by Sandra Hill
She released her pent-up breath and tried to hold his hand there, through the cloth of her gown, which still covered her discreetly. But he was already back to finger-brushing her thighs.
“Adam, I heard about the babe you lost today,” Alinor said in the short break between entertainments. The lutist was done, and now Rashid was preparing to tell one of his long Arab tales … something about a young man and a magic tapestry. “I am so sorry you were unable to save the wee one.”
Not now, Alinor. Oh, please, God, not now. He hoped his silent nod, accepting her sympathies, would be enough.
But already Tyra was turning in his lap, looking at him over her shoulder. “I forgot to ask you about Dagma. Oh, nay, don’t tell me …”
“Dagma will be fine,” he was quick to assure her. “She lost much blood, and is very weak after a full day and a half of labor, but the babe died in the womb.”
“Oh, Adam,” Tyra and Alinor said at the same time.
“It could not be helped; the cord was wrapped around the infant’s neck. It must have been dead for days now.”
“Oh, Adam,” they repeated.
“Sometimes things, even bad things, happen for a reason,” Alinor said then. “She is very young. She can have other children, can’t she?”
“Probably.”
“I should go see her,” Tyra suggested.
“Not now!” He immediately realized how shrill his voice sounded. More calmly, he informed her, “I gave her some healing herbs that will make her sleep deeply through the night.”
I cannot believe I am sitting here with my hand up my lady’s gown, about to part her most intimate folds, with an arousal that could scorch the hair off a hog, and I am discussing medical affairs. Can this conversation not wait till the morrow? If Drifa overhears and starts asking me which herbs I used, I think I might just weep.
“Adam, you look as if you are about to weep,” Tykir commented. Adam saw the twinkle in Tykir’s eyes. He was looking from him to Tyra and back to him, his head cocked in question. He might not know exactly what was going on, but his suspicions had been aroused.
“This is the story of Ala Din and his amazing adventures with a magic tapestry.”
Never in all his life had Adam thought he would be relieved to hear Rashid begin one of his never-ending stories. It would probably involve harems in one way or another. The hall went silent as everyone leaned forward and listened intently, not wanting to miss a word of the tale. Vikings ever did love a good story. Adam did, too, but not now. For God’s sake, not now!
Alinor turned forward.
And Adam said a silent prayer of thanks.
“Thank you for staying with Dagma,” Tyra whispered over her shoulder at him, then turned to stare at Rashid, who sat on a high stool, surrounded by candles and torches, which gave an eerie cast to his Eastern features. Then, for the first time since he’d pulled her onto his lap, she relaxed and let her head loll back onto his shoulder.
Well, hell, if I’d known a little sympathy or a little thankfulness would gain me this result, I could have told her about the old crone with the pus-oozing eyes I helped today. Or the little boy’s broken leg I set. Or the burn I soothed with ointment on Alrek’s palm from picking up hot kindling.
Tyra squirmed on his lap to get more comfortable, and Adam saw stars before him, so intense was the pleasure-pain in his groin. Good thing she could not feel him pressing against her buttocks! He did not want to shock her.
“You may resume now,” Tyra said.
“Huh? Are you speaking to me?” he asked. She must be addressing me, because Alinor is not even looking in our direction, and there has been no break in Rashid’s talking. The only thing she could be referring to is … oh, my God!
“Of course I’m speaking to you, lackwit,” she said with as much cordiality as a captain addressing a thickheaded soldier. “You may continue the finger-pleasuring game now.”
Game? She views this as a game? So much for her being shocked!
“Have I shocked you?” she asked, apparently having second thoughts.
Nay, no second thoughts permitted. “Yea, you shocked me,” he said, “in the nicest possible way.”
“Shhhh!” Ingrith, Breanne, and Drifa all hissed at the same time. They were engrossed in Rashid’s tale and wanted no chatter to distract their hearing.
And so, while Rashid told his tales of magic in an Eastern land, Adam began to weave his own form of magic.
He teased the hairs of her woman’s nest with fluttering fingers, then palmed her, rotating the heel of his hand against her. She arched her back and whimpered softly. He would have liked to touch her breasts, but that would be too open a demonstration in front of an audience. Instead, he whispered into her ear, “Open more,” and when she did, he dipped his fingers into the honey of her arousal and spread it up and down over her slick folds till he came to that bud which was the essence of a woman’s pleasure. When he touched her there, she jerked and moaned aloud.
“Is something wrong?” Alinor inquired.
He was strumming Tyra there now, and at first she was unable to speak.
“Nay, just a little indigestion,” Tyra said.
Tykir snorted his disbelief.
“You should chew on mint leaves,” Drifa offered. “That is the best thing for cramps in the abdomen.”
“I told you the pig’s liver in dill sauce was not for you,” Ingrith said huffily. She must have come back to the hall to escape Bolthor’s sagas in the scullery.
“Shhh!” someone down below protested.
Meanwhile, Adam was doing his best to contribute to her “indigestion.” Strumming, and strumming, and strumming, till the bud became bigger and harder, and the folds furled open like the petals of a flower, and the dew was hot and thick.
He was feeling rather hot and thick himself.
Sensing that she was about to reach her peak, he eased a long middle finger up inside of her, and was rewarded by the rhythmic spasm of her inner muscles welcoming him to her world. Her hands grasped his forearms in an iron grip, trying to fight the overwhelming ripples that passed through her. He would have bruises tomorrow, for a certainty … bruises that he would relish as a reminder of her sweet surrender. In the end, just before she crashed through that barrier that separates a woman from ecstasy, her knees gripped his and she put a fist to her mouth, trying to stifle her cries, but he heard, “Oh … oh … oh … for the love of Freyja! … oh!”
Then she sank into a relaxed heap of satiety.
Adam got great satisfaction out of Tyra’s pleasure … not as much as if he’d climaxed himself, but close. Her open sensuality was a delight. He never knew what to expect next from her … as was proven in the following seconds.
When her soft panting died down and she was able to speak, Tyra turned slightly to face him and asked, “When can I finger-pleasure you?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I’ll tell you my fantasies if you tell me yours…
“So, exactly how many kinds of pleasuring are there?” Tyra was asking Adam a short time later.
He groaned and put his forehead on the table. “What kind of monster have I created?” he murmured, but he was smiling as he spoke; Tyra was fairly certain he did not consider her a monster at all. In fact, the hot looks he kept giving her would indicate just the opposite.
Rashid had finished his tale, none of which Tyra could remember, and several village boys did some acrobatics, none of which Tyra could remember, and most everyone had left the dais to engage in other pursuits, including dancing, which was taking place at the other end of the hall to the accompaniment of several fiddle players. But Tyra could not think of that. The only thing on her mind was the incredible experience Adam had just introduced her to.
“I mean, you have shown me mouth-pleasuring and tongue-pleasuring and now finger-pleasuring … none of which I would have expected. So exactly how many types of pleasuring are there?”
“Tyra, must you analyze everything?”
Adam asked, raising his head to look at her. Almost immediately, he added, “If you do not raise that bodice, I very well might jump into your lap.”
She hitched her neckline upward. “Yea, I do analyze everything. How else can I understand things?”
“This is not a battle where each and every strategy and method of fighting must be studied. The best kind of lovemaking is spontaneous.”
She tapped a forefinger against her lips. “Nay, I think you are wrong. Not that I have engaged in actual lovemaking, precisely. This did not count as lovemaking, did it?”
“Not precisely,” he said, mimicking her playfully.
“But methinks there must be delights in all kinds of lovemaking … planned or unplanned.”
Adam shook his head hopelessly at her. “No doubt you are right.”
“So what other kinds are there?”
“Kinds of what?”
“Aaarrgh! Pleasuring, you lackwit. Do you deliberately misread me?”
He grinned. Then he put up his hands in surrender when she made a growling sound. “There is mouth-pleasuring and tongue-pleasuring and finger-pleasuring, as you have said. Then there is eye-pleasuring, and talk-pleasuring, and swive-pleasuring. But best of all is a combination of these.”
She frowned in confusion. “Give me an example of talk-pleasuring.”
He laughed. “Why don’t you come to my bed furs and I can demonstrate all of these things?”
“Not now,” she said. “Not yet.”
“Well, then, if I were going to talk-pleasure you, I might tell you some of the things I intend to do to you once I get you naked and alone. I might tell you of my desire to thrust and thrust and thrust myself into your tight sheath till you scream with pleasure. Or I might tell you of my fantasy of licking my way up one side of you and down the other, then licking where you are hottest and wettest with want of me.”
“Oh, you wicked, wicked man. That is such a lie! People do not do that.”
He threw his hands in the air as if to say, You asked.
“Well, what of eye-pleasuring?” she asked, figuring that was safer territory to explore.
“I would see you adorned in the sheer veils of a desert houri with bells that tinkled with every sway of your hips and bracelets on your ankles. Or I could arrange you on the bed furs and ask you to watch as I undress slowly for you. Very slowly.”
“I like that latter one,” she said. In truth, she liked it all.
He smiled, as if he knew.
“Would you like to know something particularly scandalous?”
“I do not know,” she said, but almost immediately changed her mind and said, “Yea, I do.”
He laughed. “I would like you to wear a special adornment I saw one time in Baghdad. It is a thin gold chain that hangs low on the waist, but there is another chain attached to it that runs from the center in back, through the buttocks crease up through the woman-cleft, over the belly, to attach at the waist. This adornment is to be worn under clothing during the day … when riding a horse, or walking to the garderobe, or eating a meal, or … whatever. Always it is a reminder of the man who placed it there.”
Tyra was at last speechless. He had been right. It was a scandalous fantasy.
He reached over and took her hand in his. “I am half teasing you, Tyra. Not that all these things can’t be done, or that we won’t do them, if you want.”
“I do,” she put in quickly.
He laughed. “Keep surprising me like that and you will land in the bed furs afore you can blink. Just know this: If Bolthor or Tykir or Alinor tell you I was wild at one time, they would be telling the truth. I used to be a connoisseur of all things dangerous or sexual or adventuresome. But now I have come to believe that the best sexplay comes from the simple acts of two people involved, not in practiced arts.”
A wanton thought came to her unbidden. “I just thought of another kind of pleasuring. I overheard Lady Alinor mention it to the cook.”
“Well?” he prodded when she just smiled secretly at him. He raised a goblet of ale to his lips, waiting.
“Feather-pleasuring,” she announced gleefully.
For several long moments, he choked on his ale … till she slapped him on the back, so hard he began choking all over again.
“I went too far, didn’t I? Men like to lead, whether it be in battle or loveplay. I was too aggressive.”
When his choking fit was over, he let his gaze travel over her, intimately, and he told her, “Too aggressive? There is no such thing in loveplay.”
“Then you are not upset with me?”
“My warrior princess, I think I have died and gone to Viking heaven.”
Tyra exulted that she could affect a man so … nay, that she could affect this man so. She felt as if she’d crossed some important line in her life, and not only because of the incredible pleasure she’d just experienced at Adam’s wicked fingers. She fought through the fuzziness in her brain to understand just what it was.
Pact or no pact, I am going to make love with this man.
He still held her hand and stared at her, as if understanding her inner turmoil. Perhaps it was an important step for him, too.
As the effects of the ale began to wear off, she hitched her bodice up till she was decent. She prayed that sanity would return … not so that she could change her mind … just long enough for her to understand the implications of this momentous decision.
“Tyra?” Adam inquired.
“If I do this thing …”
“If …?”
She smiled at the distress in his voice. “After the taste of loveplay you have given me, I would be a fool not to want to sample the full meal. But I am not an impetuous person. I need to think things out. To study—”
“Oh, nay, nay, nay! The worst thing you can do when in a lustsome mood is to think. Thinking is a sure lust killer.”
She smiled at him. “Are you saying I am lustsome?”
“Hah! If you or I were any more lustsome, we would be drooling.”
“What I’m trying to say is you have convinced me to make love with you, but there still must be some rules.”
“Rules?” He groaned.
“Just because I choose to couple with you does not mean I consent to marriage.”
Adam turned three shades of purple before he said, very carefully, “I do not recall bringing up marriage. Not even once. And, really, Tyra, men are the ones who are supposed to fear that dreaded word, not women.”
“I am not like other women. You already know that.”
“So, aside from scratching your crotch and spitting, you have other masculine traits … such as aversion to marriage?”
She could tell he was trying to make light of what she considered a very serious subject. “You already know that I am being pushed from all directions to wed. Well, you will be subject to the same pressures if anyone suspects our naked bodies have touched.”
“Naked bodies?” He grinned at her.
“Do not try to change the subject.”
“All right, so we must be secretive. And we must avoid pressure to wed. Agreed. Any other rules?”
She nodded. “I intend to leave Stoneheim soon … definitely within the next month. I cannot wait till the fjords freeze over. Then it will be too late.”
“To Byzantium?”
“Yea, it is the best thing for me. My mind is made up, regardless of my father’s fate. Rafn is ready to step into his shoes if the worst should happen.”
“I cannot say that I approve. It seems a hard life for a woman.” He raised his hands in surrender when he saw she was about to protest his characterization of females as being softer than males. “But if that is what you want, that is your decision.”
“Will you be leaving Stoneheim, or will you stay the winter?”
“Hah! I’m not staying here if you aren’t. Actually, no offense intended, but even if you are, I have no intention of wintering in this land of ice.”
“Perhaps you could tr
avel partway with me … you and Rashid. He speaks often of a yearning to return to the warmer clime of his homeland.”
Adam shook his head. “Nay. Rashid might go with you, but I am for England. The only home I have is there.”
“One last thing,” she said, and took a deep breath for nerve. “If there should be a babe, you give up all rights.”
He dropped her hand and stared at her incredulously. “Nay!”
At first she was not sure she’d heard him right. “Nay?”
He stood and glared down at her. “You heard me. Nay! My lady, you offend me deeply. How could you think that I would abandon my child?”
She tilted her head and studied him as he clenched and unclenched his fists with anger.
“My sister Adela and I never knew our father. We were adopted by Selik and Rain, who opened an orphanstead in Jorvik. I saw over and over what the lack of a father does to a child. That will never happen to mine. Never!”
“But, Adam, you are not making sense. You have said you do not want to wed.”
“I don’t.” He gave her a direct look, which carried some hidden meaning.
When understanding seeped into her brain, she stood, too. “You would take my child from me?”
“I would. An unwed mother who fights for a living? Please, Tyra, even you must see how unsuitable that would be.”
“You think I would be an unfit mother?” All her life, Tyra had been subjected to criticism. She was too big. Too rough. Too unattractive. But this was the harshest blow to her pride she’d ever been dealt. It struck at the very heart of her.
“That is not what I said.” He tried to take her hand, but she shoved him away, so hard he almost tripped against the chair and only righted himself at the last minute. “Tyra, there are ways to avoid having children.”
“There are?” Now, that was a surprise. Why did men and women, especially those with more offspring than they could feed, not practice these “ways.”
He nodded. “They are not foolproof, of course.”
“Aahhh!” she said. “So, in the end, making love is still a game of chance for the woman. In the end, your seed could take hold in my womb?”