The Last Viking

The box was laughing, hysterically. He threw it to the floor with disgust, and Merry-Death quickly picked it up.

  "Jillie, I'll call you back later," she said. "No, he's not my lover. No, I'm not fixing you up. No, he doesn't have a big—" she looked up at him where he stood, hands on hips, and she blushed—"boat."

  Hah! He would show the wench good and well, and soon, the size of his... boat.

  A half-hour later, Meredith sat at her kitchen table across from her "Viking." He filled out her brother's T-shirt and sweatpants as Jared never had. His long hair—light brown, sun-streaked with blond now that it had dried—was pulled back at the nape with a rubber band that she'd had to show him how to use.

  She'd changed into another silk blouse and slacks before returning to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

  Rolf sat picking at his charred rabbit, eyeing the plate of pasta sitting in front of her with a side of Caesar salad. They both had glasses of ice water.

  "Are you sure you wouldn't rather share my, meal? There's plenty," she offered.

  He hesitated. "It looks like white worms covered with blood."

  She smiled. "Yes, but it tastes delicious."

  "You are not quite so plain when you smile, Merry-Death. You should do it more often." He propped an elbow on the table and braced his chin in the cupped palm, watching her intently.

  Her heart lurched oddly at the backhanded compliment and his hot scrutiny. Then he spoiled the effect by adding, "And you have good teeth."

  "Like a horse?"

  He grinned. "Nay, not like a horse."

  Nervously, she slurped one strand of spaghetti into her mouth. Not wanting to back down from the challenge in his sparkling eyes, she smacked her lips with satisfaction.

  "Bloody hell! You could bring a corpse's poker to life with such a lewd gesture."

  "Huh?"

  He winked.

  And it was as if a ringly caress rippled over her entire body. She was in big, big trouble with this guy.

  "I will try one of your worms," he declared. Instead of waiting for her to get another plate and silverware, he reached across the table and picked up one strand.

  Arching his neck, he held it above his parted lips, like a sword swallower, then slowly sucked it into his mouth and down his throat. Holding her eyes the entire time, he licked his lips, then his thumb and forefinger.

  It was the most sensual thing Meredith had ever seen a man do in her entire life. Like foreplay, but better.

  "Did you like it?" she choked out.

  "Immensely."

  Was there a double meaning in his terse reply?

  "Do you want to know what I would like even better?" he asked.

  "No!" she said quickly and jumped up to get him his own place setting.

  The brute just laughed knowingly behind her.

  A half hour later, Rolf gave up trying to eat the spaghetti with a fork. He had tomato sauce splattered on his white T-shirt. Strands of pasta he'd tried to twirl on his fork had landed on the tablecloth or the floor.

  And Meredith was laughing so hard she had tears streaming down her face.

  Pushing the plate aside, he growled, "I think this is a dish some woman invented to bedevil her man." Using a napkin, he wiped his face to make sure no sauce remained, then threw it to the floor, and stood. "Why do you try to punish me, Merry-Death? Because we did not complete the game you started earlier?"

  "What game?" She stood as well and started to back away into the living room.

  "You know. In your shower." He drew the stained T-shirt over his head and tossed it aside, then stepped toward her, a predatory, determined look in his eyes.

  Meredith's traitorous eyes froze on his lightly furred chest and splendidly ridged abdomen. He'd put the wide belt with the ornate clasp on, and it called attention to his narrow waist and slim hips.

  Uh-oh, here come the hormones again.

  "Why did you run from my embrace, my lady?"

  His voice was a husky, sinful insinuation.

  My lady? Feeling far from ladylike at the smoky, silent invitation in his eyes, she gulped. "Because the phone was ringing."

  Every time she took a step backward, he took one forward. He stalked her. But it didn't feel threatening.

  It felt... exciting. Oh, my!

  "And that was the only reason?"

  She nodded.

  "Why do you pull your hair back so severely, like a chaste nun? You have beautiful hair."

  "I do?" Meredith was behind the sofa. Rolf stood, poised to spring, on the other side by the fireplace, which had burned down to embers.

  "You do. When it spilled out earlier, I pictured it spread down your back, over your bare breasts, on my bed furs.

  Her eyes widened at his outrageous words and her breasts peaked and began to ache.

  He noticed immediately and a slow smile of appreciation spread across his lips. "Come," he said, holding out a hand in invitation. "No more malingering games."

  Meredith was almost tempted. Almost. She shook her head. "I think you must have cast a spell over me with that... that talisman you keep talking about."

  "Nay, 'tis you who have cast the spell, my sweet witch. Now, come," he coaxed, "do not gainsay me with pretenses that you do not want the pleasuring as much as I. "

  "I don't,"' she lied, even as she felt an insistent heat coil in her midsection and move enticingly downward.

  "I will show you how a true Viking makes love," he vowed silkily, "and you can show me your witchly arts in the bedding. 'Tis a bartering I anticipate with great fervor."

  "No, you don't understand," she protested weakly.

  They had circled the sofa. Now her back was to the fireplace, and he was on the other side of the couch. "We have to talk. There seems to be a big misunderstanding here."

  "We can talk later. Afterward. And the only big thing here is—" His hand, which had been rubbing his bristled chin—he must not have shaved in days—moved lower to demonstrate.

  "Don't you dare."

  The progress of his hand halted midway and he fingered his belt, nibbing it in an almost erotic fashion.

  He was playing with her, like an overconfident cat with a helpless mouse.

  But her eyes homed in on the ornate clasp of his belt, and she recalled the primitively carved figurehead from a ship's prow lying outside. Sanity began to return.

  At first, Meredith had believed that this guy—this very attractive guy—had been sent by her brother, in collaboration with Mike. But maybe that was just what she had wanted to believe. Something wasn't right in this picture.

  He was a stranger who'd shown up unexpectedly in her home. He claimed the bruise on his forehead came from the falling mast of his dragonship. A new wound—a shallow, six-inch slash across his back-had resulted from the sword of someone called Staff Griminsson.

  All of the modem gadgets in her home fascinated him. Not just the telephone or refrigerator or stove or running water or electricity. Even little things like ice cubes or metal cans or rubber bands.

  And another thing. He knew a lot about tenth-century history. In fact, he claimed to be living in that time period, which she'd discounted as a joke earlier.

  But maybe he hadn't been joking. Oh, God, maybe he was an escapee from a mental institution. Some nutcase with delusions of being an ancient Viking prince.

  "Listen, Rolf," she said sternly as they circled the sofa once again, "we are going to talk. Now. It's important that we get a few things cleared up."

  His jaw stiffened and he seemed about to argue, but then he shrugged. "If you wish, we can talk," he conceded, "but then we will make love."

  Her heart hammered. She was an obsessively honest person. She'd never been coy or prone to games.

  "Maybe," she agreed as a blush heated her face.

  "Maybe?" he questioned, tilting his head cynically, bracing his hands on his sexy hips. "Maybe?"

  "Try to understand. One-night stands with complete strangers were never my style—"

  "Oh
, I daresay I will be here for many nights," he drawled. "Leastways, till my ship is completed."

  "That's what you think," she retorted at the interruption. Then, flustered at the prospect of all those nights he alluded to, she went on, "I'll admit that 'Love with a Warm Viking' is looking better and better. And hard as it is for me to believe, I'm actually considering a meaningless sexual encounter. It's just that I need some answers first."

  His lips twitched before he smiled lazily at her.

  She hated it when he smiled lazily at her.

  "Warm' Viking?" he scoffed. "My lady, this Viking is hot."

  Chapter Three

  "Unleash your tongue," he said. "I am listening."

  After throwing two more logs on the fire and stoking it back to life with a poker, he sank down onto the soft cushions of a narrow, bedlike structure facing the fireplace. Propping his long legs on the low table in front, he took an apple from the bowl in its center and began to chomp with a relish born of near starvation. That plate of "worms" she'd given him for dinner had done naught to fill his empty stomach.

  When he looked up, Merry-Death was gaping at him and the half-eaten apple.

  "What? You ne'er saw a man eat an apple?"

  "Of course, I've seen a man eat an apple. It's just that you make yourself at home... in my home. You don't even wait to be asked if you'd like to sit down or eat or... whatever." The last word came out with a tiny embarrassed squeal.

  She couldn't fool him. He knew why the wench was skittish. She was thinking about the pleasuring to come.

  Like a mare in heat, her body made ready for their coupling.

  "By your leave, may I sit down, Merry-Death?" he inquired with amusement.

  "Hmpfh!"

  "Would it beggar your household if I ate one of your apples?" he added.

  "Oh, really! That's not the point."

  "Blessed Thor, woman talk makes my head ache. I'm tired and hungry and... lusty. If I must needs listen to nagging—and, yea I said nagging; 'tis what most females mean when they say, 'let's talk'—I want to have at least one of my appetites satisfied first."

  The wench's open mouth snapped shut.

  He smiled inwardly. Really, the wench was so easy to bait. No challenge at all to his superior talents.

  "Well, what do you want to discuss?" he prodded, tossing the fruit core into the exact center of the flames, where it proceeded to sizzle and dew off the delicious autumn scent of apples. She stood behind the bed-thing, glaring at him. "And, for the love of Freya, sit down so I don't have to crane my neck up to see you."

  Before she had a chance to protest, he reached over his shoulder, seized her wrist, and yanked her over the cushioned backboard of the bed-thing and onto his lap, face downward. In the process, he got a close-up view of her rump before she righted herself.

  His staff came immediately to attention. But then, he'd always had a fondness for a well-rounded female rump.

  After he adjusted her squirming body to sit on his lap, he noticed her breasts pressing against the sheer silk of her shert. Not that he hadn't noticed those same breasts a short time ago in the showering chamber.

  "Stop looking at me like that," she sputtered, slapping at his roving hands.

  But he couldn't stop looking, or roving, although he did try to conceal the smile that tugged at his lips. Next to a firm, shapely bottom, he did like a woman's breasts.

  In fact, he and his brothers had engaged in a profound discussion on the subject one time—they'd been drunk—and decided that women's breasts were a gift to men from the gods. Jorund and Magnus had said—that the bigger the tits the better-more to hold onto, or some such—but he believed there was allure in all sizes and said so loudly.

  Then, with the wisdom gleaned from a tun of mead, they'd moved on to the disadvantages of bedding comely wenches.

  "Winsome women are too full of themselves," Magnus had declared with a loud belch. Odd that the belch remained so vivid in his mind. "They require an abundance of flattering afore they'll part their legs."

  "And plain women try harder to please," Geirolf had added sagely. He couldn't remember if he'd belched or not.

  "Yea, but there is naught better than a buxom wench who has enthusiasm for the bed-sport." Jorund had sighed. At the time, his brother had been smitten with the fair Else, a dairy maid, who was giving him a merry chase.

  His mother, Lady Asgar, had overheard the conversation and boxed all their ears, calling them "crude, disgusting oafs."

  "You crude, disgusting oaf," Merry-Death hissed at him, jarring him back to the present. "Take your hands off of me. "

  "Why?" He maintained an armlock around her upper body, pressing her to his bare chest with one hand, while he released the pins from her hair with the other and raked out the silken strands, down her back, over her shoulders, as far as the mounds in question. "I mislike talking intimately to a woman who has her hair skinned back like a nun," he said thickly as he buried his face in the fragrant tresses. She smelled like drek.

  Merry-Death gasped.

  "Do you use drek on your nether hair as well?" he inquired idly as he tasted the sweet skin at the curve of her neck.

  She gasped again.

  Taking her gasps as encouragement, he nuzzled her neck, then moved upward. First, he nipped the sensitive lobe of her ear with his teeth, then began to explore the inner lobes with the tip of his tongue.

  The wench went stiff with shock.

  He was stiff, too, but not from shock.

  Meredith fought against the erotic lethargy that pulled at her senses. She felt the clasp of Rolf's belt pressing into her hip with an odd heat and wondered if it might really be a magic talisman. There was no other explanation for her attraction to such a crude man with overly sensual lips and octopus hands. Nor was there any logical accounting for an educated woman such as herself surrendering to raw impulsive lust.

  But it felt so good. And it had been so long.

  "No!" she insisted, mustering resistance. She managed to slip out of his arms to the other side of the sofa. Panting, she folded her arms across her breasts to hide her signs of arousal.

  Rolf gazed at her, his chin lifted defiantly, passion hazing his amber-brown eyes. Then he slowly let out a pent-up breath and waited tautly for her next move.

  "Who... are... you?" she asked.

  "Geirolf Ericsson," he snapped, clenching and unclenching his fists, as if he could barely contain his roiling passions.

  Meredith couldn't recall a time when a man seemed to want her so much. It was a heady compliment.

  "Where are you from?"

  "Hordaland."

  There he went again with those ancient words. Why didn't he just say the southwestern section of Norway—old Norway, to be specific? "How did you get here?"

  She tried not to stare at the somehow erotic movement of his flexing fingers.

  "My ship wrecked," he said brusquely, obviously impatient with questions that interfered with his seductive plans, "and then I climbed the bloody cliffside to your keep."

  He was repeating all the things he'd told her before.

  But maybe he just had his story down pat.

  She ignored his sizzling glance, which pretty much said, Now can I jump your bones? "Who sent you?"

  He shrugged.

  "Are you a shipbuilder?"

  He nodded, and licked his lips slowly.

  And very nice lips they were, too. And his tongue wasn't so bad, either. Oh, geez! Is he anticipating my questions winding down? Why am I having so much trouble concentrating? Could hormone overload cause a dumbing-down syndrome? "Did you come here to finish the longboat project?" Meredith surprised herself by being able to put more than two words together intelligibly.

  He hesitated, and then answered, "Yea, I believe that is why I was sent here."

  "And you really can build a Viking longship?"

  He flashed her an affronted glare. "Did I not say so afore?"

  "How long would it take you to complete the
Project?"

  "Well, from what I have seen, I would say that half of the work already done will have to be dismantled. Once that is—"

  "It most definitely will not be dismantled."

  "My lady," he said with exasperation, "do you have any intention of placing that vessel on water?"

  "Of course."

  "It will sink."

  Her eyes narrowed angrily. "My grandfather was an expert builder. Are you saying he was incompetent?"

  "Was he an expert sailor?"

  "Well, no," she admitted, "but—"

  "Your grandsire nailed the overlapping oak planks together adequately, but he didn't stuff the joints properly with rope. The ship is not watertight."

  She inhaled sharply at that news.

  "There is a saying in my land, 'Oft veltir lítil púfa pungu hlassi. ' "

  She raised a brow, refusing to ask what he meant, or acknowledge his fluency in Old Norse.

  "A small leak will sink a great ship," he translated.

  "And here's another worry for you: The keel is off-center. "

  "Keel?"

  "The timber beam that forms the central spine on the bottom of the ship. It is the most important element in a ship's frame. The boat will list if it's off-center."

  Despite his dire prognosis, a sense of relief filled Meredith. Rolf did seem to know his craft.

  "I will build this Viking ship for you, Merry-Death," he assured her, "but it will be done my way, or not at all."

  What an arrogant, overconfident man! But she had no other choice right now. If he knew even half what he claimed, he would be perfect for the job. However, there was no way she'd let him control this project.

  She just wouldn't tell him that yet.

  "Why is this ship so important to you, Merry-Death?"

  His feet were still propped on her coffee table, and one long arm stretched along the back of the sofa, where his fingers played with the strands of hair lying on her shoulder. She wished he'd stop doing that. It unnerved her. Distracted her from the serious business at hand. Made her think of very unserious things. Like, just how hot was a hot Viking?

  "Because it was important to my grandfather. He was a professor of medieval studies at the local college with a special interest in Nordic culture." Once she started talking about her grandfather and the project, she lost her nervousness and the too-consuming awareness of Rolf as a man. Thank God! "All 'his life, Gramps dreamed about reproducing a Viking longship and actually setting sail, re-enacting one of the Viking voyages. Just like Captain Magnus Andersen did a hundred years ago."