But warriors of the brotherhood took mates rarely. And when they did, they tended to get as possessive of those mates as they were of the blades they treated better than some men treated their own children. Gunnar would have happily cut down any fool who’d tried to put his hands on Audra, much less tried to get his cock in her, no matter the ancient custom of hospitality. The fact he’d known she’d encouraged other men to try anyway—and that at least one had succeeded, that little shit Dandro—hadn’t helped.
But Maud was not his mate. She could never be his mate. He’d had one mate and lost her, and Maud’s only purpose here was to provide Gunnar with the vessel for bringing that one, single mate back to him.
Gunnar needed to remind himself of that as much as he needed to prove it to the other man. And to Maud.
Riordan didn’t appear to move a muscle, though Gunnar could see his chest rise and fall. Maud let her gaze travel over him, from his bare, tattooed chest to his trousers, where the other man was already hard and ready.
Then she knelt down between Riordan’s widespread legs with that impossible grace of hers that made Gunnar’s head feel thick, tipped her head back to look Riordan straight in the eyes, and smiled up at him.
“Thank you for allowing me this moment of holy communion,” she said, in that nearly singsong way she did when she was repeating something, or quoting church passages. There was no reason that should be so hot. But it was. “It is my honor to serve you.”
Gunnar wanted to break shit. Riordan, first and foremost.
But instead, he kicked back against the leather of the couch and kept his goddamned mouth shut while his nun ran her hands up over Riordan’s thighs and settled them at the fastening of the other man’s fly.
He even kept his mouth shut when Maud flicked a glance at him again, checking in. Waiting for permission, he understood, when he paused.
Because she was doing this for Gunnar, not for Riordan, and that made all the things he’d just been telling himself about proving this or proving that moot. This was one more iteration of the hot, taut little game they’d been playing since she’d introduced herself to him on her knees in the desert.
This was theirs.
Gunnar understood in that moment that Maud was his in a way no one else ever had been, or ever could be. He didn’t have to think about it, or avoid thinking about it. It simply was. He held her in his hands as securely and totally here as he had when she’d been ill for so long on his boat. It was all the same fire, protective or sexual or challenging.
It was theirs. It burned between the two of them, and nowhere else.
He nodded.
And then sat there and watched as Maud reached in and pulled Riordan’s big, heavy cock out from his trousers with a certain reverence that made Gunnar’s mouth go dry. She stroked the length of it, sweet, long pulls with her hands that Gunnar was sure he could feel in his own aching dick, and then she tilted herself forward and licked the thick head.
One lick, lush and slow. Another, this one more of a swirl, and he remembered how that felt. Fuck him, did he remember.
Maud found his gaze again, and Gunnar only stared back, steady and sure. No matter the riot inside of him, because he understood it now. It was that same bright fire. It was theirs, and he controlled it.
He controlled her. He controlled this.
He’d never wanted anyone more in his life and he couldn’t find it in him to be as alarmed by that notion as he should have been. He wanted to watch her do this to his brother, right here on the floor of his cabin because he’d asked her to, almost as much as he wanted her to do it to him again.
She would. He had no doubt about that either.
Gunnar inclined his head again.
And Maud shifted on her knees, wrapped her hands around the base of the other man’s cock, and sucked Riordan deep into her wide, carnal, gorgeous mouth.
Exactly as he’d ordered.
10.
Maud hardly knew what was happening inside of her.
Part of her was focused on the task she’d been given, that she was determined to perform beautifully, purely to make Gunnar proud of her. She wanted that so much she nearly shook with need and longing and determination alike.
There was nothing unpleasant about Riordan, or the task itself, which helped. His cock was very long, very large, and pleasingly smooth. He smelled good, male and smoky and faintly like pine. With both of her hands stretched around the thick base of his heavy shaft, she could move him in and out of her mouth as she pleased. It only took her a moment or two to adjust to his new, clean taste, then the rhythm of a strange man’s cock in her mouth and the idiosyncrasies of how he liked it sucked.
Your prayer is your gift, the nuns had lectured them in their second-phase tutorials. It is never about you, but about what you give and how. Even a holy man likes to feel as if he is the only one who has ever heard your prayer, no matter how many times he’s given you that honor.
It took only a few deep strokes to discover what made Riordan’s heavy thigh muscles clench and his dark eyes glitter, no hint of that smile of his any longer. And then another slow lick to make him groan, and that low, male sound of pleasure cascaded through her until it pooled between her legs the way it always had in the convent, to her lasting shame.
Maud had always been proficient at this part of her daily prayers—and the dirty secret the bishop had always used against her was that she’d enjoyed it. She enjoyed all of it. Kneeling down, lowering her eyes, smiling brightly the way they all liked.
No one likes a sad nun who scowls through her prayers, Mother Felyz had thundered in their catechism classes. Your role is to lighten, never to darken. You do this with your gentle touch, your easy obedience. Most of all, you do it with your smile.
Maud understood that, deep into her bones. The smile was a statement of intent. Next came sucking a man’s cock deep into her mouth as far as she could take it, making herself almost-but-not-quite gag when the head brushed the back of her throat, which always made them clench and groan. Or shift the way Riordan was doing, one hand rising to slide over her cheek and wrap around her nape, holding her where he wanted her. She rocked herself, pulling his cock in as deep as she could take it in her mouth, then slowly letting it slide out again, so she could worry the underside of that plump, thick cockhead with the flat of her tongue.
It had made her pussy sinfully wet back in the convent, every time.
And here, now, on her knees in front of Gunnar’s dangerous friend with Gunnar’s hot eyes all over her, she didn’t think wet could even begin to cover it. She liked when she could make a man groan, yes. It made her feel good—deeply satisfied—in ways she couldn’t entirely explain to herself. But this was different. This was better.
This was about Gunnar. This was for Gunnar. It was Gunnar’s steady gaze she sought out every time Riordan made a noise. It was the harsh line of Gunnar’s firm, hard mouth as he witnessed her skill that made her stomach flip over.
It was the gleam of pride in his harsh blue gaze that made her nearly come where she knelt, down on her knees with her mouth full of another man’s cock.
She could have stayed there forever. She felt as wholly possessed and oddly safe as she had in that bandit town, with a collar tight around her neck and an iron chain connecting them. Yet Gunnar wasn’t even touching her. He didn’t need to touch her, and here she was, more desperate and more greedy for him that she thought she could bear. She moved her head again, taking Riordan deep until he tensed, then pulling back to toy with the head of his cock again.
“Stop playing,” Gunnar ordered her, in that same calm way he’d once told her she wasn’t permitted to die. “That’s not how you suck a cock, little nun, and you know it. Riordan is a brother and a guest. Take him deep, like you mean it.”
And maybe she was coming, because she couldn’t stop quivering and the ache between her legs was a consuming fire she felt everywhere like an insistent pulse. Riordan’s big hands moved through her hair
but she felt Gunnar’s touch, not his. She was Gunnar’s instrument, that was all, and that notion made her hum around the thick cock thrusting in and out of her mouth.
She obeyed Gunnar’s order, tilting herself into a better position and taking Riordan all the way down her throat in a single smooth swallow, as commanded.
The big man beneath her cursed, then groaned.
Abruptly, there were no more games. Riordan gripped her skull as he thrust into her, taking control in a hot instant, and this was part of her gift, she knew. She liked the helplessness, the glory of it when a powerful man lost himself so completely and took her with him. She liked the ride.
And she liked it even more tonight, because she could feel Gunnar’s gaze on her, simmering and intense, as Riordan came with a roar and emptied himself deep in the back of her throat.
For a moment, everything was quiet. Riordan held her in place, his big cock only slightly softer in her mouth and the exultant taste of his pleasure still flooding her mouth and coating her throat. His hands tensed as if he didn’t want to let go, but he did. She sucked him well as he slid out, cleaning him off as she’d been taught.
But she broke protocol at the end, because she could hardly sit still and she needed to look at Gunnar more than she wanted to obey her training, more than she feared any consequences.
More than anything.
He looked carved from stone, still sitting there at the end of the leather sofa, so close and so far at once. Grim and forbidding, she might have thought, were it not for that naked blue fire in his harsh gaze. Maud felt that everywhere. More real and far more wild and intense than the man she knelt before and the cock she’d just sucked, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Or look away.
Or survive another moment without knowing if she’d pleased him.
“Good girl,” Gunnar said in that dark, low way of his that made her whole body ache, as if he knew.
Relief and pleasure coursed through her, so intense Maud couldn’t tell where one began or the other ended, only that it all seemed to knot low in her belly and pulse. Hard.
“I feel religion coming on,” Riordan muttered, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t, not when Gunnar was rising to his feet and that took up the whole world. “I have a sudden deep and abiding interest in the power of prayer, I think.”
Gunnar’s gaze left hers and that felt like dying, but he only shook his head at his brother.
“No,” he said, almost conversationally, but the ferocity beneath his voice was breathtaking. As in, it literally stole Maud’s breath, and she swayed slightly on her knees. “Don’t touch her again. Don’t ever touch her without my permission.”
Riordan shifted against the couch, but made no attempt to tuck his cock away.
“Oh, sure,” he drawled. “You’re healthy. This is all perfectly normal, what you’re doing here. At least now I understand why.”
Gunnar ignored him. He extended his hand to Maud instead, and when his fingers closed around hers, she felt it like his mouth again, drugging and deep. He pulled her to her feet, then tugged her closer than he usually let her go, hard against his chest.
Maud had never considered how many ways there were to die. Deserts and rituals and wolves, yes. But this, too. Pressed hard against the vast, stone chest of the warrior who’d saved her. He wanted to kill her, of course. She knew that. But right at that moment, nestled against him, with his beautifully corded arm wrapped around her to keep her close, that seemed a fair price to pay.
“Goodnight, Riordan,” Gunnar said, and there was no hiding the edge in his voice. Maud didn’t get the feeling he’d tried very hard. “I hope you’ve enjoyed my hospitality. You can run back home like the whipped little bitch you are and tell your king I’m fine.”
Riordan laughed, but not in a way that suggested anything was funny, and Maud pressed her face even farther into that magical space between Gunnar’s pectoral muscles, where she couldn’t help noticing she fit perfectly. Too perfectly, as if she’d been crafted to stand right here in her raider’s arms.
That notion made her quiver even more.
“The only bitch that’s going to get his ass whipped around here is you, my brother,” Riordan said after a long, tense moment. “Don’t call him my king again. He’s our king or you’re my enemy. You know this.”
Gunnar only grunted, and if that was sufficient reply, Maud couldn’t tell either way. She was floating. She was held tight, his hands like chains on her body, and yet she flew. She was wildly, endlessly dizzy and yet didn’t feel the least bit sick.
She felt free. At last.
The two men exchanged a few other taut words, though she was spinning too madly to track what they were saying, and then Gunnar was moving. He pushed her in front of him, keeping his hands on her shoulders as guides. He marched her down the stairs into the bedroom, where it was cooler and darker. He propelled her in front of him to the great bed and then he left her standing at the foot of it.
Maud didn’t like it much when he let her go, but she could hear him as he moved around the room, and that was enough. He lit the great pillar candle in the corner, then the fire. He rummaged around in a drawer and threw a handful of things on the bed before her. She didn’t look to see what he’d found. She didn’t quite dare. She bent her head and closed her eyes and waited precisely where he’d put her.
She tried—oh, how she tried—to breathe.
“You’re such an obedient little thing, aren’t you?” he asked when he was behind her again, a big, dangerous wall of male steel and all her longing. She trembled. He put his hands on her again, resting them on her shoulders so his thumbs could sweep along her neck for a moment, and then he smoothed his way down her arms.
“No,” she whispered. “Not usually. I’m a known troublemaker. Ask anyone.”
“Ah, little nun.” He sounded … tortured. Hungry. “Don’t tell me this is all for me.”
She shook as his voice rolled through her, over her, and his hands kept moving. They traced the length of her arms, then started down the delicate line of her spine.
“Okay,” she said, but her voice was little more than a rough scratch against the candlelight. “I won’t tell you that.”
There was a faint rumbling sound, as much a sensation as a noise thundering into her, and it took her a moment to realize that he was laughing again. When she’d hardly recovered from the first time. He’d transformed, right there in front of her. And she already thought he was beautiful the way he was, silent and grumpy and grim beyond measure.
But when Gunnar laughed, the whole world stopped. There was nothing but summer. Blue and bright.
That skittered over her skin now. It moved inside of her. She was wet and she was needy and she was so far beyond desperate she hardly recognized herself. His hands were on her and that was all that mattered. That was all she needed.
He eased her forward, bending her over the end of the bed so her face was flat against the soft lengths of wool and her ass was high in the air, facing him. He didn’t speak. He ran his hands all over her. Down the length of her spine, then over the curves of her ass. As if he was learning her.
Or staking his claim.
Maud shuddered. And surrendered, that easily and that totally. To whatever he wanted from her. To all of it. To him.
Always to him.
“Would you suck any cock I told you to suck?” Gunnar asked. It could have been years later, and his hands were still on her body, testing the width of her hips.
She didn’t even think. “Yes.”
“And if I told you you’d never touch another man but me?”
That required even less thought. “Yes.”
She couldn’t tell if that pleased him or not. He lifted her again, turning her to face him, and he looked … savage. Maud thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful. Not in all her life.
“This is what’s going to happen,” Gunnar said, very deliberately, in that hard, calm voice of his that made her f
eel fluttery and desperate and small, all wrapped up in that wildfire burn of need. “You obeyed me upstairs, eventually. I don’t like repeating myself. Then you toyed with my brother’s cock instead of taking him down your throat at once, like you thought you were in control of what happened.” His mouth was that hard, flat line. But oh, how his blue eyes gleamed. “You can’t think that’s acceptable behavior, can you?”
She was slippery and swollen and floating again, right there where she stood.
“No, sir,” she said softly.
Something flared in his blue gaze, and she realized she’d addressed him the way she always had the bishop when he started doling out her penance. But Gunnar didn’t correct her, and this felt different. Every now and again she’d sensed something like this thing that flared between her and this grim, hard raider, big and unwieldy and marvelous, hidden in between her endless beatings and the infrequent orgasms on the convent floor. She’d imagined … something.
And she knew somehow that Gunnar was the man who could give it to her. Maybe the only man in all the world who could.
“Who was in control up there?” he asked softly. With all that sizzling power swirling in the air between them and wrapping around her like a chain, then pulling taut. “You or me?”
“You, sir,” she managed to say. “Of course, you.”
She thought he liked that. He reached over and ran his finger in a lazy loop over one ear, tucking her short strands of hair behind it, and her nipples pinched into hard points in response.
“You know I need to punish you,” he told her in that calm, certain voice of his that made her quiver down deep inside. As if all of this was inevitable. “Penance follows prayers. Didn’t you tell me that?”
Her mouth felt cottony and strange. “Yes.”
“Yes?” He sounded quizzical. “Yes, who?”
“Sir,” she whispered.
Gunnar didn’t quite smile. But the hard line of his mouth pulled to one side, and Maud felt it like a bolt of lightning, searing her where she stood, turning her to ash.