Page 50 of The Bewitched Viking

Tongue kissing, of which Alinor had heard but never quite believed, was deliciously revolting, she decided. The slickness in her mouth—whether hers or his, she could not tell, to her horror—should be distasteful. The rhythmic thrust and parry of his tongue should have caused her outrage. The command of his lips that she respond should have caused her consternation. But, oh, what a traitor her body proved to be! Her breasts peaked into hard points and ached with the need for…something. Heat curled into a strange knot at the pit of her stomach. In that secret place between her legs a throb started, clenching in slow, progressively stronger counterpoint to the cadence of his tongue’s sheathing and unsheathing.

Just when she was starting to discover the intricate steps of the tongue sport, he broke the kiss and whispered against her ear, “Did you like that kind of kiss, witchling?”

She couldn’t have answered if her life depended on it, so mortified was she at his guessing her appreciation; so she did something even worse. She moaned.

To her amazement, he didn’t laugh, or make some biting remark about lustful widows. What he did was moan back at her—a low, masculine rumble of pure arousal.

She ducked her head against his shoulder to hide her shame.

He tipped her face back up with a forefinger under her chin. “Do not hide from me. Your eagerness excites me.”

Before she could deny his ludicrous claim, she saw his head descending. This time his kiss was a gentle act of controlled aggression. He nipped her bottom lip with his front teeth and tugged lightly. He showed her with soft, sexual words of encouragement how to glide her own tongue into his mouth, and how to draw on his tongue when he entered hers. He angled her head and settled his mouth over hers again, murmuring, “’Tis time to get down to the serious business of kissing.”

God’s teeth! What had they been doing thus far, if not the serious business of kissing?

He was rapacious then. His mouth closed on hers again and again, entreating, claiming, playing, persuading. His molding, unending kiss changed patterns like rain in a summer storm, alternately rough and tender, harsh and wonderful.

Her breath caught in her throat, then came out in a thready exhalation.

His breath was a hot, ragged reminder that he was male and dangerous.

Alinor never knew a kiss could be so many things.

He tore his mouth from hers and pressed his forehead against hers, panting. “I want to make love with you,” he said in a thickened voice.

Who knew what she might have replied if St. Jude hadn’t come to her aid then in the form of the most unlikely angel: Rurik.

Water was dripping down on Alinor’s face.

At first she thought it was a leak in the roof where rainfall might have started while her attention had been diverted elsewhere. But, nay, the droplets were coming off Tykir’s hair because of the holy water Rurik was drizzling from above.

“Have you lost your bloody mind?” Tykir shouted as he reared up, off of her and out of the furs.

The loudness of his voice awakened Rachelle, Ottar and Karl. Rachelle lit a soapstone lamp and Ottar rushed forth with raised sword, not knowing if there was an intruder.

Rurik was raising a fist, as well as his voice, as he berated his friend. “But I saw you kissing the witch and knew you must be under her spell. Did she give you another potion?”

“Nay, lackbrain, she gave me nothing…no thanks to you.”

Rachelle raised her lamp high, took one look at Alinor’s kiss-swollen lips and whisker-grazed face and laughed so hard and long that everyone turned to stare at her in question.

No one except Alinor seemed to be aware, or care, that Ottar, Karl and Tykir were nude. Totally. In fact, Alinor couldn’t keep her eyes from stealing glance after glance at the hard evidence between Tykir’s thighs that bespoke just how much he had wanted to make love with her. Now, that is a magic wand if I ever saw one…which I haven’t, of course.

She was glad now that they had been interrupted, but glancing down one last time, she felt the tiniest twinge of regret. And curiosity.

What would it be like to make love with this man?

What would it be like to make love with this woman?

That thought and many others in a similar vein were keeping Tykir awake. At least an hour had passed since he’d called out, “Ga ntt!” to everyone, and they had returned, “Good night!” and gone to their rest, again. From the sounds of snoring and even breathing, he assumed they were all asleep.

Except him.

And Alinor.

What was she thinking that kept her awake? Probably ways to cut off certain of his body parts in retribution for the embarrassment he’d dealt her a short time ago. Who knew she would be so missish over a little exposed male flesh? Or teasing about swollen lips? With the distance she put between them now, he assumed she was not entertaining the same erotic thoughts as he. Nay, she practically hugged the wall so that not a hair on his body could touch a hair on hers.

Holy Thor! Just that “hair” image caused his staff to lengthen a tiny bit more…as if any more was possible! He was rock hard and more than eager. Much more of this and he would have to go dip his staff in the water bucket, after first cracking the ice that formed on top. Now there was a thought to dampen a hard man’s “enthusiasm.”