Page 72 of The Reluctant Viking

“No…yes.” Ruby tried to sit up, but the bed tilted crazily from side to side. Finally, feeling steadier, she sat upright. “I mean…it’s funny because I feel as if I’ve just been to the dentist. My lips and tongue are numb, and—”

“Nay! Speak no more mysterious words and allusions to a future life that never was. More than enough have I had of your hints of a life we shared together. It never happened.”

Thork grabbed Ruby by the forearms, pulled her off the bed and shook her, trying to convince her of his seriousness.

It sobered Ruby a bit.

“Okay. Let’s discuss this,” she said, backing away a few steps. “You’re upset because I said you shaved my legs.”

“Arghh!” Thork threw his arms up in the air. “You do it again. Why can you not be biddable like other women?”

“Like the gentle little Saxon-Viking girl with the big cow eyes? Isn’t Linette enough for you? Are you robbing the cradle now, too?”

Thork blinked at Ruby’s fast-changing train of thought, but before he could respond, Ruby continued, “I shouldn’t have said what I did in front of all your guests. I apologize for that. I’m not used to drinking so much wine.”

Thork rolled his eyes as if that were the understatement of the year.

“But I didn’t lie. I never lie. You did shave my legs on our tenth wedding anniversary. See,” she said, pulling her gown up to the edge of her panties, displaying the full length of her smooth legs. “You shaved them so they looked just like this.”

Thork stared at Ruby’s exposed limbs, then sucked in his breath sharply. He seemed unable to speak for several long moments.

Sensing an advantage, Ruby braced her left hand on the wall and raised her right leg boldly so the toe of her leather shoe rested on his belt brooch. “Touch the skin,” she invited outrageously. “See for yourself what I mean.”

Ruby saw Thork’s reluctance and knew he feared that if he took this one step he might take others. But he touched her leg lightly, nonetheless, with the fingertips of his left hand, then ran the callused palm from her ankle to the satin sleekness of her thigh and back again.

He smiled widely.

“I see why women—and men—of your country might like this practice. The smoothness creates images in a man’s mind of other…practices.” He looked up questioningly. “This dehairing…’tis done in the eastern countries, as well, I hear.” A crafty light flickered in Thork’s pale eyes.

Geez! First Ivar, then Athelstan, now the Orient. But before Ruby could complain, Thork yanked up on her wobbly left leg with lightning swiftness and caught the back of her waist with his other hand. Quickly she grabbed his shoulders for ballast. In that split second, Thork somehow maneuvered her so that he held her with legs wrapped around his waist, hands anchored at his neck. Then he backed her up against the wall.

Dazed by the quickness of Thork’s movements and the carnal position she found herself in, Ruby could only blink at Thork questioningly. No longer angry with her, Thork held her eyes in a glittering, promising glance, more intimate than a caress. She could not look away.

“For a month and more you have teased and taunted me with promises of delights we have shared in the past. What say you now?” he asked in a tightly controlled, low voice.

Holding her eyes, Thork began to undo the shoulder clasps of her outer gown. Ruby wanted to ask if he would marry her again or if he’d accepted the fact that she might have to leave, but, instead, she decided to follow Aud’s advice for patience.

Ruby licked her lips nervously. She had to have made love with this man a thousand times in the past twenty years, but it seemed all new now. He was her husband and yet a stranger at the same time.

“Do you still insist we share a past?” he asked hoarsely.

Ruby scrutinized Thork closely, trying to see the differences, not the similarities, between him and Jack. It was hard. “I think you and I may very well make our own history tonight,” she evaded.

Thork traced her jaw with a forefinger questioningly. “What is it about you, sweetling, that draws me so? Truly, in another time we could have been heartmates.”

Ruby’s heart melted at his softly spoken words of love. Yes, love, because this was probably as close to a declaration of love she could ever expect from this man.

“Thork, I love you,” Ruby whispered.

“Shush,” he said, putting his fingers over her mouth. “No lies. No promises betwixt us. Just let us enjoy what we can give each other now and let it be enough.”

Still holding Ruby with her legs wrapped around his waist, Thork undid the brooches of Ruby’s gown and pulled the tunic and the underchemise off her shoulders and arms until they bunched at her waistline.

Thork studied her wispy, black lace bra and smiled appreciatively. Leaning down, he flicked the tip of his tongue across the peaks of each scantily covered breast, creating the hardened peaks he wanted. Then he took one lacy peak in his mouth and suckled.

A swift, hot rush of blood lodged in the center of Ruby’s femininity. She moaned and heard Thork chuckle in satisfaction while continuing his sweet torture.

“Ah, Ruby, ’tis as sweet as I remembered. Their taste has lingered in my mouth for days. Truly, you bewitch me.”