice.”

He deftly maneuvered his thighs between hers, then shifted so he lay firmly against her jean-clad center. In an age-old dance of lift, then touch, lift, then touch, Thork undulated against her mercilessly. Meanwhile, his tongue set a matching pattern in her mouth. She tried to moan her protest, but only managed to open her mouth wider for his plundering kiss.

Unable to utter her protests aloud, Ruby soon gave up, a soaring passion overtaking her. Lost between two worlds, Ruby wasn’t sure if the crackling noise under her was straw or autumn leaves. Or whether it was Jack or Thork. Perhaps they were one and the same. She couldn’t think anymore. She didn’t want to think.

Lost in a time warp, Ruby keened her anguish and fevered wanting into his open mouth. “Oh, Jack! I love you so much!”

Thork pulled back abruptly and stared at her in disbelief—a hurt, questioning expression shadowing his passion-glazed eyes. Then he muttered an obscenity. Ruby couldn’t stop looking at his lips, which she’d bruised deliciously with her kisses.

Oh, my God! She wanted him so badly! Thork, Jack, whoever he was—it didn’t matter.

“Jack! You called me Jack,” Thork accused, stabbing her murderously with blue eyes still hazy with desire. “Do you think of another man when you yield to me?”

Ruby licked her lips nervously, trying to think of a way to explain once again that he and Jack were the same man to her. She never got a chance to answer as Dar rushed breathlessly into the room.

“What goes here? It sounded like the whole bloody keep was falling down.”

Following him were Aud, Olaf, Gyda, the girls and a dozen others, including Linette.

Embarrassed, Ruby tried to shift from under Thork, but the stubborn Viking refused. Ruby smiled involuntarily, though, in a pure, unadulterated gloat at the sight of the Black Widow glaring at her in Thork’s arms.

Thork rolled to his side, still holding her in his arms, his arousal pressing disconcertingly into her thigh.

“What happened? Did she attack you?” an outraged Linette asked, pushing her way to the front of the group.

“Nay, I tripped and fell onto the pallet,” Thork explained dryly, pulling a sheet discreetly over his middle.

“On top of the wench?” Olaf scoffed.

“Shush, Olaf,” Gyda whispered loudly, elbowing him to behave.

Dar snickered as he shooed everyone back downstairs to the hall where the loud noises had been heard. He shook his head in disgust at the sight of the two of them on the broken bed before extending a hand to Ruby, then Thork.

“Methinks the mischievous Loki is having a grand laugh over you,” Dar commented dryly, looking pointedly at Thork’s crotch. “Mayhap you two deserve each other, after all.” He pulled at his lower lip thoughtfully and his eyes narrowed slyly at Ruby. “Is there any chance you truly are related to Hrolf, or that mayhap he would dower you in marriage?”