Page 50 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

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HE UNBARRED THE DOOR and they stepped inside together.

Thora had done her work well. The long hearth down the center of the room burned bright and steady. A pot of stew hung over it, and bread and honey waited on the table beside a jug of ale. At the far end, behind a hanging of heavy wool, steam rose from a great wooden tub.

Torstein moved through the room lighting the last of the lamps, and the gold spread along the walls. Samira turned slowly in the middle of it all.

She saw the good timber and the care in every joint. The carved posts. The furs and the hangings he had gathered over years without quite knowing why, since there had been no one to see them. And against the far wall, the great bed beneath the smoke hole, wide enough for two, built with his own hands and never once shared.

"Torstein," she breathed. "It is a fine home. Finer than any I have seen."

"It was a cold one until now." He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin atop her head. "I built the walls and the roof and the bed. But it was never a home. It was only a house, waiting on the one thing it lacked."

"And what did it lack?"

"You."

She turned in his arms. In the firelight the awe had softened into something warmer, and certain.

"No woman has slept here," she said, as though setting the truth of it firmly in place.

"None but the one who will sleep here every night for the rest of her life." He tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "You are the first, Samira. You will be the only."

She looked around the golden room once more, at the fire and the steaming bath and the wide bed that would not be empty again. Then she looked back at the man who had built all of it for a woman he had only hoped might one day come.

She reached up and laid her palm against his cheek.

"Then take me to bed, zawji," she said softly. "It has waited long enough."

Torstein smiled, and lifted her into his arms, and for the first time Hrafnaklett was full.

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Chapter 20

Bliss

That night, after they had shared a warm meal and bathed in scented water, Torstein knew it was time to make Samira his wife in every sense of the word.

Samira was just as willing. Weeks at sea, getting to know one another and curling up to sleep at each other's side, had only sharpened their desire. She had to admit her husband was beautiful. She wanted to know what it was for a woman to lie with a man, and she wanted to explore every inch of him.

Torstein, for his part, was so eager he feared their first time would end far too quickly. For months the wanting had been a torment. His self-control had been sorely tested, but after years of longing, she was finally in his arms.

He walked out from behind the partition wearing nothing but a loincloth. His chest was bare, the muscles of his arms and thighs on display, his hair loose about his shoulders. The cloth tented sharply over the thick length of him.

He lay back on the bed, propped on his elbows, and watched the partition.

Samira stepped out in a silk kaftan so sheer it hid almost nothing, and she wore nothing beneath it. Her hair was unbound. The sight of her full, high breasts made his mouth water, the dark peaks standing out against the thin fabric, and he nearly spent himself just watching her. His breathing turned ragged and she had not yet come near him.

She walked toward him slowly, her hips swaying, and she looked to him like a goddess, or a siren from some temple of the old gods.

She stopped at the foot of the bed as though presenting herself as an offering. The scent of jasmine oil on her skin went straight to his head.

"Gods' blood, you have bewitched me, Samira," he rasped. He could not move.

She gave him a coy smile, but not before her eyes had lingered over every part of him. Hunger filled her face as she took him in. He wore only a leather cord at his throat with an amber stone knotted to it. His arms were bare and his skin was marked with tattoos in several places.

Samira licked her lips as she took her fill of her husband.