Page 82 of The Bewitched Viking

He had not intended to say, “A kiss.” The words just slipped out.

“A kiss?” she repeated. “That’s all?”

All? That was everything, as he soon discovered.

She moaned before he even touched her. Oh, if women only knew the power of a moan, released at just the right moment, men would be slaves to their every whim. He was a man partial to a woman’s moan.

First, he settled his warm lips over her icy ones, still cool from the snow bath. Gently, he pressed, testing for a perfect fit. It was.

“Do you like that kind of kiss?” he murmured against her mouth.

“I don’t know,” she murmured back, her breath sweet and her lips no longer cold. “I have naught to compare it with.”

“Bold wench!” he chided, nipping at her bottom lip with his teeth. Now that he had her lips parted, he kissed her more forcefully, shaping from side to side, giving and demanding, pressing and sucking. When he pulled back this time, her lips were moist and her green eyes glazed over. “And that kiss?”

“’Twas satisfactory, I suppose.”

“Satisfactory? That is what one says about a batch of manchet bread. Or a business transaction.”

“Well, I was hoping for another kiss, like that other.”

“What other?”

“The one back at Hedeby.”

Ah, now he understood. As he recalled, there were tongues involved. He smiled. “So, you remember my kisses from that night in the bed furs, do you?” he asked, twining a strand of her rose-scented hair around a forefinger, studying the change of colors as it was held this way and that in the sunlight, everything from pale blond to bright orange.

“Don’t you remember those kisses?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the side.

“Som man roper i skogen fr en svar,” he said with a laugh.

“What does that mean?”

“As you shout in the forest, so will the echo sound.”

“Well, that’s as clear as moat mud.”

“It means, ask a stupid question and you get a stupid answer.”

“Oh.”

“Are we done jabbering?”

“I hope so.”

Lord, the woman had no sense at all, tempting a man with such wanton insinuations. This time he burrowed his fingers into her hair, holding her face in place. He kissed her voraciously then, letting loose with all the pent-up longings of the past few sennights…or mayhap the past few years…or, God above, mayhap a lifetime.

He tongued her open mouth.

She gave him her tongue in return.

He whispered wicked words when he came up for air. And she whispered equally wicked things back—things she could not possibly comprehend from her own experience.

“Do you think I’m scandalous?” she asked, ducking her head shyly.

He put a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. When she did, he grinned and answered her, in a hopeful voice, “Not yet.”

Neither one of them spoke after that as they came at each other with equally matched appetites. Who would have known she could be so eager? Who would have known he wanted her so much? On and on the kiss went, till he heard above him the ominous words, “Hear, one and all, this is the saga of Tykir the Great.”