Truly, Madly Viking

  She saw then that his chest was indeed heaving with some great stress. And what a great chest it was, too. And broad shoulders, a washboard abdomen, well-delineated muscles everywhere, all leading down to narrow hips and waist and a deliciously flat stomach. There were blond hairs covering his chest and arms, a darker shade of blond than on his head, but straight and fine as gold silk. How would it feel to the touch?

  And, oh, it was humbling to admit, but the man was in much better physical shape than she was.

  She was a slug compared to him... all soft and squishy in places he was hard as steel. He was narrow and trim, while she was all curves—way too many curves, she thought, as all her insecurities came back. She should have jogged more lately. She should have spent every spare moment on the StairMaster. She should have done crunches till the cows came home... or at least till the Viking came home.

  He was the exact picture of a Norse god. Better, even.

  She, on the other hand, was no Norse goddess... not by any stretch of the imagination.

  "You came to the door like a siren, prepared to lure me into your game," he accused.

  "I did not," she protested, knowing full well it was a lie, or at least a half-truth. Subconsciously she had recognized the significance of her daughters' absence, but her skimpy attire hadn't been a deliberate attempt to lead him... to control their lovemaking. Had it?

  "Ne'er once did you think of calling me at the gym and informing me of these events, I warrant. Ne'er once did you contemplate that I might like to be the man in this process. Tell me true: were you or were you not trying to seduce me?"

  "You are really beginning to sound like a male chauvinist." Her chin shot up defensively. "Do women never seduce men in your time? Is it so wrong for a woman to take the first step?"

  "You know it is not. That is not the issue here."

  "And what would that issue be?"

  "Me. The man you know me to be. I am Jorund the Warrior. The first time we make love must be on my terms. We will make love—of that there is no doubt but it will be my way."

  "Viking kind of love?" She was attempting to inject some humor into their conversation, but there was no masking her nervousness.

  "Precisely."

  Precisely? Precisely? What does that mean?

  Do Vikings make love differently from other men?

  Oh, boy.

  I mean, oh, man... oh, man, oh, nan!

  "The only question in my mind is whether, this first time, I should woo you or conquer you."

  What an arrogant, sexist thing to say. But both possibilities sounded good to Maggie. In fact, his hoarsely rasped-out words caused her knees to go weak. She backed up a pace and grabbed for the upstairs banister with one hand, for support.

  "You have made me wait too long for wooing, Mag-he," Joe told her, as if they were discussing the weather and not some erotic activity that would no doubt blow her mind. He was bent over, untying the laces on his athletic shoes. "What think you on the matter?"

  Maggie thought she was already too aroused to think, let alone speak.

  Joe stood and in one sleek movement pushed off his sweatpants and Jockey underwear, together. Stepping out of them one foot at a time, he then gave her his full attention.

  "Mercy!" was the only thing she could think of to say.

  His stomach muscles lurched, as did another part of him.

  She repeated, "Mercy!" Obviously Joe did want her, as he'd said. A lot. Mercy, mercy, mercy!

  Joe Rand... or Jorund—was a big man. All over. And while Maggie had never been one to yearn for great size in that department, she wasn't about to deny its merits, either.

  "I have made my decision," he announced, stepping slowly and purposefully toward her.

  A decision? About what? Did I miss something here? Oh, he must mean his question about the fomnat off our first lovemaking.

  His next words confirmed her conclusion.

  "Methinks a conquering is in order."

  Jorund was almost embarrassed by the hugeness of his erection. Almost. Really, he could not remember a time in his life when he'd ever wanted a woman so much. Had she ensorcelled him? He knew that he was treating her unfairly, accusing her of trying to be a leader in the sexplay.

  But—blessed Odin, he had to do something to slow down his catapulting excitement.

  He glanced down at his excitement and snorted with disgust. For the love of Freyja! Instead of lessening, his engorged member had become even more painfully erect.

  Rita waddled in, probably figuring it was time to bedevil him again. Instead she took one look at his excitement, then appeared to do a feline double lock before raising her fat head with disdain and ambling off. Obviously she was not impressed.

  But Mag-he was. Truly, did she not have the least bit of sense to be staring at him so, gape mouthed with wonder? Did she not know that a maiden's eyes on a man's most prized instrument caused it to react on its own? As his brother Magnus always said, "A man's cock can be his best friend, or his worst enemy."

  And his other brother, Rolf, always said, "A manroot has no brain." He agreed with both sentiments.

  "Are all Vikings like you?" She was still ogling his staff.

  "I'm the only one," he lied.

  She giggled. She actually giggled. He considered crossing his legs and covering himself with his hands, but that was so out of character for him, who was usually proud of his endowments... except that his endowments had never been quite this endowed. In truth, he wished the slate floor would open up and swallow him whole. Instead his other brain—the one between his legs—decided to take over.

  "Take it off." His statement came out more like a growled order than a sweet request.

  "Take what off?" The wench was holding on to the stair post, white-knuckled, as if she might fold bonelessly to the floor without its support. He was of the same mind.

  She should know perfectly well what he'd meant, but then her eyes did seem dazed. Perhaps she was a bit disoriented. So he told her, "The siren robe." If he was going to be standing naked as a plucked chicken with a bull-size erection, he was bloody well going to have company.

  "Oh." Her skin was flaming, from her face right down to the edge of the deep neckline.

  He liked her blush ever so much. Usually Jorund sought out women well experienced in bedplay... ones who could teach him new tricks. But he had to admit he was anticipating the joys of teaching Mag-he a thing or two... or twenty.

  She untied the cloth belt at her waist, then stopped. "Joe, I'm not as beautiful as you are, or in nearly as good shape as you are." Shyly she parted the sides over her shoulders and let the fabric slither to the floor in a crimson pool.

  His heart stopped beating for a second, then exploded inside his chest into a thundering beat. "Oh, Mag-he, you are beautiful to me. And your form is shapely, just the way I like."

  Actually her form was more than fine to him: it was perfect. She was taller than the average female, more like the statuesque women of his race, though there was naught Nordic about her appearance. Her hair was raven black, cut far too short to be feminine, but attractive nonetheless. Her lips were full and red and kissable beyond all bounds of sensuality. Her eyes gazed at him through misty blue pools of passion.

  But it was her body that drew him now... a body that was curvaceous... made for love. Her breasts were large and full and rose-nippled. They were not excessively large, except in relation to her small-boned frame, and they were uplifted, not sagging with their heaviness. He intended to pay great homage to those breasts; that was a promise he made himself.

  He knew that Mag-he thought she carried too much weight, but she was wrong. Men did not like skin-and-bone females, as was the fashion of her time. That was one thing he knew had not changed through the centuries. On that issue, men were men.

  He let his eyes roam lower. Her creamy torso tapered in at the waist, but then flared out at the hips... hips perfect for bearing a man's babe, or a man's lustful body. The navel ring sparkled
in its place, midbelly. He could not wait to taste it with his tongue. Was it cool? Or hot?

  The thatch of dark hair below was curly and already glistening with woman-dew, he would wager. Her legs were long and comely, and her feet high-arched and narrow. He intended to investigate every part of her thoroughly before morning.

  Bloody hell, it would be before midnight, he amended in his head, if he kept going at this rate.

  "So beautiful," he repeated in a voice raw with passion. Then he reached for her.

  Maggie did feel beautiful at that moment. Under Joe's appreciative scrutiny, her womanliness was suddenly something to glory in, instead of repress. She wanted him to find her sexy, and he apparently did.

  When he opened his arms to her, reaching as he strode toward her, Maggie was filled with such joy that she hurled herself into his embrace. He caught her with a surprised laugh and lifted her high. But when she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders, she must have startled him, because he gasped and exclaimed, "Mag-he!" just before his knees gave way. He lurched forward, landing on his knees on the first rung of the carpeted stairs. Then, still pitching forward, he pressed Maggie backward, and she found herself sprawled on the steps, legs wide, and Joe on top of her.

  He blinked at her, wide-eyed with shock. Maggie wasn't sure if he was about to laugh or cry. Despite the carpet that had broken his fall, Joe's knees must pain him dreadfully. "Are you hurt?"

  "Beyond belief," he choked out, and insinuated his erection more tightly against her. "Too late, too late, too late," he moaned as his lips took hers hungrily and he thrust himself inside her slickness. Well, not quite inside. Halfway. He was so big, and Maggie had not done this for a long time.

  With his eyes closed and his head reared back, he pulled himself out, then thrust again. Three times he repeated this exercise before imbedding himself to the hilt.

  To Maggie's mortification, she began to spasm around him. Her eyes were probably rolled back in her head, with only the whites exposed, so intense was the pleasure he gave her. She shut her eyes. And she continued to spasm. It was much too soon. How pathetic she was. She began to cry and tried to squirm out from under him, but he would not allow that.

  "Shhh," he said, "you feel so good. Like a supple glove of warm, oiled leather."

  Then he rolled so he was on his back on the steps and she sat on his lap, impaled and filled. "Peak again for me, sweetling," he urged in a voice smoky with sex, putting his hands on her hips to hold her still. Her first instinct was to undulate on him. But no, he took her hand and made her touch herself at that place where they were joined. She glanced down. The base of his erection was barely visible where blond hair blended with black.

  Just that sight made her go hot with liquid pleasure, there. Does he feel the scorching heat as well? His gray eyes appeared glazed, like misty silver, and from his parted lips came a soft moan.

  He does.

  His firm hands on her hips forced her to keep him inside her. He refused to let her seek her release through movement, only through her own sinfully erotic touch. Within seconds she came again in violent convulsions that grasped and released, grasped and released, grasped and released his still-engorged penis.

  In fact, she thought he might have elongated and thickened with the flexible accommodating of her inner muscles. She wanted desperately to move, to feel the friction of his penis, but he kept murmuring against her ear, "Not yet, not yet."

  Maggie realized he was indeed playing the role of the conqueror. Didn't he realize that she'd already surrendered? But no, that wasn't quite true. There was a part of her that still fought these out-of-control passions. He must sense that.

  And so she threw her head back and moaned and moaned and moaned as shudders rocked her body, and she came endlessly. "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ooooh!"

  And still Joe had not climaxed.

  But that did not mean he was unaffected. Hardly. He rolled them over so she was on the bottom again, and his stiffened arms were braced on the step, on either side of her head. From his lips came a panting noise, "Wfff, wfff, wfff, wfff," like an overheated horse. He was clearly trying to rein in his excitement. For what purpose?

  Finally, when he had calmed down a bit—though he was still fully erect and imbedded inside her, like a permanent erotic fixture he smiled down at her and gave her a brief kiss "Where are those condoms we bought?" he whispered against her ear, at the same time he nipped at the lobe. Even his breath was a carnal caress at this stage of her seemingly endless arousal.

  So that was why he was holding off. Birth control. He wanted condoms. "In my purse... in the hall closet."

  In one lithe movement, he put a palm under each of her buttocks and stood, still planted inside her. Then he began to walk across the foyer.

  With a little yelp, she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders, as she had before. The slight jarring created by his stride reverberated into sensations inside her that were... interesting. Maggie was beginning to think she was either a wanton, or a woman who had been very sexually deprived for a long time. Maybe a little of both.

  In a few moments, condoms in hand, Joe carried her through the archway into the living room, where he deposited her on an antique chaise lounge, which she'd inherited from her great grandmother. It was upholstered in green velvet, backless, and had an arm at only one end. A useless piece of furniture, she'd always thought... till now.

  With surprising expertise for a task he'd never performed before, Joe put on the condom, then made a great fuss over arranging her nude body just so on the chaise... half reclining, with her head against the armrest, her hands behind her head, and her legs spread with her feet resting on the floor.

  The old Maggie would have been mortified beyond belief to be so exposed.

  The new Maggie wondered what surprising, sinful things he would do next.

  Kneeling on the floor at her side, he was studying her body from head to toe, like a connoisseur considering the purchase of a fine painting. Did he like what he saw? The answer she saw on his flushed face and parted lips was a glorious Yes, yes, yes.

  "Let's just make love," she urged, and her voice came out even huskier than usual.

  "We will, heartling. We will," he promised, still studying every curve and plane of her body.

  When was he going to start touching her, and doing other things? Oh, good Lord!

  Was it possible that Vikings didn't make love the same way people did today? No, that was silly. Sex was sex. Wasn't it?

  Aaarrgh! Can a person go crazy from hormone overload?

  "When?" She arched her body involuntarily, like a purring cat in need of a good petting.

  Her posture caused his eyes to go wide, and he clenched his fists at his sides, still restraining his impulses. Darn him! He'd better unrestrain soon, or... Or else.

  "When you are wild... with want."

  Oh, boy! Maggie simultaneously felt a sharp throb between her legs and an ache in her breasts, and she thought, I am already wild.

  Jorund could not believe his eyes. His Mag-he had gone wild for him. What a picture she made, reclining sensuously on the low sofa... a sofa that was, by the by, constructed perfectly for bed sport. Jorund, kneeling on the floor at her side, could not get enough of gazing at her. But he'd best be careful, or he would explode before he ever entered her body. That was a shame he intended to avoid at all costs.

  The ripeness of her mouth attracted him first. He let his touch trace the outline of her full lips, then dipped a finger inside and moistened them. A lamp on a nearby table provided just enough golden light for him to view the glistening wetness he had created. Then he tunneled his fingers in her short hair, and moved his lips over hers, back and forth, till they fitted together perfectly. He had been telling Mag-he the truth when he stated at one time that he had no particular fondness for kissing. But, oh, she had changed his mind.

  Now he could not imagine making love with her and not tasting her li
ps and tongue and teeth. With that in mind, he stroked her with his tongue, in and out, in and out, in and out, and she drew on him. He had never known a kiss could be so intimate, or so like sex itself.

  When he finally tore his mouth away, her lips were swollen and even more kiss-some. Her breathing was as ragged as his. He saw the pleading in her luminous blue eyes. Her eagerness both excited and scared him at the same time. Beware, some inner voice warned, this woman could be your downfall.

  But then another voice, accompanied by some whalelike clicking noises, countered, Or your greatest achievement. Follow your heart, Viking. Follow your heart.

  But Jorund ignored the voices in his head. He had a beautiful, sensual woman begging for his erotic loveplay. "Soon, dearling, soon," he assured her as he moved his ministrations lower.

  It was her breasts—her beautiful, beautiful breasts—that caught his attention now. For a long time, he played with them, pushing them up from underneath, tracing the dusty areolae, fingering the prominent nipples. She was a mewling, mindless creature by the time he was through with her, imploring him for release. That was the way he wanted her. In truth, he was a bit mindless himself.

  "Tell me what you want, Mag-he," he entreated in a voice thick with male need. "Tell me your desires."

  Her eyes went frenzied, and he knew she was fighting the part of her personality that wanted to be in control. She did not want to tell him her secrets, her wanton yearnings, because then he would have some power over her. Foolish wench!

  She did not yet realize that she was the one who had power over him.

  He saw on her face the moment that she yielded to his mastery. Her hands were still folded behind her neck, where he had forced them to stay, but now she pulled them out resolutely. She put her left hand on the nape of his neck, drawing him downward, and with her right hand placed under one breast and pushing upward, she gave him her breast to suckle. And—oh, holy Thor—how sweet it was!

  For a long time he stabbed her nipple with his tongue, and licked, and plucked, and bit, and sucked, and fluttered her. Then he did the same to her other breast. Such wonderful agony was this to her that she cried out her pleasure with little mewling moans and bucked her hips rhythmically on the sofa, trying to find her release against thin air. In the end, even as he continued to minister to her sensitive breasts, he put the heel of his hand on her loins, and she bucked against his callused flesh till she peaked in unbridled convulsions.