Page 95 of The Last Viking

Geirolf couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d always been a man favored with woman-luck, but this…this mind-splintering ecstasy his new wife had showed him…well, truly the gods had cast their gift of approval on him this day.

He tickled her nose with the edge of a bed fur. She twitched but pretended to sleep. He moved the bed fur lower, tickling a pointed nipple, and her eyes flew open.

“Mer-ry Dea-th,” he drawled out. “I have a wonderful idea.”

She moaned and rolled over to bury her face in the furs.

He followed, conforming his body to the back of her. They fit together very nicely.

“Don’t you want to hear my idea?” he purred, placing a palm against her stomach and hauling her back more tightly into the cradle of his hips.

“Your ideas are too…punishing,” she complained, but he knew she was more than pleased with his sexual torment. He knew he was. “How long did you let me sleep?”

“Oh, a half hour or so.”

“A half hour!” she exclaimed and turned to gape at him with incredulity. “And you have ideas again so soon?”

“Yea. It comes from being a Viking…and creative…and—”

“Insatiable?”

“That, too.” He laughed and picked her up in his arms, carrying her out of the longhouse, into her keep, and up the stairs. Dog followed them. No doubt, Dog figured they were going to have a feast, or mayhap an orgy.

She shrieked when she saw that it was still daylight, barely past the dinner hour. “Someone might see us running around naked,” she chided him.

“Nay, no one will dare return till I give the word. I threatened to lop off the head of the first person who steps on this property without my consent.”

“You didn’t,” she said, drawing back slightly to peer at his face.

That gave him his first full daylight glimpse of her breasts and womanly nest. He stumbled and almost swallowed his tongue.

Seeing the direction of his gaze, Merry-Death clucked her reproval and tucked her pink-stained face back into his neck. ’Twas one of the things he cherished most about his new wife, her innate modesty contrasted with a sexuality that could blister his manroot at twenty paces.

When he finally set her on her feet, Merry-Death peered up at him questioningly. How could she not know what was next on his carnal calendar?

“Drekking,” he informed her brightly.

Toward morning, Rolf awakened her again. “I want to show you something,” he whispered in her ear.

“I’ve seen it five times already,” she groaned into his chest.

“Six times,” he corrected her. “Didst thou forget the nude spear-throwing lesson?”

“How could I forget?” She turned and looked up at him—her husband. And her heart swelled and overflowed with love for him. His hair was pulled back now in a rubber band. His firm lips were slightly swollen from her numerous kisses, some of them surprisingly aggressive. From the flames of the nearby hearth, which he must have recently stoked, she saw reflected in his amber eyes a fierce passion for her, and a soul-rending tenderness. Love. She saw love in his face, and for that she felt blessed by all the gods, his and hers alike.

She had capitulated to Rolf’s seduction. She wasn’t resigned to giving him up in a few short weeks, but this night had been too glorious for her to argue. Not now, anyway.

“So what’s this thing you want to show me?” she teased, putting her hands to his neck and pulling his head down for a kiss.

“Sunrise,” he murmured against her lips, “on the prow of a dragonship.”

“Naked?” she asked, nibbling his bottom lip.

“Yea.” He grinned. “And rocking.”

“Rocking?”

“Um-hmmm,” he answered, taking a few nibbles of her bottom lip, as well. “Did you not know that the prow of a ship dips and rises, dips and rises, in the open seas?”