Page 61 of Truly, Madly Viking

As Maggie stood, transfixed, he moved toward her slowly, but purposefully. Then, in a blink, he wrapped his arms about her waist, lifting her high, and walked her to the bed. Without breaking his stride, he tossed her onto the mattress and followed after her, landing between her inadvertently outspread legs.

They both gasped at the delicious contact of his sex against her sex, even through the barrier of his denim jeans and her robe. The position had been an accident, but Joe wasn't about to set aside the advantage. Instead he moved himself from side to side, adjusting himself more firmly in the cradle of her thighs. The whole time he watched her steadily, clearly wanting to witness her every reaction.

Oh, this was too embarrassing for a sexually inhibited person like herself.

Could he sense the passionate fluttering that had started between her legs and moved like wildfire to all the erogenous zones of her body? Well, at least she used to be sexually inhibited. Now she didn't even recognize the wild woman who was yanking at his open shirt and tossing it aside. She could smell the clean, musky scent of his skin, but more than anything she wanted to see it, and feel it, and taste it.

"Your eagerness excites me mightily," he said as he brushed the palms of both hands over her breasts, causing them to peak through the silk fabric.

"I'm not eager," she lied. What she thought was, Touch me, touch me, touch me, again, again, again.

As if he heard her thoughts, he put his open mouth over the tip of one breast and began to suckle wetly through the flimsy cloth barrier with a hard rhythm.

Maggie almost shot up off the bed, except that his lower body still held her in place... his lower body that had a thickening ridge pressed against her in just the right place.

He took her hands and encouraged them to explore his shoulders and chest and, yes, even his flat, male nipples. To her delight, he looked as if he might shoot up off the bed, too.

And he grew even larger against her.

And flexed.

And then Maggie flexed back.

There were so many hormones flying about that Maggie feared an explosion. In fact, an explosion was guaranteed if they continued on this course.

But wait. Wait, wait, wait. Maggie realized that she hadn't spoken the cautionary word aloud. "Wait!"

she practically shouted now. She didn't know if she was trying to be heard over the roaring of blood in her ears or his... probably both, because the heightened color on his face as he stared down at her, not to mention his ragged breathing, proved he was as turned on as she was.

"Wait?" he inquired in a strangled voice. "Now you tell me to wait? What is amiss?"

"I can't make love with you here... now... not with my daughters in the house."

"Now you gainsay me?" His eyes darkened angrily to a steely gray. "Why not?"

"Because it wouldn't be right," she insisted. "I have to set an example for them. I'm a single mother... an unmarried woman. My girls can't ever think of me as being promiscuous."

"In my land, children respect their elders' privacy. They know that lust and marriage do not necessarily go hand in hand."

"Yeah, well, you're not in Oz now, Toto," she said snidely, then immediately regretted her words. "It doesn't matter what the morality is in your land—or my land. It matters what I think."

She put a palm over her heart for emphasis. "And I want my children to grow up believing that lust or love, or whatever you want to call it, do go hand in hand with marriage. Or at the least, a committed relationship."

He made a rude sound of disgust. "Like all women, you want something for your favors, then. Whether it be coin or the bindings of marriage, females are ever out to snare men with their wiles."

"You don't know me at all if you think that."

She saw the stiffening of his jaw and the accusatory gleam in his eyes. She knew exactly what he was thinking. "I wasn't teasing you, Joe."

"It felt like teasing. Are you one of those women who enjoy the chase, and get your pleasure from making a man grovel?"

"No!" she asserted forcefully. "And I doubt whether you've groveled a day in your life."

"Then why come to me in your siren robe, giving me those come-take-me looks?"

Now he was getting insulting. She tried to push him away, or squirm out from under him, but he wouldn't release her.

"I came because I wanted you, you big lout. Because I wanted you so much, I forgot that l have responsibilities." She turned her face to the side, hating the fact that her eyes were misting over.