Viking in Love

by Sandra Hill

  “We do it to each other.” How could she say otherwise, when her nipples stood up like little flags announcing her excitement?

  Laying himself down on his side, propped on an elbow, he traced the honey with a forefinger, making increasingly smaller circles, starting with the edge of her areola and moving closer and closer to the taut nipple. Giving the other breast the same attention, he then began to retrace his steps, but now with the tip of his tongue.

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  “What?”

  “You know.”

  “You are sore. I do not want to hurt you.”

  “If you do not suckle me soon, I am going to hurt you.”

  He laughed, then moved to kneel between her legs. With one arm under her back, he arched her up off the mattress so she was at his mercy, with no choice but to hold onto him or fall. Leaning forward, he took one breast into his open mouth, almost all of it, but then she was not that big. With his phallus hitting her belly, he began to suck tightly, pulling upward, stretching the breast with him. By the time his hard sucking reached her nipple, she was shuddering with her first peaking, scarce realizing that he had moved to the other breast. And then he hooked his arms under her knees, which he raised up to his shoulders.

  “Aaarrgh!” She clutched at the bed linens and tried to move, but she was at his mercy in this ignoble position. “Release me, knave.”

  “Why?”

  Oh, good gods! What is he doing now? Honey…he is pouring honey THERE. “Because I feel like a fool hanging from you like this. Eeeeek! What are you doing?”

  “Bringing the feast table closer.” He began to lap up the honey.

  And she began to tingle, all over, but especially where he was “feasting.” She closed her eyes, which were no doubt rolling back in their sockets. She made huffing sounds to keep from peaking again. She stiffened her body to resist all the sensations battering her body like pellets of warm rain.

  “Relax,” he said, playing with her breasts while his tongue was busy torturing her below.

  “You jest. I could no more relax than…oh! Ooooooh!”

  “Didst like that, sweetling?” he asked after licking his way up one side and down the other of her female folds, then sticking his tongue inside her.

  “I will be pissing honey water for a fortnight,” she chuffed out.

  He chuckled, and she felt his breath over her sensitized mons. “You do have a way with bluntness, m’lady.”

  She told him what he could do with his bluntness, and he chuckled some more. Best she keep her coarse words to herself, because they only gave him fodder for humor.

  “Surely this is a perversion,” she observed on a moan of rising passion.

  “Of the best kind,” he agreed.

  “I do not want to peak again like this. I want you inside me.”

  “I thought you would never ask, sweetling.” He lowered her legs back to the bed, kneed her thighs farther apart, and levered himself over her. “Ready?”

  “Are you serious? I am overready.”

  “Good,” he said, then mounted her with a mighty thrust into her female channel, which caused her traitorous inner muscles to milk him in welcome. In truth, her body had a choke hold on him that would not let go.

  “Oh. My. God!” he gritted out. “You are killing me.”

  “Good,” she was the one to say now, but she was soon at a loss for words as he stretched her as never before with a penetration so deep she feared he would break something inside her. Nay, that was not so, she realized, as her body melted around his hot staff, easing his way.

  “You feel…” he gasped, “like heaven.”

  “And you, as well.” She kissed his neck.

  “I cannot wait. I cannot.” In the throes of his escalating passion, which ignited hers, as well, he locked fingers with hers.

  She was almost frightened by the intensity of his feverish arousal, except that his guttural endearments and the tremors rippling over his body were a reflection of her own excitement. They fed off each other.

  When his thrusts became short and rough, when he reared his neck back, and let loose with an exultant shout of triumph, she realized that he was still inside her, and his hot seed was hitting the wall of her womb. With a loud roaring in her ears, desire and love…yea, love, damn his eyes…filled her to overflowing, and she cried out her peaking.

  For a long time afterward, she lay in his arms, enveloped by a dreamy afterglow of satisfaction. Neither of them was capable of speech in the wake of what had been more than an act of sex. Much more. She was shocked by the depth of her feelings for this man and knew she had to keep her emotions to herself, lest she scare him off for the short time they had left together.

  “You are amazing,” he said finally. “We were amazing.” His hands were caressing her back, brushing wisps of hair off her face, giving her feathery kisses on her chin and shoulders.

  “You make me feel beautiful and prized.” She took his hand and kissed the palm.

  “You are beautiful, and any man would prize you.”

  She could argue with that, based on her past experience, but she wanted to maintain the harmony that enveloped them at the moment. She cleared her throat. “I want to say something.”

  “Uh-oh. Sounds serious.”

  “It is. To me. I just want you to know that when this…this…” she waved a hand to indicate the two of them in bed “…is over, I will be thankful.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Why?”

  “Because you have shown me that lovemaking, or bedplay, or whatever you call it, can be a wondrous thing. This has to be the way that God…or the gods…intended it to be.”

  “There are priests who would disagree with that sentiment.”

  “They are biased, then. What I am trying to say, and obviously failing, is that I no longer hate you for forcing me into this bargain.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said hesitantly. “Listen, Breanne, do not make more of this than it is.”

  “Oh?” The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  “’Tis lust and naught else. I would not want you to fancy it up.”

  “Fancy it up?” You lout! You foolish, foolish lout! You are going to ruin it all.

  “You know, love and all that other nonsense. Lust is all it is. Wonderful lust and bedplay, for a certainty, but that is all. Some women start dreaming of softer emotions, but you are more sensible than that. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Clear as ice. Breanne’s heart felt as if it were cracking. “I am beginning to understand.”

  “Whew! ’Tis a relief. I was afeared you were thinking of extending our…our relationship into something more, like marriage.” The lout shivered with distaste.

  I shiver, too, fool, but for a different reason. Before he had come into the bedchamber tonight, she had been musing over the possibility that she was falling in love with the scoundrel, and hoping he was feeling the same. But not because she expected a marriage proposal. Still, she was insulted that he would equate all they had just shared to mere lust, no more significant than scratching an itch.

  Sliding off the bed, she stared down at him for a moment.

  “Breanne?” At last he was beginning to wonder whether he had misspoken. “Are you all right?”

  “I am just fine,” she said, reaching for the honey pot. With the wooden spoon, she poured a huge dollop along the length of his already reburgeoning phallus. Then another. And another.

  He smiled, figuring she was amenable to his insulting words.

  “And what are you going to do about all this honey?” he asked, beckoning her closer.

  I thought you would never ask. “’Tis not what I am going to do about it, but you are.” She was already drawing her sleep rail over her head.

  “Huh?”

  “Lick it off yourself, dolthead. Lust is all you want from me? Fine. But, wonder of wonders, I am all out of lust.” How I wish that were true!

  She had already unlocked the
door and was halfway out before he got her message. He jumped off the bed, honey dripping down to the floor. “What about our bargain?”

  She looked at him as if he were a halfwit. He was. “I am done with you and your bloody bargain.”

  “Like hell you are!”

  But she was already gone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Hide-and-go-seek, medieval style…

  Women! Who could figure them out? Their minds were like mazes designed to confuse the average man.

  It was after midnight. Where could she have disappeared to? And why, for God’s sake? All he had done was spell out exactly what they both knew already.

  After she had slammed the bedchamber door on him, he had pulled on a pair of breeches and rushed after her. But she had not gone to her bedchamber. Nor to the kitchens or even out on the ramparts. Well, he was done chasing her. When she had settled down and become biddable, he would talk some sense into her.

  For now, he had to do something about all that honey still covering his cock and seeping through the wool of his breeches. He was standing in front of the washstand, using a cloth dipped in the cold water from the pitcher and bowl. And wasn’t that a shock to his overheated enthusiasm?

  There was a soft knock on the door.

  “Come in,” he said, relieved that she had come back, despite his rancor over her behavior.

  But it was not Breanne. It was Geoff.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Greetings to you, too, Caedmon.”

  “What are you doing here this time of night? What has happened?”

  “We just got word at Heatherby that Dunstan and his entourage are overnighting at St. George’s monastery and will arrive in the morn.”

  “Arrive where? Heatherby? Or Larkspur?” Bloody damn hell! What next?

  Geoff shrugged. “Methinks he will visit both Larkspur and Heatherby, but I am not sure which will come first.”

  “How many in his company?”

  “Two dozen, more or less.”

  “That is all I need.” He was scrubbing at his genitals with vigor.

  “What in the name of St. Cuthbert are you doing?”

  “Washing the honey off my cock.” He winced at the coldness of the water.

  “Dare I ask why you have honey on your cock?”

  “You may ask, but I will not answer.”

  “If you are able to lick your own cock, I am going to be very upset.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I always wanted to do that.”

  Caedmon laughed, despite the seriousness of the impending situation.

  Geoff sat down on the edge of the bed, then immediately shot back up. Wiping a hand across his arse, he said, “There is honey on your bed linens.”

  As if he did not already know that!

  “I saw Lady Breanne on my way up here.”

  I hope you tripped her. “Oh? What is she doing up at this time of night? Building a new Roman wall?”

  “Going to the bathing house. Come to think on it, she smelled like honey, too.” Geoff glanced from Caedmon’s honey-coated cock to the bed, then back to Caedmon’s heated face. “Please tell me you have not been swiving a princess.”

  Only about twenty times. “And if I was?”

  “That, my friend, is a sure path to matrimony.”

  “Not with us. We have an agreement.” Or we HAD an agreement.

  Geoff arched his brows.

  He declined to answer. Finally clean, he tossed the rag in the bowl of dirty water and pulled up his breeches. “Let us go find some ale.”

  Geoff nodded. “Ale would be welcome, but I must needs return tonight. I just wanted you to have fair warning. Be prepared.”

  Once they were seated at the back of his great hall, where most everyone was asleep on benches and in bed closets, he turned to his friend, “How are the two princesses doing?”

  Geoff rolled his eyes. “They have become great friends with Sybil, and the three of them are turning the estate upside down in plans for the marriage ceremony and feast.”

  “I have not heard from Wulf. Have you?”

  Geoff shook his head. “But then, I did not expect to. You know how Wulf is when on a mission.”

  “I can only assume that no news is good news. Are you not fearful that Dunstan may put a stop to your wedding?”

  “We held a handfast ritual as a safeguard, and, of course, consummated the union.” He grinned at him to show it had been a satisfying consummation. “But just in case, I should be there when they arrive.”

  The first thing Caedmon did after seeing Geoff off, promising he would come for his wedding, was to wake Henry. “Take fifty of the hirdsmen and patrol the northern borders. In fact, erect some temporary quarters for them there. And do not return until you have word from me that it is safe.”

  Henry did not need to be told that Dunstan would take one look at the hundred and twenty-five and more soldiers residing here and force a goodly number of them to return with him to Winchester to join the royal troops.

  “I will be out shortly to see them off.”

  Henry scurried off. He might be old, but he knew what to do in an emergency, without any fuss and bother.

  Gerard must have been alerted by the sudden activity and was pulling up his breeches as Caedmon approached. “What is amiss, m’lord?”

  Caedmon explained briefly and said, “We will need to make provision for sleeping quarters for the archbishop and of any nobility traveling with them, in the event they stay overnight, God forbid! Henry will take care of the guardsmen who accompany him. Make sure there are clean bed linens. Including mine.

  “Also, check to see what shape the chapel is in. I will send out huntsmen for more game, and fishermen for fresh fish.”

  “What about the children?”

  Caedmon pondered the problem of ten children, mostly illegitimate, running about under the priest’s judgmental nose. “Lady Breanne will take care of them.”

  Gerard raised his bushy eyebrows.

  “I will leave it to you to make that chore known to her. Mayhap you could teach her that whistling trick.”

  After that, Caedmon went searching for Amicia. Finally, he found her in one of the bed closets with Dafydd, the Welsh stable hand. It was a sight he would not want to see ever again. Amicia was as tall as he was, and some might say just as muscular. Dafydd came about chest high on both of them and gave proof that the size of the boot had naught to do with the size of the cock, by huffing and puffing like a stallion as he plowed a squealing Amicia good and well.

  Caedmon turned his back until they were done. Then he told Amicia, “Come. You have much work to do. Archbishop Dunstan and his group are on their way.”

  With no embarrassment at all, Amicia stood and adjusted her gown. Dafydd was splatted out on his back, already half asleep.

  Caedmon nudged him with his boot.

  “Wh-what?” Dafydd sat up.

  “Two dozen of the king’s men, including Archbishop Dunstan, will be here on the morrow. Make sure there is enough feed in the stables and that the stalls are mucked out.”

  Grumbling something about bothersome holy men, Dafydd rose and tugged up his breeches, which had been bunched at his ankles. Before he stomped off, he gave Amicia a lustsome wink.

  Now that she had tasted Dafydd’s “charms,” Amicia seemed to be uninterested in the stable hand, and so she ignored his wink. “Dunstan? Fer goodness sake! I need to go find a few of the kitchen maids so we kin get started on the bread making. The monks and their minions are allus picky about their bread bein’ fresh.”

  Caedmon nodded, and while they walked side by side, he told her that fish and game would be forthcoming, hopefully by noon.

  And not to worry about making the meals fancy, as Ingrith had been teaching her. “We do not want them to get too comfortable here with fine fare and soft beds.”

  “So I should put out some of that maggoty venison that has been in the scullery since God was a child
.”

  And end up in a pillory. “I would not go that far.”

  She grinned at him.

  “I mean it, Amicia. Toss out the bad meat.”

  “No one ever lets me have fun.”

  “Seems to me you were having plenty of fun a short time ago.”

  She smirked. “Yea, I was. Everyone knows that Dafydd has a manroot the size of a cucumber.”

  Everyone except me! He choked as air went down the wrong throat passage. Way too much detail!

  By the time he had everything set in motion that he could in preparation for Dunstan’s visit, Caedmon decided he would try to get some sleep, even if it was only a few hours until dawn.

  But then he remembered some unfinished business. Red-haired witchy business.

  First he checked his bedchamber. Empty, as he had expected. Then hers. Also empty. But wait, a pillow and some bed linens were missing. He stood in the corridor, tapping his thinned lips thoughtfully. Where would she go to sleep where she thought he would never find her?

  “Aha!”

  A short time later, opening the chapel door quietly, he saw her lying on a bench, the linen cloth wrapped around her like a shroud, her hands folded together under her cheek, as if in prayer. He was going to give her plenty cause to pray.

  Without warning, he went up to her, lifted her high, then tossed her over his shoulder. With her squawking like a chicken facing the cook’s axe, he walked through the hall and up the stairs to his bedchamber. Tossing her on the bed, which still had honey on it—on the side where she would be sleeping, not he—Caedmon walked over to the door and locked it, pocketing the key.

  She had a full-blown screaming tantrum while he removed his garments, and she tried to escape her shroud. The more she squirmed, the more she tangled the sheet.

  “This is not funny.” She glared at him.

  “I beg to differ.”

  “And put some clothes on. You are not sticking that thing in me again.”

  He glanced downward and saw that he was, in fact, aroused. Nothing new in that. He was always at the ready around her.

  “I will stick this thing in you again, if I want to, but methinks I will wait until you beg me this time.”

  “When pigs dance!”