The Caged Viking

by Sandra Hill

  “There you go! But they might be walking around half-blitzed all the time, or have a constant craving for alcohol,” she said with a laugh. “Seriously, though. I might try honey, or mint if I can find any wild plants that haven’t yet died off, or evergreen. It will be fun experimenting.”

  He wasn’t sure about that. “Your idea of fun and mine are vastly different.” He paused, then added, “Though there are some things we both appear to enjoy.”

  He proceeded then to show her one of them.

  “What do you call that?” she gasped out.

  “Rocking the boat.”

  She tried to laugh, but it came out as a snort. “Am I the boat, or are you?”

  “I am the longship. You are the fjord,” he told her, then showed her some other ways to rock a boat on unruly seas.

  She was unable to speak for several long moments after that, except to mutter something that sounded like, “Ahoy, matie!”

  He figured “matie” must be another of her endearment terms, like sweetie or darling. As for “Ahoy”…well, that had to be the same as her “Howdy” or “You-Who”! Now that he was learning Ah-mare-ee-can, he was becoming a very modern Viking, if he did say so himself.

  Chapter 18

  Falling, or fallen? That is the question…

  “Stay.”

  Kirstin wasn’t asleep when she heard that single, huskily spoken word, or thought she heard it. She was just basking in the afterglow of the most incredible sex she’d ever experienced. If nothing else, she’d never had three bouts of sex with a man in one night.

  Cracking an eyelid open slightly, she saw that it was still nighttime. There was a dim light, even though the torch was out and the candles had burned almost the whole way down. But then, her eyes shot wide as she noticed that Hauk sat on a chair he had pulled closer, with the heels of his extended legs braced on the side of the bed, sipping at a mug of what was probably ale. A wool blanket was wrapped around his shoulders and pooled on his thighs against the cool night air.

  How long has he been watching me? And why? Oh, crap! I hope I wasn’t drooling or snoring. She raised herself on bent elbows and asked, “Did you say something?”

  He nodded.

  She tilted her head to the side in question when he didn’t elaborate. “Why are you watching me?”

  He shrugged.

  His silence was scaring her. And the raw hurt glittering in his eyes…what was that about?” “Hauk?”

  “Will you be here when I get back?”

  “What? Where did that come from?”

  “This is the first time we will be apart since you first came to rescue me,” he said, smiling. The smile she attributed to the fact that he still found it amusing that a woman would be sent to rescue a big, brave Viking man. But she noticed that his smile was rather sad, not reaching his expressive eyes, which regarded her gravely. “Will you stay?”

  Ah, so that’s what he meant by that single word I heard. “You think I’ll use this opportunity to go back home?” She realized immediately what a poor choice of word she’d used, how he would interpret her calling another place home. “I mean, back to the future.”

  He tipped his mug up and emptied it, then set it on the floor. After that, he just looked at his hands that were folded on his lap, as if thinking of the right way to say or ask something.

  She was pretty sure she knew what was bothering the man. “Hauk, I have no plans to leave while you’re gone.”

  His eyes speared her with silent recrimination. They both recognized her response as what it was…an evasion. “No plans” didn’t preclude her making a sudden decision to leave.

  “First of all, I don’t know if I could teletransport from here, or if I have to be at the point where I entered. I’ve told you that before.”

  “You also mentioned that your brother Torolf went forward, back, then forward again, all from different places.”

  Good Lord! Is he caching all the bits of information I mention casually, giving them more importance than they probably merit? He didn’t comment at the time.

  “You’re right about Torolf. But we…my family…always believed that for safety’s sake, a time traveler should stay close to the portal, or stay away from the portal, for that matter. Not that any of us have deliberately made such a trip, except for Torolf and even then what happened was an accident that…” She waved a hand dismissively. “I can explain later.”

  “I thought you came here to save me,” he said, with the same sad/grim smile.

  “I was sent here to save you,” she corrected him.

  “Ah, the godly mission.”

  She could laugh off Hauk’s misconceptions, but she sensed he was serious, that something important was bothering him. “Are you going to have these fears every—”

  “I fear nothing,” he interrupted with indignation.

  Another wrong choice of word! “Are you going to have these expectations every time you go somewhere without me?”

  “Probably. Until or if…” He let his words trail off and looked at her, waiting.

  He wanted assurances, she realized. But she couldn’t commit to that kind of promise. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Kirstin was not usually so bold or blasé about her nudity, but feeling Hauk’s pain, she flipped the bed fur aside and slipped off the mattress to slide onto his lap. Modesty be damned!

  He was surprised but opened his arms to her, wrapping the blanket around them both. She could feel his erection under her thighs, but sex was the last thing on her mind, at the moment. She insinuated her arms around his body so that her face rested on his shoulder and they were breast to chest. It was probably impossible, but she could swear she felt his heart beating in a fierce counterpoint to her own. They sat thus, in silence, for several long moments while her hands caressed his back and his hands did the same to hers. They soothed each other.

  Finally, she leaned back and said, “I think I know what your problem is, Hauk.”

  “You do, do you?” He chuckled but did not argue over her saying he had a problem, as he usually would. “And what, pray tell, would that be?”

  “You’re falling in love with me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. And it frightens you. Not frightens like a warrior before a battle or facing death, but—”

  “I do not fear death. Vikings do not fear the journey to Valhalla.”

  She tapped his lips with her fingertips to stop his talking. Vikings and their egos! “Love…the kind between a man and a woman…can cause the strongest person to feel anxious, or alarmed.”

  “Do not tell me! You are an expert on love, as well as ancient Norse culture, and illness, and jokes, and any other number of things.”

  She jabbed him playfully on the chin with a fist and laughed. “No, I’m not an expert on love, but teenage girls in America obsess over the subject. Teenagers are girls between thirteen and nineteen. Anyhow, I think I remember reading an article in a magazine one time about the different stages of love, everything from attraction to infatuation to falling in love to full-blown head-over-heels in love.” She laughed softly and told him, “It was probably Cosmo magazine.”

  She could tell he hadn’t understood half of what she’d said. And there was no way in the world she could explain Cosmo magazine without a background on feminism and modern culture.

  “And where does lust fit into all those stages?” he asked, telling her that he’d understood more than what she’d thought. “Seems to me you have remarked on more than one occasion that love and lust are two different things.”

  “Lust plays in all those stages, with different effects.”

  “Truly, you are a font of knowledge, wife,” Hauk said, squeezing her to soften his criticism, if that’s what it was. “Tell me more.” He was probably making fun of her.

  She sat straighter, which caused his erection to show it was paying attention, too. Hauk put his hands on her waist and adjusted her position to ease any discomfort he might be feeling. “Go
on,” he said then.

  “The first stage of love is one of attraction, what I call the butterfly period. In fact, some people get this fluttery feeling in the pit of their stomach, which travels upward, causing the heart to race, just seeing or thinking about the other person. They might even get goose bumps.”

  “My butterflies tend to fly downward,” he teased.

  “Tsk-tsk!” she chastised him. “But the butterfly effect isn’t just physical. It’s more like empathy. A couple can sense the other person’s feelings, almost reflect what they feel. That empathy can be so powerful that it’s almost painful in its intensity. In the latter part of this stage, the afflicted party would do anything for, would sacrifice anything for, his or her love connection.”

  “Hmmm.” Hauk seemed to be contemplating how those descriptions applied to himself. He didn’t agree, but he didn’t disagree either.

  “Everything in this first phase feels exciting and new. The air is crisper. The scents more intense and inviting. A person can’t wait to see the other person again, even if they’ve just left. They consider that other person extra special by now, even if others don’t agree. For example, I had a friend who fell in love with a guy who was a head shorter than her, with the world’s worst comb-over on his half-bald head, and the personality of a stump, but she considered him a hottie.”

  “A hottie, huh? Am I a hottie?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But only in your eyes?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure you would be deemed a hottie by most women of my time. If you kept your mouth shut. Your chauvinistic attitude would turn off some feminists.”

  “I do understand your meaning,” he said. “Toste the Tall’s first wife was a love match. Her shrewish nature turned away many a potential suitor, but Toste actually deemed her voice melodious. And she was skinny as a lance with no fat spots at all for a man to grab onto in the bedsport. Toste did not care.”

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  “To be honest, I do recognize a few of those symptoms. Go on.”

  She wanted to think about what his ready acceptance meant, what emotions he was admitting to, but she would ponder all that later. For now, she asked, “You’re not just patronizing me, are you?”

  “I would if I knew what it meant.”

  She laughed. “Okay, stage two could be called Chaos. This is probably the point of falling in love, where you are now.”

  “This should be good,” he murmured.

  “A person falling in love begins to feel off balance, not totally in control. They’ll feel nauseated one moment and in the next be in such a good mood they can barely contain themselves. Someone who avoids commitment, or has some obstacles to a long-term relationship, will panic now. They’ll try to step back, but they can’t stop thinking about the other person, even at awkward moments. Like in the middle of battle exercises, for example, thoughts of the other person pop into their heads. My brother Hamr, an ex-football player, once told me that thoughts of his at that time babe-du-jour came to him in the middle of a critical game and he ended up being tackled with a possible concussion.”

  Hauk put a hand to his forehead and groaned.

  “What?”

  “Do not take offense, Kirstin, but you do talk a great deal. Do all pro-fess-whores sound like you?” he asked.

  Kirstin was a little miffed. “If you don’t want to hear anymore, I’ll shut up.” She raised her chin defiantly.

  “Nay. Nay, go on. It’s just that I understand but half of what you say. Football, baby-do-sure, conk-us-on? Holy Thor!”

  She smiled. “You’re right. I forget sometimes that you don’t know modern words. Suffice it to say, stage two can make a person both jubilant and anxious at the same time. That and all the other things I’ve mentioned are why I said that I think you’re falling in love. You aren’t at a stage of trust or commitment, which comes next. So, it was natural for you to be apprehensive about leaving, not knowing if I would leave, despite all these heavy emotions. Am I right?”

  “Perchance,” he conceded. “Have you fallen in love so many times yourself?”

  “No. Several times I’ve thought I might be falling. Most recently, with the Navy SEAL that I told you about, I was very close to committing, but it was not meant to be, clearly. We wouldn’t have been dating for three years, off and on, without taking the next step, if it was.” She shrugged.

  “That is unfortunate,” Hauk said with a grin of insincerity. “You must admit, Kirstin, that love as you describe does not sound very appealing. What sane man would want to be in stomach pain with the urge to vomit, with insect wings and goose dumps afflicting his innards, and legs that go limp with weakness?”

  “Huh?”

  “In any case, I am still waiting to hear how sex fits into all these phases.” He winked at her.

  “That’s the best part. Sex combined with love can make for the most spectacular love play in the world, or so I’ve been told. And it gets better and better through all the stages.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” With a whoop of joy, he stood and, in one fluid motion, lifted her in his arms. The blanket fell away and he tossed her onto the bed, climbing up and over her. Once he arranged himself over her, he smiled and said, “I concede to your better judgment. I am falling in love.” He arched his brows and waited for her response. When it didn’t come, he asked, “Are you in love with me?”

  “Hell, no!” she exclaimed, not about to profess the real deal until he did, and watched as his face fell with disappointment. He started to raise himself off her, but she put her hands on both sides of his face and told him. “Sweetheart, I’m already falling in love, like you. Hook, line, and Viking sinker. But it will take a little more work on your part to reel me in.”

  Like Kevin Costner in Bull Durham…

  While they rested for a while with Kirstin nestled in his arms, they both mulled over what they had admitted to each other. Falling in love was a new concept to Hauk. In truth, he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced love of any kind. Certainly not parental love, and while he’d indulged in a vast amount of lust, he couldn’t honestly say he’d ever experienced a softer, compelling emotion toward any woman.

  But wait…there was Bjorn. Hauk did love the boy.

  A sense of relief filled him then, knowing he was capable of love.

  At the same time, he was hit with the realization that Kirstin was “falling in love,” not fully “in love” with him. Despite the fact that he’d admitted to the same thing, her halfway declaration rankled him. Gods above! I cannot believe I am making these distinctions. My Viking comrades would laugh their arses off if they knew. Hauk was not a man to shy away from challenges, and he determined that, by thunder, he would force Kirstin to love him. Nay, that was wrong. He would persuade her to love him. None of this “falling in love” nonsense! And then she would stay.

  “Kirstin, are you awake?” he whispered against her ear.

  “Barely,” she replied.

  That was good enough for him. “Do you recall something I said to you after we engaged in bedsport back in the tent?”

  “Are you nuts? You expect me to recall something you said after knocking my socks off—”

  “Nuts? And socks? What socks? You were wearing nothing at the time.”

  She rolled her eyes as if he was hopeless.

  While, actually, he was hopeful, not hopeless, about the outcome of this night.

  “Suffice it to say— ”

  “Holy Thor! Every time you say ‘Suffice it to say,’ I know I am in for one of your lectures. Keep in mind, sweetling, I only have a few hours till I must rise.” He gave her a woeful look so she would not take offense at his criticism.

  She pinched his arm as punishment, but then continued anyway, “Suffice it to say, I was probably in an erotic swoon, in no condition to recall bed banter.”

  He laughed. “You do have a way of saying things. Erotic swoon. I will have to remember that.”

  “Y
ou must have a better memory than I do, Einstein.”

  Einstein? Is she calling me by another man’s name whilst in my bed? I knew a man named Einar. But, nay, it must be another of her pet names for me…an endearment.

  “Prepare to swoon, sweetling,” he said with a growl. Rolling her over, he arranged himself atop her body, fitting himself between her spread legs to accommodate him.

  As his enthusiasm began to rise, she said, “You play dirty, Hauk.”

  He cocked his head to the side, then smiled. “I like the sound of that. Dirty sex.”

  “You’re hopeless.”

  “Good hopeless or bad hopeless?”

  “Definitely good,” she said with a laugh.

  “I told you that I want to make slow love to you. The kind that starts with deep, wet, tongue kisses, the kind you taught me to appreciate.”

  “Are you blaming me?”

  “Nay. Thanking you. Do not be so testy.” As I was saying, those kisses will go on and on and on until you are mewling your need.”

  “I do not mewl.”

  “A first then! Wonderful!” He smiled. “In all the times we’ve made love so far, I haven’t really studied your body and all its secret places. For that I apologize. I promise to accomplish this with caresses that alternate between soft and skimming, with hard and squeezing. All this I will do until you are begging me to enter you, but I will make you wait while I pleasure-torture you some more.”

  “Oh, ho! So now you think you can make me beg. I don’t think so. Maybe I will make you beg.”

  He grinned. “I can only hope.”

  “Oh, you!” she swatted his shoulder.

  “Moving on,” he was enjoying himself and did not try to hide the fact. “When I finally enter you, my enthusiasm will be raging for completion, but I will remain hard through many, many thrusts, long and short, gentle and strong, slow and fast till you are scream with your peakings, coming one on top of another.”

  “Holy moley, Hercules! You know, what you’ve just said here sounds a lot like what Kevin Costner said to Susan Sarandon in the movie Bull Durham. You could say that Susan was in an erotic swoon, too.”