Page 104 of Viking in Love

She was busy, too. Bemused, he had not realized that she had already unlaced his breeches and had them shoved down to his knees.

“Mayhap I will have to find another man to show me those things,” she offered.

“Nay!” he exclaimed, surprised himself by the vehemence of his response. He lifted her by the buttocks and arranged her legs around his hips. With one mighty thrust, he was inside her tight sheath. “You are mine! Dost hear me?”

“They heard you all the way to Larkspur.”

He tried to laugh, but it came out as a gurgle. So overaroused was he that he could not move for fear of peaking, way too early.

“Help me,” he said against her ear.

She cupped his face in her palms. “How?”

“Touch,” he grunted out, taking one of her hands to touch that place where they were joined. Guiding one of her fingers, he showed her how to strum that nubbin of woman-pleasure.

Almost immediately, she began to whimper and her inner muscles spasmed around him. Only then did he began his strokes, in and out, only a few times afore he came to a blinding peak within her still convulsing insides.

With his forehead pressed against her forehead, he panted, fighting for breath. “Sorry,” he finally said.

“For what?”

“Being too quick.”

“I was ready, Caedmon.”

He drew back a bit and smiled. “Yea, you were.”

She smiled back at him, reaching up to brush a strand of hair off his face.

His heart turned over, he swore it did.

“I cannot bear to think of you doing this with another woman,” she confessed.

“I think I would kill the man who takes you to bed,” he confessed, as well.

“’Twould seem we have a problem.”

He turned and sank down to the ground with his back to the tree. She landed on her knees astride him, sitting on her haunches, with his limp member still inside her.

“Does this count as one of my remaining nights with you?” she teased.

“Hah! I figure one night accounts for at least six bouts of lovemaking. So, what we just did merits, oh, let us say, a sixth of a night.” Never did I realize that my talent for numbers would come in so handy.

She laughed. “You are an optimist.”

“Four times then, and a quarter of a night.”

“I cannot believe I am bargaining like this for my virtue.”

“You lost your virtue to me more than five nights ago, sweetling.” He shook his head at the ridiculous position he was in…making love out in the open with his breeches about his ankles and her gown hiked up to her waist. “’Tis insanity, the risks I take to be with you.” And well worth the risk!

“Your risks? All my plans for my own woodworking business teeter on the edge. I will tell you what is insanity. It is me spreading my thighs for any man, let alone you.”

“What is wrong with me?”

“You have ten children. You want no more. You have been twice wed, unsuccessfully, according to your own accounts. Any woman holding out for marriage will be sore disappointed. You hold on to your lands by a thread, at the whim of a greedy overlord.”

’Tis true. ’Tis all true. He tilted his head to the side. “So, what is wrong with me?” he repeated, disregarding what she had just said as unimportant.