The Reluctant Viking Read online

  "Make haste. I will not wait all night," Thork warned in a low, primitive voice.

  Ruby pursed her mouth sulkily but did as he asked.

  Sitting in a chair which he pulled closer to the tub, Thork sat watching her languidly, heavy-lidded, like a large cat anticipating a tasty meal. His naked body stretched out immodestly.

  "Your hair grows longer," he commented. "How long would it take to reach your shoulder blades?"

  Ruby shrugged. "A year." Then she added snidely, "Do you think you will have tired of me by then?"

  Thork smiled, refusing to rise to her bait. "Mayhap."

  When she was done, Ruby asked for a towel. Thork brought one over, but before he gave it to her, he pulled her to a standing position, then soaped a washcloth lying at the edge of the tub. The tub water reached only as far as her knees.

  Ruby gazed at him questioningly, her face flaming with embarrassment to be standing exposed before him.

  "You did not wash there," he said hoarsely, pointing to the vee at her thighs. "Move your legs apart and do it whilst I watch. Slowly."

  "No," Ruby choked out and tried to get out of the tub.

  "Yea," he demanded softly and forced her to stand in place. He spread her upper thighs several inches apart, then handed her the soapy cloth with an implacable expression on his face. "Do it, sweetling."

  She did. And would have died of mortification if she hadn't soon realized that her actions had cracked the composure of Thork's self-control. A pulse-beat in his straining neck told her how hard he tried to appear unaffected by her actions. His shaft attested to his rock-hard readiness.

  "Now can I dry off?" she rasped out finally.

  "Nay. Stay where you are."

  Thork took a bucket and emptied the tub's water out the window until Ruby stood in water barely up to her ankles. What was he up to now?

  Ruby got her answer soon enough as Thork knelt before the tub and gripped her ankles in his hands, then moved them two feet apart. He lathered her legs from her ankles to the top of her thighs. Then he smiled wickedly at her, took a sharp knife in his hands and began to shave her legs.

  "Do not look at me so, sweetling. This was your idea, not mine," he growled, "but I must admit I have been picturing the shaving in my dreams for weeks." When she did not speak, Thork chuckled softly and went on, "Sometimes I shaved you as you lay, arms and creamed legs widespread, on that flat boulder by Dar's pond. Then, too, I visualized you lying on the masthead of my ship with each lathered thigh on a rail of the prow opening. My favorite, though, was me sitting naked on a chair and you likewise nude, but astraddle the arms of the chair, with my hardened staff just barely touching the dew of your woman's opening, and then I soaped you..."

  Ruby was speechless under the onslaught of his softly spoken fantasies. Her blood felt thick. Her skin, all over, seemed to expand.

  Thork rambled on seductively with his sexual images as he slowly, methodically, shaved her legs with all the concentration of a veteran barber. If occasionally the hair of his bent head brushed the nipples of her breasts or her pubic hair, Ruby couldn't tell whether it was deliberate or not. All she knew was that his actions had ignited a fire in her which seared her skin and centered in a tiny pleasure point of her body which seemed to swell and ache for touch. Ruby bit her lip to keep from moaning.

  "Why do you tremble, sweetling?" Thork asked with smug delight as he wielded his razor-sharp blade on the inside of her upper thigh. "Do you not trust me to be careful?"

  Ruby said nothing, unable to utter a word. Suddenly the fingertips of one hand which had been encircling her thigh to hold it steady inadvertently touched her feminine inner folds.

  Ruby gasped.

  Thork's passion-hungry eyes shot up in surprise, then delved deeper for confirmation. He moaned hoarsely and dropped the knife on the floor.

  "You are wet," he declared with a groan.

  "From my bath," she choked out.

  Thork laughed. "Nay! 'Tis for me, dearling. For me!"

  He turned and picked up the teddy. "Put it on for me," he said huskily. His face was flushed and his lips parted slightly in anticipation. Ruby didn't need to look down to see how much he wanted her.

  "No," she refused recklessly, fighting with all her fast-fading willpower the fire that flamed between her legs.

  "I will not force you, but you will put it on—one way or another," Thork promised tautly.

  When Ruby still balked, Thork picked her up and carried her to the bed. Throwing her on her back, he followed quickly after her, not allowing her to squirm away. Pushed beyond the limits of his control, Thork was not the gentle lover a virgin would want for her first time. But then, Ruby did not feel like a virgin.

  He kissed her possessively, hungrily, plunging his tongue deep into her mouth, meanwhile holding both breasts in his palms and flicking the tips with his thumbs, then rubbing the soft curls of his calves and thighs over her legs, obviously enjoying the feel of her smooth-shaven legs. His hands were everywhere at once, learning all her intimate secrets, discovering her special spots of sensitivity. Each time Ruby tried to push a hand or leg away from one place, he found another, equally tantalizing place to torture her with sweet pleasure.

  When his hot mouth closed over her breast, Ruby couldn't help but arch in sheer pleasure. "More," she moaned, then, "Lord, please don't stop."

  "Like this?" Thork whispered against her wet nipple and circled it with the tip of his tongue.

  "O-o-h!"

  "And this?" he asked in a passion-strained voice as he suckled deeply.

  Ruby could not speak. Little sparks of pleasure ignited at each rhythmic indrawn movement of his mouth and lit the fuses to all the erotic points on her body. When he finally flicked the rigid edge of his tongue rapidly over the hardened nubs, the fire blossomed full-force. Ruby bucked and then pressed her hips up against his lower body as the first explosive flames licked her into climax.

  Thork was panting for breath. Beads of frustration pearled on his forehead. "Will you don the garment now?" he gasped finally, looking down at her from where he lay over her on straightened arms, gasping for breath. His hard arousal pinned her to the bed.

  Ruby wanted to, but some tiny bit of logic in that perverse part of her brain which was not yet turned to molten lava intruded, and she shook her head.

  Thork looked at her disbelievingly for just one moment before he laughed at the challenge of her resistance. A resolute determination washed over his expression. Holding her arms firmly at her sides, he slid down her body and knelt between her knees, spreading her thighs wide. Then he slid even lower and began an assault with his tongue that caused Ruby to arch her hips high off the bed and scream... and scream... and scream with pure, satiated, ravaging pleasure.

  Thork was panting heavily. "Do you concede?" he asked hopefully, sitting back on his knees.

  Ruby nodded and could not move when he rolled over for her to get up and put on the lingerie he handed to her. She slid to the edge of the bed and tried to stand. Her knees buckled ignominiously, and Thork caught her, laughing appreciatively at the havoc he'd wreaked on her body.

  With a grim smile, he helped her dress—a ludicrous operation, considering they both were in a whirling dervish of sexual frenzy. Veins stood out on Thork's engorged erection, threatening to burst their sensitized nerve endings. Ruby knew that only one touch from her would put him over the edge.

  When he finally got the teddy on with clumsy fingers, Thork lay back on the pillows of the bed languidly, with arms folded behind his head. He asked her to walk across the room. She did.

  "Now, take it off," he whispered.

  Slowly, sensuously, Ruby removed the teddy in the way Jack had shown her pleased him most, peeking back at him over her shoulder, brushing her own breasts "accidentally" with her fingertips when she pulled the garment down. Standing with her legs slightly spread, she inserted both hands in the waistline and pulled it down, then bent and pulled it lower over one leg and then another.
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  "For the love of Freya!" Thork exclaimed finally, unable to stand any more. He pulled her to the bed with him. Holding her tightly in his arms, gasping for air, he tried to regain some semblance of control. Finally he laid her back gently on the pillows and brushed the damp tendrils of her hair off her face.

  "What shall we do now?" he rasped out with a wry grin. I must admit you have taken me beyond the bounds of everything I ever thought to experience with a woman and not yet consummated the act."

  Ruby could no longer fight her attraction to this devastating male. She smiled her surrender and put both hands on either side of his face, pulling him closer. The time for resistance had passed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  "I want you inside me," Ruby admitted huskily. "More than anything else, I want... oh—"

  "Here?"

  "Please."

  "Like this?"

  "Oh, my goodness!"

  Whispering softly, Thork moved over her, spread her thighs and bent her knees. With sweet gentleness, he placed himself at the door of her womanhood and slowly tried to breach the lock that should not be there. A gush of wetness seeped from Ruby, and Thork groaned, easing in the tip of his hardness. Ruby's body spasmed and welcomed him in an orgasmic clasp. She turned her face away in embarrassment over her body's premature, raging reaction to such a small touch.

  Thork took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. He gazed at her in wonder as the little aftershocks inside her body clutched at him still. Then, while his eyes were still locked with hers, he moved slightly. Her body stretched to accommodate him until he finally gave one last lunge, causing only a pinch of pain.

  "Oh, sweet Freya!" he gasped and closed his eyes momentarily to savor the intense pleasure.

  Ruby's inner body grasped him in a welcome caress as his velvet width swelled and filled her so tightly she couldn't ever remember such an exquisite sensation.

  "Do... not... dare... move!" Thork warned. His eyes were shut tight and his mouth formed a thin, white line of tension. Still imbedded in her, Thork finally opened his eyes and held hers intensely, waiting for her readiness to accept his strokes. He brushed her eyes, her ears, the edges of her mouth with feathery kisses.

  Ruby felt her center of pleasure begin to swell and throb. She took his finger and placed it there, even as they were still joined. Nodding his understanding, he stroked her there, then spread her folds so her swollen bud would abrade his crisp hairs as he rocked from side to side.

  Whispering hoarsely, Thork told her in disjointed, soul-wrenched phrases what she did that pleased him. He asked seductively if this or that intimate touch was to her taste until she could not speak, only moan. Relentlessly, he continued his ministrations until the bud grew and ached, until the inner muscles of Ruby's body convulsed wildly around his shaft in a paroxysm of splintering, exploding little orgasms.

  Only then did Thork arch his body over her, arms straight, head thrown back. He began with long, slow strokes that caused her bottom to rise off the bed. She thrashed from side to side in sweet torment.

  "Nay, sweetling, lie still. Let me set the rhythm."

  Wrapping her legs around his waist, he rode her slowly, tortuously, at first, with exceedingly long strokes that took him almost outside her body. By the time he drove her hard and fast, he'd pushed her to the other side of the bed and almost over the side.

  When he almost reached his peak, Thork spread her legs even wider so that each time he pounded into her he'd hit her nub of pleasure. Ruby was a keening, convulsing spasm of nerve endings before he finally arched hard, then pulled out of her body and came heaving onto her stomach as wave after wave of pleasure shook him.

  They lay that way for a long time, gasping breathlessly as their bodies slowly eased back to normal. Then Thork moved off her and up to the pillows where he lay back, with Ruby in the crook of his arms. Gently, he wiped his seed off her skin with the edge of the bed linen. Kissing the top of her head, he whispered tenderly, "We are well-matched, heartling. Do you not agree?"

  "Heartling. I like that."

  She rubbed her cheek catlike against his chest and fell fast asleep. But Thork did not let her sleep much that night. He awakened her sleep-warm body soon after, whispering words of ideas he had for testing how well they matched. At one point, he teased, " 'Tis good you keep your body fit with that jogging exercise of yours for you are well able to keep up with me."

  "No. You've got it all wrong," Ruby countered with a laugh. "It's good that you engage in all those military exercises so that you are able to keep up with me."

  That time Thork fell asleep, and it was Ruby who awakened him later with a jolt of surprise. She sat astride his half-erect shaft.

  "A sad specimen of a man you are, Thork, that needs a woman to prod your... interest."

  He deftly flipped her over, laughing appreciatively, and showed what a specimen he actually was. In the end, he pounded against her relentlessly until she admitted his superior talents.

  In the predawn light, Ruby awakened not to Thork's lovemaking but to a slight humming noise. Thork was leaning on one elbow, watching her sleep, a slight smile turning up the edges of his relaxed mouth. He sang softly.

  "What?" Ruby asked, disconcerted. "Why are you watching me? And what's that you're singing?" Ruby had never heard him sing, even when all the other Vikings in Sigtrygg's hall burst into song.

  "I've got friends in lo-o-o-ow places," he broke out in a beautiful, husky baritone voice and showed her with his hands and a jiggle of his eyebrows just what low places he had in mind. Garth Brooks never did it so well. He sang the whole song through, to Ruby's delight and surprise. She'd never realized he even listened to her songs.

  "Now that I know you can sing so well, we'll have to do a duet the next time I'm asked to entertain in one of the great halls."

  "The only duet I plan with you is right here under the bed linens," Thork growled, and the song they made then was, indeed, sweet.

  They slept late the next morning and did not awaken until an embarrassed Eirik entered their room at midday to inform them that King Athelstan had asked for them. Thork had forgotten the ruler's request to meet him in his solar.

  "See if you can find a servant with balding hair and a big mole on his cheek," Thork told Eirik. "Tell him to send another tub of bath water up here."

  "A bath! On the third floor?" Eirik balked.

  "Go, or I will make you carry it yourself."

  Eirik shot a disgusted look at them both and left in a grumbling snit.

  Thork turned to Ruby who had the coverlet pulled up to her chin. "Do you think we shocked him?"

  "More like revulsion," Ruby said wryly as she got out of bed to search through Thork's leather bag for some decent clothing now that he'd ruined her burgundy dress. "I'm not his favorite person, you know."

  When she dropped the coverlet, Thork inhaled sharply. "Did I do that to you?"

  "What?"

  "You have bruises and finger marks all over your body. I did not realize I was so rough." He came up behind her and feather-kissed the finger bruises on her upper arms, the brush burns on her throat. "Sweet, sweet Ruby," he murmured.

  "You don't look so great yourself," Ruby noted as she turned in his arms and linked her arms around his neck. His lips were swollen from her kisses, and, good Lord, was that really a bite mark on his shoulder?

  Thork smiled warmly at her, and Ruby's heart lurched with the intensity of her emotion. "I love you," she breathed against his parted lips. "No, don't say anything," she added, putting a finger over his mouth. "Whatever else happens with us, I want you to know that everything that I did with you last night was done for love, not because you forced me, or seduced me, or for any gain I might want."

  Thork swallowed hard, holding her eyes with his, but any words he might have said were forestalled by the arrival of the greedy servant.

  Happily the sly man pulled in the tub, while Ruby leaped under the bed linens once again. A troop of young pages
followed him with buckets of water, towels, soap and even a tray of food. "Thought ye might want to break yer fast with yer young lady after a night of hard work," the ingratiating servant said. Thork rewarded him with two coins. "My pleasure, master," he called out as he went back downstairs whistling a happy tune.

  When they finally entered the king's solar, fingers entwined, Selik already waited there for them. "I will not ask if you two got lucky last night," he commented sarcastically. "Freya's tit! You both look like you have rubbed each other raw. If you do not stop that smiling, King Athelstan will think you lackwitted."

  Thork glared at him, but Ruby just smiled.

  At first Ruby and Selik stood in the background while Thork discussed the details of Sigtrygg's marriage with Athelstan's sister. Ruby was dying to see what the sister looked like, but she was nowhere in sight.

  While they talked, Ruby looked around the opulent room, filled with the priceless books the young king collected. He had his scribes and clerics copying manuscripts from around the world. Fine Persian rugs warmed the stone floors, coordinated with the bright-colored tapestries and a few paintings on the walls. In fact, an artist stood in one corner painting a portrait of the king, even as he conducted his royal business.

  Ruby walked over and looked. The painting showed King Athelstan presenting his favorite St. Cuthbert with a book. The young painter looked up and told Ruby, " 'Twill be the first painting of an English monarch ever done. 'Tis important to King Athelstan that he be viewed as the new Charlemagne."

  He turned back to his work, and Ruby returned to Selik's side just as Thork told the king, "My son Eirik wishes to foster here at your court along with his uncle Haakon. Wouldst you permit such?"

  "Of course! Highly respected are you here, Thork, as a fighter, as well as a tradesman. I consider you a friend. Well, as much a friend as a Saxon and Viking can be," the king said with a wry smile that lit up his handsome face. Ruby knew that Thork didn't trust the Saxon king, and that Thork's guards had orders to remove Eirik at the first hint of any mistreatment. It was hard to imagine cruelty in so seemingly gentle a man as Athelstan. Also, Ruby wondered if it could be true that this handsome man was celibate.