He heard the sound of his own grinding teeth.
“Most psychologists sit back and listen while the patient talks. It’s hard to do that when you won’t cooperate.”
Sigh-colic-jest? Another big word for Jorund to add to his list for later unraveling. How could the wench be a dock whore and a jester at the same time? Was she a humorous strumpet?
The whole time she talked and he pondered, the magic stick continued to skim across the parchment, leaving foreign scribblings in its wake. He would like to examine the sorcerer’s instrument at a later date.
While she wrote, he used the opportunity to study her lips, which were full and wantonly kiss-some, especially with that rose-colored, glossy substance that glistened on them. Oh, that is just wonderful, he chastised himself. Now he would have to think of her as the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, comely legs, and kiss-some lips. Said lips were pursed now as she tapped her witch-stick on the parchment, perusing something she had written.
Aaarrgh! What difference did the temptation of her lips make? He was going mad with all this inactivity. Concentrate, Jorund. Concentrate.
He half-reclined on the bed, his head supported by down pillows that were softer than any he’d ever rested upon, even in the Eastern harems. His posture was relaxed, but inside he was poised to pounce at the first opening. Unfortunately, he’d tried once with Norse Hatch-her. Thus the ankle restraints, in addition to the seamless shert. Who knew a female could be so strong? Or could spout such foul language? Grudgingly, he admitted that the Amazon would make a good warrior in battle…not only wielding a battle-ax, but a pike and a battering ram as well.
The woman sitting before him now was another matter. He could break her slim wrists with a snap of his fingers. He could lift her by the waist and toss her over his shoulder. He could press her to the bed, and…Well, he could do things to her.
Her eyes caught his then, as if she sensed his carnal thoughts. The air nigh sizzled between them, like heat flashes in a lightning storm. He was aware of an intense attraction to her…something far beyond her physical attributes. He could tell she was attracted to him, as well…and was just as puzzled as he.
He shook his head to rid it of these alarming thoughts. And she did the same.
Focus on something else. Do not be diverted. A weak link in a man’s armor can be his undoing. Jorund noted that at least the wench was alone today—Thank the gods! Sending a defenseless maid into his chamber was akin to sending a paltry kitten into a wolf’s lair, assuming he could finally manage to break free of his restraints. Missing today was her comrade-in-arms—the man with the bald head covered oddly with his swath of side hair. The man was a dock whore, too—Dock-whore Sea-bold. Jorund refused to contemplate what a man would be doing as a dock whore, and on the bold seas, no less. He reminded Jorund of Dagfinn the Dumb, one of his soldiers who’d once tried to braid his nose hairs…all for the sake of male vanity.
Jorund thought he had it figured out. After watching for hours on end that black box in the corner with the illuminated face, he was coming to understand the language of this land rather well, even down to reading some words, as he had those on the Lady Muck-bride’s parchment. People here spoke English, though vastly different from the Saxon English with which he was familiar. More important than teaching him the language, the box was giving him views into many other worlds…Genoa City, Cross Creek, Springfield, Port Charles, Pine Valley. Then there were Sesame Street, Nashville, Mayberry. Speaking of the latter, Jorund was more than a little amused to realize there was a man—or was he a god?—named Barn-knee Fife with ears as big as his brother Magnus’s. His brother was twice the size of the Mayberry world’s guardsman, but they were both bumbling idiots.
Every time a Norse came into the room, she turned a tiny wheel on the box, which gave him a peephole of sorts into a different world. He kept watching, hoping that one of these times he would see his own Vestfold.
It was surprising, really. Norse legend said that when a fighting man died, he went to Valhalla, hall of the gods in Asgard. Apparently there were many other worlds, and many gods he’d never heard of…like Victor New-man and Bill Clintown.
Surprising, too, was the way in which the gods could view what was happening in other worlds. He had always pictured Odin or Thor—even the Christian One-God—gazing down from the heavens to observe what mortal beings were doing. But apparently they must all have these magic boxes to do the job for them. Amazing!
“Well, since you’re not talking, I guess that ends our session for today.” She stood and ran a palm swiftly over the front of her garment, presumably to smooth out the wrinkles, but what she accomplished instead was the jarring of another memory: a belly ring…that was it. Jorund suddenly recalled seeing a gold ornament piercing her navel the first day he’d encountered her at the whale place. With an inward groan, he amended her name list. So now she was the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, comely legs, kiss-some lips, and naughty navel.
Releasing a long sigh, presumably at his stubborn silence, she tossed her shoulders back, as if to show that two people could be stubborn. But her posture caused her breasts to jut out against the white silk of her shert, and they were magnificent, round and uplifted; he even imagined he saw the hard points of her nipples. Oh, it was too much! Soon her name list would require a skald of exceptional memory to recite, as in the wench of the man-hair, sex-voice, comely legs, kiss-some lips, naughty navel, and magnificent breasts. Mag-he Man-hair. Dock-whore sex-voice. Mag-he of the kiss-some lips. The combinations were endless.
She noticed the direction of his gaze and tsked her disapproval as she folded her arms over her chest, hiding her breasts from his view. It was a useless exercise, really, because the image was already planted in his head. “I’m really disappointed in you…whoever you are,” she informed him sadly.
He tried not to look guilty. Men throughout time had been viewing women’s physical attributes with appreciation. Why should she make him feel as if he’d failed her in some way by noticing she was a voluptuous woman?
“My daughters are the ones who begged me to help you,” she told him in that low, raspy sex-voice that he was growing overly fond of. “They still ask about you every day. You’ve touched them in some way.” She sighed again. “I can’t even tell them your name.” Spinning on her high heels, she then proceeded toward the door.
A fierce constriction took place in the region of his heart. The twin girls, who resembled his own daughters, had interceded on his behalf? They had been touched by him just as he had been touched by them?
Finally, he was beginning to see some reason for his deliverance to this strange land.
Was it not possible that these girls had called to him…that they needed him for some reason? Mayhap—Oh, please!—he was being given a second chance to make up for failing his own twin girls. That prospect tantalized and terrified him.
“Wait!” he called out suddenly.
She turned slowly, surprise showing on her face at his first word in a whole sennight.
“My name is”—his eyes darted between her and the black box in the corner, still distrustful of speaking and revealing too much—“Alan Spaulding.”
“I see.” She murmured something that sounded like “Celebrity delusions, too.” She quickly made some words on her parchment before addressing him again, this time with a smile. “And you come from Genoa City, right? How do you feel about that?” Despite her recognizing his lie, she sat back down and waited expectantly for him to talk.
“Mayhap that was a slight mistruth.”
“You mean a lie?”
He shrugged with resignation. “My name is Jorund.”
She smiled widely, and somewhere deep inside him, he felt a melting sensation.
“Well, it’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Rand. Do you object if I call you Joe?”
Joe? He glanced back over his shoulder before he realized that, of course, there was no one else in the room. “Am I your prisoner?”
&
nbsp; “Prisoner?” Her eyes went wide, but then she must have realized that it was a natural assumption on his part, considering he was in a torture shert with ankle restraints and bars on his windows. Possible bondage fantasies, she wrote on her parchment.
He raised his chin indignantly, though secretly he wondered exactly what a bondage fantasy was. It brought up mental images that were…well, fascinating.
“Of course you’re not a prisoner, Joe. You’ll be released once we’re certain of your safety.”
Hah!
“How do you feel about that?”
How do you feel? How do you feel? I feel rotten. “I’ll tell you how I feel. Captive I may be, for now, but I want you to know, I won’t be a slave to any man…or woman.”
“A slave?” she sputtered. “What would I do with a slave?”
“Precisely,” he answered. But then the mischievous god Loki whispered in his ear, and a tantalizing idea tugged at him. With as much casualness as he could garner, he remarked, “Except in your case I might consider being your…” He deliberately let his words trail off.
He wasn’t really serious. Leastways, he did not think he was. Jorund was a man little bent toward humor. And the teasing taunt he’d thrown out to the wench was so out of character it fairly boggled his already boggled mind. It must be the confinement, and the shock of his death or whatever the hell had happened to him, even the influence of his frivolous brother or the damned orca. Or mayhap the blame could be laid on the first temptation he’d felt in a long, long while.
“What?” she prodded finally. “I want you to be free to speak your mind, Joe. Nothing is out of bounds in the psychologist/patient relationship. So tell me. You might consider being my…what?”
“Love slave.”
Chapter Five
“Love slave?” Maggie squeaked out.
As a professional, Maggie shouldn’t have been shocked. Patients made outrageous suggestions to her all the time. But when the proposition came from a compellingly handsome man with pale blond hair, translucent gray eyes, and suntanned skin…well, Maggie had to admit to a teensy bit of temptation.
She would have to be extra careful not to cross that ethical line between patient and doctor…even if the patient was drop-dead gorgeous, despite the fact that he wore boring blue hospital-issue pajama bottoms, ankle restraints, and a white straitjacket. Even his bare feet, which were huge—a narrow size thirteen, she would guess—were surprisingly sexy.
She had to smile at that latter whimsy. Yep, there were strange goings-on inside Maggie these days, if she was getting turned on by feet. Actually, the psychiatrist in her had a ready, logical explanation: on a big, strong man like Joe, his bare feet appeared vulnerable and open to…well, touch—as other parts of his covered body were not.
Her face flushing with heat at the mere thought of touch, Maggie experienced a twinge of guilt as she glanced at the restraints that were put on him whenever she entered his room. They were necessary, though, even with a security guard posted outside the door, because he fought confinement. Fighting back was a natural reaction, of course, but it proved that he could be dangerous, until hospital experts could complete a diagnosis.
He was lounging on the bed now, his back propped up by two fluffy pillows and his long legs spread out on the narrow mattress, crossed at the ankles. His posture said he was relaxed, but the tension of the corded muscles in his neck said he was ready to pounce at the first opportunity.
He nodded in response to her question, which she’d already forgotten with all her musings. Oh, yes, she’d exclaimed at his ridiculous love-slave proposition.
“Yea, a love slave.” He spoke slowly, with a strong foreign accent. Clearly English was not his first language. “Release me from these restraints, and we can negotiate an agreement.”
She shook her head and pulled her chair closer to the bed, pencil and notepad at the ready. It was time she got a more complete background on this guy, now that he’d finally deigned to speak. “I can’t release you till we’re certain you won’t harm others, or yourself.”
“Why would I harm myself?” he scoffed.
She shrugged. “Lots of people do.”
He looked skeptical at that statement.
She smiled as some of his words flitted through her brain. “You would actually negotiate a contract to be a…love slave?” Her face heated up over those last words.
To her dismay, his intelligent eyes registered her embarrassment, and he winked. Oh, my God! He winked at me. Whoa! Since when is a wink an erotic signal? Maybe my girls are right. Maybe I really do need a man. No, no, no. That’s the last thing I need.
Maggie also saw the way his eyes scanned her body, from the top of her short hairdo, over her silk blouse, short skirt, and sheer stockings, down to her high heels. The jacket that matched the skirt hung on a wall peg back in her office. She was attending a seminar later today.
Joe liked what he saw—Maggie could tell by the brief flicker of his eyelids and the dilating of his pupils, especially as his gaze paused over her breasts—and she had to force herself not to react, either in anger or withdrawal.
It had taken Maggie years to become comfortable with her body. As a young girl who had developed much earlier than her friends, and as a young woman who had always had a curvy, voluptuous figure that made males think she was “easy,” Maggie had gone out of her way to dress in a manner that would hide her figure, and to behave contrary to her sensual nature. But she was changing—her short, saucy hairdo and the belly-button ring being the most recent signs—and she no longer dressed repressively. If people wanted to form the wrong opinions of her, that was their problem, not hers. She didn’t wear slut clothes, but then she didn’t dress like a librarian, either.
That didn’t mean she felt entirely comfortable under the carnal scrutiny of this handsome fellow. But she wasn’t dying of mortification, either.
She held her chin high in defiance, and he chuckled, as if he understood…which was impossible, of course.
She hoped.
“You would actually negotiate a contract to be a love slave?” Even as Maggie repeated her question, she wondered why she was pursuing this line of questioning. In her own defense, psychologists were taught to go with the flow of the patient’s dialogue…to lead unobtrusively, when necessary, but mostly to follow, without censorship.
“Yea…if it would bring me closer to freedom.”
“Have you ever been a love slave before?”
His eyes shot wide at her question. “Nay. Have you?”
“No,” she answered with a nervous laugh. “And I’m not interested now.”
His only answer was the disbelieving lift of his eyebrows. He flicked his tongue briefly over his full lips, as if to signal that, even if she wasn’t interested, he definitely was.
Lordy, lordy!
This had to be a joke, but he displayed no sign of humor. In fact, the chiseled features of his fine face lacked the laugh lines that should have been etched about the mouth and eyes of a man his age—about mid-thirties. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, his bespoke grimness, not a life filled with smiles.
Who was this man? The Orcaland people claimed they’d never seen him before. A police search of his fingerprints had brought up nothing. No family or friends had shown up claiming a missing person. He seemed to be a man without a past.
Maggie shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to bring up the love-slave subject again. But then she chastised herself: no topic should be taboo in the therapy relationship. With that in mind she asked, “Exactly how would you negotiate a love-slave contract?”
She expected him to laugh, or at least grin, but his expression was somber. “On your side, there would be the promise of freedom. On my side would be the promise of bed pleasuring.”
A ripple, like an erotic shock, rushed through Maggie with stunning force. And that was amazing, really, because, while she’d made great gains in her insecurities about her body, she still harbored strong inhi
bitions about her sexuality. Case in point, her girls’ father, Judd Haskell, who’d once said she was “as exciting as nailing a bowl of mashed potatoes.”
“I see.” Maggie blinked several times to clear her head under the intense survey of the man half reclining on the bed before her. He saw way too much. “Define freedom,” she encouraged.
“I’d rather define bed pleasuring.” A slight grin tugged at his lips, and Maggie thought he might not be without a sense of humor, after all. Perhaps it was just buried beneath the surface…or whatever pain had caused his breakdown.
“You talk in such an odd way,” she commented. “I can’t quite place the dialect.”
“Hah! You think I talk oddly? You should hear yourself…and I do not just mean that sex-voice.”
Sex-voice? Oh, he must be referring to the huskiness. That was another part of her body makeup that had contributed to her early reputation as easy. Leave it to this fellow to home in on it, right off. “My voice has sounded raspy like this since I was a child. A severe throat infection,” she said, more defensively than she’d intended. “But your dialect…where are you from?”
“Vestfold.”
“Huh? Is that in Texas?”
“I have no idea where this Tax-us is. Vestfold is in Norway. I am a Norseman. A Viking.”
“I see.” Now they were getting somewhere. Among his other mental problems, this guy thought he was a Viking…although, come to think of it, he did resemble a Norse god. She made a few quick notes on her pad.
“We were negotiating our love-slave contract when—”
“I never agreed to negotiate any such thing,” she interjected, perhaps too indignantly.
“I have much experience in bed sport, of course.”
“Of course,” she replied, and immediately regretted her sarcasm.
Either he failed to hear the sarcasm in her voice, or he chose to ignore it. Good.
“Now, I cannot claim great finesse in more refined bed sport—no flowery words or hand-holding or such—and, in truth, I do not favor kissing all that much, but I have been told my endurance is remarkable. That and my size.” Her only response was a gurgle, which he must have taken for a compliment because he continued, “And, of course, all Norsemen know the secret of a woman’s S-spot.”
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