“Oh, Mordr!” Miranda had tears in her eyes as she listened to hm.
“I never had a chance to give them the gifts I had brought from my journey. A rainbow of different colored ribands for Kata and a small wooden sword for Jomar. I threw them into the flames of their funeral pyres.”
“Being a close acquaintance of an archangel, did you ever ask about your children? I mean, if it were me, I would want to know if they are all right.”
Mordr nodded. “Michael told me at our first meeting that Kata and Jomar are in a safe and happy place.”
“That should be some comfort to you.”
“It is, except I cannot rid my mind of the way I saw them last. And when I see their ravaged bodies, a rage like no other rises in me and . . .” He let his words trail off, and he shrugged. “I am what I am. I am what I became.”
“I could help you.”
“What? No! I do not want or need your sympathy.”
“That’s not what I’m offering. Oh, of course I sympathize, but what I had in mind was more professional help. Don’t pooh-pooh psychology and the good it can do. You would be surprised at how much help we psychologists can be to grieving people.”
“Pooh-pooh? Me?” He laughed, and in a deliberate ploy to change the subject, leaned over her and asked, “Do you psychoanalyze your lovers when you take them to your bed? Do you offer to ‘cure’ them?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” she said. “The only thing I needed to cure them of is a bad case of sexual need.”
“I have sexual needs.”
“I’ll bet you do. Actually, there haven’t been very many lovers in my life and hardly any ever since I got the kids. Believe me, an Internet profile showing five children does not garner a lot of hits.”
“You tried Internet dating?”
“No. I’m just using it as an example. Be honest, would you want to hook up with a woman responsible for five kids?”
“Depends on what you mean by hooking up. If you mean one night of hot sex, or two, or even five, that would be fine . . . in fact, perfect. A lifetime commitment, that would be another thing.”
”See. Single mothers face daunting battles in the dating jungles. Single mothers with two or three kids, the jungle gets thicker and harder to traverse. Single mother with five kids, even a machete wouldn’t get her past the first date.”
He had to smile at her choice of words. “You missay me, Miranda. I did not mean that I personally would be daunted by a woman with children, not if I wanted that woman. Nay, I referred to the fact that vangels are forbidden love or sex relationships. In fact, we have been made sterile to ensure our compliance, except for Ivak, who is the exception to just about everything in the world. You would know what I mean if you ever met the handsome knave. Leastways, women consider him handsome. Never did he have trouble attracting anything with breasts, like bees to a honey pot. He is a prison chaplain, married, with a soon-to-be born baby, and Mike is as outraged with him as an angel with a thorn up its . . . wing. We are all suffering because of Ivak’s missteps in the sexual arena.”
She blinked several times at his rambling discourse. He was becoming a regular blathering machine. Then she asked, “Sterile? Do you mean impotent? I already told you—”
He put his fingertips over her lips. “Can you doubt my . . . uh, potency?” He glanced downward toward the tenting in his swimming shorts.
Her blush said it all. No more questions about could he or couldn’t he. The question was: Would he? He hoped so. Provided Mike didn’t catch on to his intentions beforehand.
“Wanting you has become a pounding need in my body. I was dead to feeling, but now, like a hibernating bear, you are provoking me to wake up. You are making me crazy. You know that, don’t you?”
Normally, she would berate him for using the word crazy. Apparently it was not a proper word for folks in her mind-healing profession. Instead, she pondered his words and said, “I know what you mean. All you have to do is give me one of your smoldering looks, and you turn me on so much you make my knees sweat.”
A slow, lazy grin emerged on his lips as comprehension sunk in. “I smolder? That settles it then. We must do something about your sweaty knees.”
The children came up then, cutting off any further conversation. Or carnal activity. They were hungry. Again.
He came to his feet in one fluid movement, then held his hand out for Miranda, helping her stand. It took all his self-control to restrain his baser impulses when what he wanted to do was pull her into a tight embrace and have his carnal way with her. In the end, all he did was lean down and give her a soft kiss of promise.
“Kissing again! Yuck!” Larry said, opening the ice chest to see if there was anything left.
“He’s probably going to boink her,” the all-wise Ben told the others.
“What’s boinking?” Linda wanted to know.
Maggie made a sound of disgust, and Sam was rolling on the ground, laughing. Larry was using a tongue-wetted finger to get the last of the crumbs from the potato chip bag.
“It’s when a guy takes out his wiener and—” Ben started to explain, but Mordr put a hand over his mouth.
“Your brother was just teasing,” Mordr told Linda.
“Johnny Severino says it starts with putting your tongue down a girl’s throat ’til she can barely breathe. That makes her want to show you her pee place.” This wisdom came from Larry, who hitched up his wet swim pants which were so low the crack in his buttocks was exposed.
“Someone needs to do something about Johnny Severino,” Miranda said in a choked voice.
He and Miranda laid out the remaining food. Granola bars. Some tiny oranges called Cuties. Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut into quarters. An Oreo that Mordr ate quickly before anyone could grab it first. Several squeeze yogurts. Thin string cheese cylinders. All washed down with two shared bottles of water.
A day in the sun had turned them all sun-bronzed, except for Mordr, whose skin was getting lighter. He must feed soon by saving a sinner or by killing a Lucie, the best way vangels could get that suntanned look so prized in this modern world.
By the time they got home just before dusk, all the children were fast asleep, slumped over one another in the backseats of the van. He carried Linda out of the car, pressing buttons on the security panel to open the front door, then carried her upstairs to lay her on her bed. She never once opened her eyes. For a moment, he just stood, staring down at the little bundle of innocence. He was pretty sure he loved the little girl, and that could mean heartbreak for both of them when he left as he must, eventually.
He could not think about that now.
Miranda had awakened the rest of the children and brought them inside. They dragged themselves sleepily to their respective beds, needing no prompting tonight.
“You should take showers, but I think we’ll skip those tonight. You’re all so tired,” Miranda said, to the children’s relief.
“G’night,” they said sleepily to Mordr as they passed by.
“Why don’t you go take a shower,” Mordr suggested to Miranda. “I’ll bring the rest of the stuff inside and lock up for the night.”
She nodded. “Thank you. All that sun and a long day. I’m beat, too.”
He hoped not too beat. He had some smoldering to do. Among other things.
He should take a shower himself. A cold one.
He should call his brothers and get an update on the Lucie situation.
He should find out if Cnut had discovered anything more on Roger’s whereabouts.
He should remember that he was a vangel and not permitted to do what he was considering.
He should remind himself that this was an assignment with an end date. At some point, probably soon, he would be leaving.
But it was too late. Like a heat-seeking missile the military used today, he was set on his course. No stopping now. His desire for Miranda overrode everything, especially his good sense.
God help me! Mordr thought.
/>
The voice in his head that should be telling him to stop remained silent.
The history books didn’t mention THAT about Vikings . . .
Miranda had been under the shower for so long the hot water turned tepid. It felt so good to wash the grime of the day off her body and to relax all the muscles she’d been unaccustomed to exercising on a regular basis, as in swimming, climbing on and off the boat, and playing games in the water with the children.
Squeaky clean and no longer drained of energy, she wrung the water out of her hair and was about to step out into the bathroom when she heard the sound of a door opening and closing. Without invitation, Mordr stepped into the shower stall with her. Naked.
His eyes devoured her.
Her eyes devoured him. For a second, panic assailed her and he was about to bolt. She couldn’t help her anxiety. He was big. All over.
“Stay,” he said, picking up a bar of soap. Wrinkling his nose at the floral scent, he shrugged and stepped under the showerhead, lathering up his hair and face and upper body.
She watched, fascinated. No longer in a panic. In fact, just the opposite. “As if I have any intention of going anywhere when I have a Christmas gift, birthday present, and a surprise party standing before me in all his naked glory.”
“The things you say!” He shook his head, causing droplets to hit her in the face. His eyes glowed with a savage blue fire, Viking to the bone, wounded man to the soul, and yet there was a deliberate calmness there, as well.
He took his time, leisurely soaping and rinsing his chest and abdomen, his underarms and belly. When he got to his genitals, he took special care, holding her eyes the entire time, as he cupped himself, then ran a fist over the soap-slick, blue-veined length of him.
Clean now, he gave his full attention to her as she stood pressed against the corner to the right of the showerhead. She didn’t cower under his study, knowing instinctively that he found no problem with her thin body and small breasts. He kept his lips pressed together to hide his elongated incisors, which she’d had a peek at a moment ago when he’d raised his face to the shower.
Setting the soap aside and finger-combing his hair back off his face and over his shoulders, he flicked his fingers at her, motioning her to step toward him.
What an arrogant, presumptuous, male thing to do!
She did just that, stepping into his open arms. What a submissive female she was turning out to be!
At first, he just held her tightly against him, his face pressed down into the curve of her neck and shoulder. Then he turned his head slightly and whispered against her ear, “I have never wanted a woman as much as I want you.”
Okay, she’d been half turned on all day and more turned on at first sight of his blue steeler, but this huskily spoken declaration was the bow on her birthday/Christmas present. She squeezed his shoulders and leaned back to look at him.
He put a hand over his mouth to hide his incisors . . . um, fangs.
“Don’t,” she said, pulling his hand away. “They are who you are, whatever that is. Besides, we all have our flaws.”
“And yours are?” he asked, clearly grateful for her acceptance.
“Come on. You have eyes. My small breasts.”
“Odd you should mention them. Seems I’ve developed a preference for small over large.” He cupped both breasts from underneath and they only half filled his big hands. When he flicked his thumbs over both nipples, they rose to attention, begging for more.
She sighed at the sensitivity of her breasts and his expert ministrations.
“Besides, your sweet nipples more than compensate for any lack.”
Instead of leaning down, he lifted her by the waist so that her feet dangled a foot off the floor and his mouth could latch on to one breast and suckle her deep into his mouth.
“Oh. My. God.” A keening sound of intense pleasure ripped from her arched throat. She threw her head back farther in ecstasy, which caused her breasts to press forward, begging for more.
“You like that, do you, sweetling?”
“No, I practically climaxed because I hate it so,” she gasped out.
“You have a sarcastic mouth on you, wench,” he said, grinning at her.
Grabbing his head, she planted him on her other breast. In the midst of chuckling, he licked and kissed and sucked on that nipple, too.
Backing her up against the wall, he turned off the shower and moved his attention to her mouth and spent considerable time showing her that there were dozens of ways of kissing, each of them worthy of praise, not that she was coherent enough to utter a word of praise. The whole time he was kissing her, his hands were busy searching for all the erotic spots on her body. And finding them!
At some point she must have raised her legs and wrapped them around his waist. Or maybe he had done it for her. In any case, his long fingers were stroking her from behind as she undulated against his balls and the underside of his penis that rose upward toward his navel.
A kaleidoscope of colors burst behind her eyelids, and her entire body went stiff. With the last bit of sanity she still held onto, Miranda asked, “Do you have a condom?”
“I do not need a condom. I carry no disease, and I told you before that I am sterile.”
Mordr wasn’t the first man to claim sterility or a vasectomy when in the throes of sex, but somehow she sensed that he was telling the truth. And so she nodded.
With her hands on his shoulders and her legs still wrapped around his waist, he walked them into her bedroom where a bedside lamp provided a dim, subdued light. He didn’t bother to towel them dry. Their body heat would take care of that in no time, Miranda mused.
She thought he would lay her on the brass bed, but instead he sat her at the bottom edge and dropped to his knees before her, spreading her knees wide.
“No,” she protested. Then more vehemently, “No! Not like that the first time.”
“I just want to look at you. It has been a long, long time since I’ve gazed at a woman’s secret place.” He smiled and winked at her. “So pretty. Pink. Like the petals of a flower.”
Then, before she could guess his intention, he stood, picked her up by the waist, and tossed her to the center of the mattress. He crawled up and over her, settling his body in alignment with their respective body parts.
“My need for you is fierce,” he said, using his furred legs to rub against her calves.
She hadn’t realized she was so sensitive there. But then he used his ankles to spread her wide, exposing that area she had known was sensitive. Sex Central, so to speak.
“I am afraid I might hurt you,” he said against her ear where he licked the outer shell, then blew softly.
Her body lurched at the intense sexual pleasure that rippled out, igniting other parts of her body. Her lips. Her breasts. And lower.
When she was able to put two words together without blubbering, she put a hand to his face. “I need you, too. If there’s something I don’t like or if I’m hurting, I can use a safe word.”
“Miranda,” he said with exaggerated shock. “Have you been reading Fifty Shades?”
She felt herself blush but then countered with equal exaggerated shock, “Mordr! Have you been reading Fifty Shades?”
“Only the good parts,” he admitted with absolutely no embarrassment, nibbling a path along her jaw, an especially diverting exercise because of his fangs. “An angel, even a vangel, must understand modern sins in order to avoid them.”
“Is that theory accepted by Michael . . . the, uh, archangel?”
“No. What will your safe word be?”
“Oreo.”
They both laughed, and then they were not laughing at all as Mordr braced himself on extended arms and used his erection to stroke the moist folds between her legs. It must take an incredible strength to do that, Miranda thought with what had to be feverish irrelevance.
Giving her no warning, he plunged into her, filling her, causing her inner muscles to expand to accommodate
his size, and, yes, to her mortification, to have a mini-orgasm, just from that alone. But Mordr didn’t notice, he was busy lifting her legs by the knees and pressing them up against her chest, giving him even more room to impale her fully, pubic bone to pubic bone.
“Holy Sex in the City!” she murmured.
Mordr’s face was transformed in the sex act. His normally blue eyes turned almost silver. His nostrils flared. His lips parted, exposing the fangs. She assumed that fangs played some role in sex, as they did in fighting demons or saving sinners, but she wasn’t about to ask that now. Maybe never. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
He began long, slow strokes that about had her eyes rolling up into her head.
“You feel like a tight glove of warm honey down there,” he informed her on about the fifth stroke. Or was it fifty. Her brain was no longer operating on a full tank.
“You feel . . .” She tried to reply with equal vividness, but all she could think of was “. . . so damn good.”
His little half smile told her the compliment was well taken.
The force of Mordr’s shorter strokes was so hard they moved her up the mattress, almost hitting her head on the spindles. Without breaking stride, he sat up on his knees, still inside her, with her butt resting on his thighs, and turned so that when he came down over her again, their feet were on the pillows. Which must have given him an idea—and, boy, did he have ideas—because he reached behind him for one of the pillows and placed it under her hips, canting her body at an angle off the bed. With this position, Mordr’s public bone hit her clitoris every time he plunged in.
Instantly, without warning, her vagina began to spasm, clutching him in nature’s vain attempt at keeping the man inside if he was so inclined to withdraw. Not that Mordr was. So inclined, that was.
When Miranda began to come down from the high of that orgasm, she noticed that Mordr was unmoving inside her, and still big as a horse—well, not a horse—but big. The man had not climaxed himself. Darn it! Instead, he was waiting out her mind-blowing peak before resuming his long strokes. At the same time, his fingers were busy playing with the nipples of her breasts. Rubbing, flicking, pinching, tugging.