“Do not get any romantic notions about the sex we have both enjoyed. ’Tis no more than animal hunger, easily sated.”
“What an ass! No wonder your wife left you.”
“Your tongue exceeds your good sense, Lydia. You know naught of what went on betwixt my wife and me.” And, believe you me, it was not much.
“I can guess. You probably pulled wham-bams in bed with her. No foreplay. No sweet words. Just stick it in and satisfy yourself. Two minutes in the sack and a day full of loneliness.”
Lydia’s assessment hit closer to the truth than he liked. “I satisfied you.”
“Well, you know, it’s been five years. Anything in pants could have done the trick for me.”
That was a low blow. “What did you do for these long five years to find release? A passionate woman like you would not do without.”
“Same as you, buster.”
It took several moments for him to understand. “You pleasure yourself?”
Her face bloomed with color.
Was there ever such a woman as this? “Do you blush, m’lady?” He paused. “Frigg’s feet, you do!”
“Hey, this is the twenty-first century. Women have just as much right to sexual gratification as men.”
Gods bless the twenty-first century. A slow smile crept over his mouth. “Show me.”
“I . . . I beg your pardon.”
“Take off that garment and show me.” Before I explode with overenthusiasm.
“I will not. Besides, lunch is ready.”
“Food can wait.” ’Tis food of another type I crave.
“No.”
“Do you say me nay?” Not in this lifetime, wench.
"N. O. No.”
Dost want to wager on that? “That is a word I will not accept. You have two choices. Either I bind you to your bed, spread-eagled and naked, as I was. Or you show me how you pleasure yourself.”
She gulped a few times. “I can’t. Don’t ask me to. Please.”
“Would you do it for Dave?” He thought of something then. “Did you ever do it for Dave?”
The deepening flush on her cheeks was answer enough.
He was beginning to really dislike this husband of hers, even dead. “Do it!”
She closed her eyes and brushed her fingertips over her breasts, bringing the nipples into even greater prominence. Then, while one hand played with her nipples, the other skimmed over her abdomen and belly to caress the joining of her thighs.
Oh, my gods and goddesses! He had never expected her to actually do it. He had been teasing. But now that she was, every male particle in his body was standing to attention. And his manpart was standing more than all the rest.
“Take off your garment,” he said in a raw voice.
Her eyes flew open, and they were filled with tears. Of panic. And shame.
In truth, he had intended to shame her, but now he found himself filled with the same emotion. He understood, without being told, that when she had done this in the past with her husband, it had been an act performed with love . . . a love given and returned. A pang of jealousy shot through him, an emotion he had never felt before.
That did not mean he would end this game anytime soon. He was not a total lackwit.
“Come here. I will help you,” he said, feeling sympathy for her modesty, which he was raking through the coals . . . erotic coals, to be sure, with or without the love element.
Slowly, she walked toward him, chin high. When she stood between his widespread knees, he eased the straps off her shoulders and arms, then peeled the rest of the garment down to her feet.
“You are so beautiful . . . like a goddess. Are you sure you are not a Valkyrie?”
She smiled then, a small, tentative smile.
And an odd clenching occurred in the region of his heart.
“Are you thinking that flattery will get you everywhere? ”
“I can hope.” He smiled at her then.
“You have the most gorgeous smile. And a dimple.”
“A dimple? I do not have a dimple. Babies have dimples, on their arses. Not full-grown men.”
“Yes, you do. Right there.”
He turned his head when she touched his cheek and nipped her forefinger.
She went to back up, but he held her tightly between his thighs.
“Show me now.” This time he urged, not ordered. “And do not close your eyes. Your ardor gives me pleasure. ” Plus, I want you to see exactly who you are with. I. Am. Not. Dave.
Chapter 9
These games were not for children . . .
Lydia felt as if she were in the middle of some X-rated fantasy. It wasn’t really her. And this definitely wasn’t Dave.
So, why am I being so compliant?
Because I want to?
No, that’s too simplistic.
Because this is the first time in five years I’ve even wanted a man.
But there have been lots of other men and other opportunities. Why this particular man?
Because no matter what he says, there is some connection to Dave here.
He wanted her to touch herself, to bring herself to orgasm while he watched. Okay, she could do that, but she would be damned if she would do it alone.
Before he could blink those silver Dave-eyes at her, she lifted one leg, then the other, over his thighs, still covered with jogging pants, so that she now straddled his lap. Then she put her hands on his shoulders. His arms that had been raised and linked lazily behind his neck fell to his sides, and he inhaled sharply.
Yeah, you should gasp, buddy. Now it’s my show.
It was always good to catch a guy off guard; that’s what all the women’s magazines in her studio lobby proclaimed. Who knew all that “How to Turn on Your Man” nonsense would come in handy one day? When I lose my mind with a Dave clone.
She had never been promiscuous growing up on a Minnesota farm. In fact, Dave had been her one and only lover. But he’d taught her to be uninhibited. To enjoy sex. Somehow, in her extended grief, she’d forgotten that.
But it was all coming back. With a vengeance.
With a soft laugh, she shimmied her bottom up closer to his crotch, then moved her breasts from side to side across his chest hairs. She couldn’t stop the full-body shiver that overtook her at the delicious contact. So, she did it again.
And, hot damn, he shivered, too.
Finn’s fingers grasped her waist, and he showed her how to move her lower half against him, the way he liked. His lips were parted now and his breathing heavier, his eyelids half-mast.
It didn’t take much to turn him on.
Or her, for that matter.
She knew if she touched herself, down there, she would be damp already. But no touching yet, she warned herself. She wanted to extend this loveplay as long as possible.
Using her breasts to caress his chest again, she asked in a sultry voice she didn’t even know she had, “Do you like that?” Good heavens! Where am I getting the nerve?
“Is it not obvious?” He bucked his hips up against her, just once, to show how aroused he was.
Yep, he likes it. Leaning in even more, she pressed her mouth against his lightly, then used her tongue to wet his lips, before kissing him in earnest. “Open for me, baby,” she urged against his lips. Mama’s got a present for you.
He smiled back against her lips, in response. “Gladly,” he husked out.
Then, she kissed him. Open-mouthed. Alternately hard and soft. With her lips. With her nipping teeth. With her tongue sliding in and out of his mouth.
“I ne’er had much taste for kisses afore,” he told her, kissing her back. “But you are giving me a new appreciation for this foresport.”
“I love kissing. I love kissing you.”
She could feel his heart beating thud-thud-thud against her breasts, and his hands, which had been at her waist, were now holding her buttocks, directing her in a slow rhythm against his erection.
“Wait,” she said, shimmying ba
ck a bit on his lap and reaching for his wallet on the table. Taking out a condom, she ripped it open with her teeth, tugged down the elastic waistband of his pants, releasing a very impressive “Howdy!” you-know-what, and had him sheathed before he could mutter, “Bloody hell!” Which he did. It was one of his favorite expressions.
“Now, watch.” She lifted her own breasts. She caressed them with her palms. She flicked the nipples with her thumbs. When her hands lifted her hair off her neck— it had come loose from its claw barrette—her breasts presented themselves to him, higher and more forward. A provocative, deliberate pose, which had him smiling in appreciation and probably a bit of shock. Hey, I’m shocked, too. With her arms still raised, she began to undulate her hips. Advance, retreat. Advance, retreat. Just brushing the tip of him.
He gritted his teeth, and his hands left her butt to fist at his sides. Yep, he was definitely shocked now . . . and appreciative.
Was there anything more pleasing to a woman than to watch her man try to control his raging libido under her seduction?
Not that he was her man.
Or was he?
Actually, she was having trouble fighting her own approaching climax, but she didn’t want to come ’til he was inside her.
With a long, drawn-out growl, he took the decision out of her hands, so to speak. Arching his hips off the chair, he entered her, to the hilt. He stretched her; she clenched him. Eyes closed, jaw tense, unmoving, he attempted to slow down his arousal.
“Do you still want to watch, honey?” she purred at him.
His eyes shot open.
And while he watched, she put a fingertip to that place where their two bodies were joined. Immediately, her inner muscles began to spasm around him, and he grew even larger inside her. As her eyes drifted shut, long-unused folds began to move in accommodating his growing size.
“Open your eyes, you saucy witch,” he ordered with a chuckle. Then he took over the loveplay. He was a master at the game, no doubt about it.
But when the game was over, and she’d come another two times, and he’d roared out his climax, and they were both panting, it was debatable who the winner was.
He wasn’t THAT kind of a Viking . . .
Thorfinn was lying beside Lydia on the bed after another bout of lovemaking.
Truly, he had engaged in more sex this past day or so than he had the past year. At first, he had been plagued with a faint worry . . . very faint . . . that she would wear him down to a nub. Instead, he seemed to get bigger with each bout.
Amazing!
And exhilarating!
He could not wait to tell Steven. He did not need those magic elixirs Steven had purchased in Baghdad. Instead he just needed to swive ’til he was woolly-witted.
Of course, he might not ever have the opportunity to tell Steven, and that fact saddened him greatly.
She interrupted his reverie as she raised herself on one elbow to stare down at him. “I have to go to work tomorrow. ”
“Work? What kind of work?”
“I own an aerobics dance studio.”
“Arrow-backs?”
“Everybody knows what aerobics are.” She frowned at him, waiting for him to explain.
How can I explain the unexplainable? “Not me.”
“It’s a type of exercise. People come to my studio to get in shape, or keep in shape.”
“Do they pay you for this service?”
“Of course.”
There is no “of course.” “If you leave, I might never see you again . . . or my son.”
“You don’t trust me?”
Does the tinder trust the flame? “Hah! You would no doubt run like the wind if you knew who I really am.”
“Oh, God! Are you a criminal? An escaped convict? Her body stiffened and she sat up, tugging the bed linen to cover her nudity.
Now she goes modest on me. I do not think so. He yanked the linen back off and flicked it over to the floor on the other side. “Nay, I am not a law-breaker. Leastways, no law I am aware of.” He exhaled loudly, then confessed, “I must needs confess . . . I am a Viking.”
She paused for a further explanation which was not forthcoming. “A Viking. That’s all?”
“’Tis enough.”
“Hey, sweetie, I’m from Minnesota. Vikings abound there. But I don’t recall your name ever being on the roster. What years did you play?”
“Play what?”
“Football.”
“The game where grown men run around kicking balls and tackling each other to the ground?” Why does every conversation in this country feel as if I am wading through mud?
“Yes,” she replied, hesitantly.
She thinks I am a lackwit footballer. “You truly must consider me a lackwit. I am not that kind of Viking. I am a real Viking from the Norselands.”
“Okay, so you’re from Norway and . . . ?”
“Eleventh-century Norselands.”
Her jaw dropped. Then she laughed. “When I asked if you were an escaped convict, I should have also asked if you’re an escaped mental patient.”
Nay, that is what they called my uncle Jorund. “I know it sounds demented. I thought so, too, when it first happened. I still do.”
“When what happened?”
“The time travel.”
“Oh, good grief!” She burst out laughing again. “This is a joke, right?”
I wish ’twere so. “You may as well know the entire story so you can laugh some more.” He sat up next to her and wrapped his arms around his raised knees. “I was attacked by six men in Baghdad. I had just lopped off this one villain’s head when . . .”
“Oh, no! You lopped off someone’s head?”
“They were trying to kill me. What did you expect me to do? Ask them to dance?”
“What did you use?”
What do you think? A butter paddle? “A sword, of course. Why do you look so horrified? Did your precious Dave never kill anyone?”
“I’m sure he did, but he never talked about it.”
“I never talk about it, either. It is naught to boast of.”
“Even so, it doesn’t sound so bad if you use a gun. A bullet is, well, cleaner.”
“Are you serious? There is naught clean about death, no matter how it comes about. And guns are no more civilized, either, afore you make that claim. Besides that, in the eleventh century, guns were not available.”
“I don’t know.”
Well, I do. “Dead is dead, dearling. Back to what I was saying about my being attacked in Baghdad. Just when I thought all was lost, my cousin Torolf and his band of barmy SEALs rescued me, put me on a flying bird, and brought me here. Now I must adjust to not only a new country, but a new time.”
Her eyes went wider and wider as he spoke. “What did you do when you were . . . um, back there? To support yourself, I mean.”
He thought about telling her he had been a warrior, but most Vikings were warriors at one time or another. It went without saying. “For the past few years, I have run my estate, Norstead, whilst my brother Steven is at Amberstead. We are from Norsemandy, now known as Normandy, but we went to the Norselands, now known as Norway, to help . . . on a mission, and stayed.” That story of the battle against the evil Steinolf he would save for another day.
“Estates?”
Based on his recent studies, he knew that estates meant something different here. She was probably picturing some grand mansion with picturesque grounds. “It sounds better than it really is,” he said with a laugh. “A wooden castle. A small wooden castle, in the Frankish style. A sizeable hird of soldiers or housecarls. A dozen or more house servants. A weaving house. Smithy. Brew house. Stables. Fields. Cotters’ huts. That kind of thing.”
“And you managed it all?”
He nodded.
“My goodness! Why would you come here if you had all that?”
“Dost have dust in your ears, m’lady. I told you, I had no choice.”
“The ‘being drawn’ bu
siness again?”
At first he did not understand what she meant, but then he did. He had told her about being “being drawn” through time to this country. He nodded again, then added, “I have been engaged in tutoring these past three months so that I can fit in here, assuming that I do not get thrust back to the past. Now, do you understand?”
“Hardly. I can’t believe I’m involved with a thousand-year-old man. Amazing!” She smiled as she said the latter.
“Dost think it is funny?”
“You must admit it’s a far-fetched idea.”
“More like brain-tetched.” But then he homed in on something else she had said. “Are we involved?”
“Having sex a half-dozen times in twenty-four hours? Yeah, I think that qualifies as involvement.”
He could not help but grin. He was a Viking man. Virility was a trait much to be admired.
“As for the time travel, you’re pulling my leg, right?”
He frowned. “Nay, I am not pulling your leg, though I will if you want me to.”
“What? Oh, you!” She smacked him on the arm. “Pulling your leg is an expression. It means that you’re teasing.”
“I came here from the eleventh century, Lydia, and that is a fact.”
She seemed to be pondering what he had said. Then, instead of looking at him with shock, or revulsion, or disbelief, she started to stare at him in the oddest way, as if he had given her some marvelous gift. “So that’s why you talk so funny?”
“I do not talk funny.”
She smiled and patted his hand. “Dave sent you.”
All my earnest explanations, and we are back to step one. “Dave again,” he muttered, putting his face on his upraised knees with a groan.
“It’s a miracle. Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Raising his head, he looked at her adoring expression and rolled his eyes.
Still, whilst Thorfinn didn’t believe a bit of the miracle blathering, a small part of him wondered if this woman . . . and her child . . . were the reason for this journey through time. There was only one way to find out.
“We will go to Minnesota.”
Sweet captivity . . . uh, captivation . . .