A Storm of Pleasure

by TERRI BRISBIN

  She stood close enough that he could touch her, and he struggled to reach out to her. Gavin managed to clasp her ankle and then slid his hand along the well-worn leather of her boot until he touched her skin. The gasp that filled the cave made him smile.

  “Valkyrie, am I to die?” he whispered, knowing the true mission of those fabled servants to the old god Odin. Death would be the ultimate release—from the pain and the curse of his powers. “Am I for Valhalla?”

  Gavin knew that the beliefs of old were gone, but this woman stood as proud as one of the legendary choosers of the slain would. She shook her head in reply and he watched as the action caused her hair to swirl around her like a halo. He slid his hand higher, touching the soft skin of her leg, the back of her calf.

  “An angel of the Christian god then?” he asked, watching as small gasps escaped when his hand moved up her leg, pulling her gently closer to him. “Come to offer me salvation, sweet angel?” he asked. Salvation came in many forms, and at this moment relief from his lust would serve him well. His soul was lost, so he need not worry over that.

  His angel lost her balance as he tugged on her leg, falling onto him. His breath was forced out of him, but the feel of her breasts against his chest was worth it. And now, as she lay on top of him, he was able to explore her more thoroughly.

  And he did…wrapping his arms around her and drawing her up so that her hips and belly rubbed against the hard length of his cock. It was a glorious feeling, and his flesh swelled and readied itself for her body. His mouth watered as he grasped her shoulders and lifted her closer…closer to his lips.

  The angel’s own lips parted ever so slightly, giving him hope that the moment when he could taste her was close. Her eyes widened as she noticed his erection for the first time, and her wriggling movements—was she trying to climb off him?—simply made him harder.

  Gavin fought off the sedating stupor of the healer’s brew and rolled with her to his side. Smiling at her, he gazed into those dark blue eyes and saw something that looked like innocence shining back at him. The sight of it entranced him. His own soul and body were so far from that state that he hungered to touch it once more.

  To touch her.

  He wrapped his arm around her, cushioning her from the hard stone floor, and used his other hand to caress the soft curve of her jaw. Rubbing his thumb across her lips, he dared a first taste of her enticing mouth, holding his breath as he waited for the pleasure of it.

  He swept his tongue into her mouth, seeking her own. He was overwhelmed by the kiss. Innocence was there, certainly, but also he tasted her own need and a swirl of other emotions. Gavin slanted his mouth over hers and plunged into it, tasting and suckling and searching for more of his angel. He slid his hand up into her long curls and wrapped their length around his palm, holding her close while he continued to kiss and possess her mouth.

  She moved against him and he released his grasp of her hair so that he could touch her in other places. Gathering the fabric of her cloak and tunic in his hand, he pulled it up, gliding it slowly up her leg until he felt her skin there once more. The gasps she made tickled his mouth, and he continued to seek her flesh. Gavin lifted his mouth from hers only to take a breath, but got caught up in the intensity of her gaze meeting his.

  Then he noticed it.

  The silence.

  The blessed silence in his thoughts.

  The only sounds he could hear were the gasps she made each time he touched her, and the panting breaths she took in as he slid his hand between her legs and found the wetness there. If he concentrated on her, he could hear the beating of her heart and the blood rushing through her body. And he did focus on her, discovering that he could hear the tightening of her muscles and the throbbing ache pulsing in her womanly flesh.

  How? How could she silence the clamor? And how could he hear such things deep within her? Things that did not have sound. Yet he could hear those and nothing else.

  “Who are you?” he asked, drawing back for a moment to truly look at her face.

  Even in his drug-filled stupor, he knew that she was different. But her eyes began to glaze over as his body poured out the scent that would make any woman his. Gavin felt the heat of her flesh soften beneath his fingers and moved his hand there to make her gasp as he knew she would. The sound of it echoed through the cavern and into his body.

  She said nothing, his angel, only opening her legs so that he could touch her deeper. So he did, enjoying the way she arched against his hand. Gavin took her mouth, mimicking the movements with his tongue, thrusting deep and anticipating the feel of her tight channel around his prick.

  The lack of clatter in his thoughts increased his desire for her and his enjoyment of the way his body felt. He knew not why or how her thoughts were hidden from him, but it was so pleasant that he laughed aloud.

  “You are truly an angel,” he said as he slipped his arm out from behind her and moved to kneel between her legs.

  Though she did not speak, she did not object. He tugged her cloak out of his way and pulled the edge of her tunic up slowly, enjoying every exposed inch of her long legs. He leaned over and tracked kisses over her legs, still able to hear the blood as it rushed through her veins. As he approached the junction of her thighs, she touched his head.

  The touch itself was a surprise because women under the control of his power usually lay compliant in his arms, allowing him his way in all things. But the clarity in her gaze when he met it was the true shock. She was not under the power of his desire.

  His head swam from the effects of the healer’s brew, but the rising heat in his blood battled it. Now, with her feminine scent and flesh so close, he could not stop himself. Gavin smiled at her.

  “Let me pleasure you, angel,” he whispered, not pausing for her permission.

  Leaning down, he kissed the soft skin on the inside of her thigh as he spread her legs. Although she placed her hand on his head once more, he moved his mouth along her leg until he reached the heated place there and used his lips and tongue to tease those sensitive folds. She writhed under his attentions, and his body strained against his clothing, his skin burning to be on hers.

  He’d been with hundreds of women in his life and could tell when one feigned arousal or swore to a long-lost innocence, but her body somehow tasted of it. The way she reacted, drawing away as he stroked with his tongue and then relaxing against his mouth when he pursued, spoke of a newness to this kind of passionate kiss. She did not fight him, but she did not caress him or touch him other than swirling her fingers in his hair as he moved over her.

  Gavin lifted his mouth from her and massaged the now-weeping folds with his hand, sliding one finger and then two deep within her. The lack of a maidenhead spoke only of not being pure, but her body’s responses revealed her lack of experience. Easing his fingers in and out, faster and harder each time, he brought her to the edge of release even while his cock and sac tightened, waiting for his pleasure. From the way her flesh pulsed around his fingers, he knew it would be well worth the time it took to ready her.

  Gavin stopped, noticing again that the only sounds he could hear were those within her body. Everything else, the noise in his head, the sounds of the ocean, faded into nothing as he listened to her body sing. Her breathing quickened, her heart raced, her muscles tensed and relaxed. Every moment had its own sound to him. The only thing he could not hear was her thoughts—not as coherent words or even as the constant clatter usually in his head. He let himself go then, savoring the silence and gaining pleasure from her body, even knowing this had to be a dream.

  “Ah, angel,” he whispered, still surprised to hear only his own voice, “open for me.” He reached down and loosened his trews. Guiding her legs around his waist, he grasped his cock and positioned himself at the opening of her tight channel. Rubbing the head of it along her cleft, he eased into her.

  The feel of it—the grip as he moved deeper and deeper still—overwhelmed him, and Gavin thrust all the way in, fil
ling her until she uttered that breathy gasp he already craved. Then she leaned her head back and released a longer moan as she reached her peak, a sound that sent icy and fiery shivers through his body and forced him closer to his release. Like an untried youth, he could feel his seed about to spill and he could not stop it. Thrusting hard and fast, he felt his entire body tighten and he waited for that moment of satisfaction, of pleasure. His angel cried out then, and he felt the spasms of the walls of her channel around his cock. He plunged once more into her and joined her in coming as his seed burst from him.

  Her legs tensed around his waist and he watched the way her lovely lips opened slightly as they both experienced the waves of release within her. The magical sounds of her release echoed in his head, sounds that reminded him of the music played on a clarsach he’d heard once as a child. It spun out around him in the air as his body found a kind of satisfaction that had always remained just out of his reach. Not only did his body soar, but his heart and soul knew a moment, a scant second, of complete peace and fulfillment.

  Something he’d never felt in the arms or body of any woman before this one.

  He watched a smile play on her lips as her body continued to spasm around his flesh. Slowly, she began to drift into that lethargy that follows a good bit of bedplay, but Gavin’s cock remained hard and ready.

  He wanted to touch that moment again…and again. He wanted to savor the release she gave him—release from pain, from the voices. He wanted her.

  He laughed gruffly as the healer’s brew began to take control of his body. He was dizzy; the strong concoction was apparently more powerful than he’d first thought. Gavin rolled off her and lay at her side, watching the rise and fall of her chest and listening to the sounds of her body, now replete with pleasure.

  A breathy sigh. The calming of her racing heart. The blood slowing in her veins. The easing of the tension in her muscles and the engorgement in the flesh between her legs. All sounds he’d never been aware of and now sounds he could hear individually. And yet, the noise that usually screamed in his mind was gone.

  Once his ability to hear the truth had become apparent, so had that sound—at first a constant quiet hum that he could ignore. But as his ability to hear the truth grew, so too had that noise and it worsened when he was around others, as though he was hearing all the thoughts in their minds at once, speeded up and unintelligible.

  He avoided crowds, he avoided people, all in the hope of lessening the maddening pain in his head, but in vain. It seemed that as his powers grew, so did his ability to pick up the jumbled thoughts of every person in his vicinity.

  Yet, now, as his limbs and eyelids grew too heavy to move, he breathed in deeply and let the silence wash over him. After months and months of pain and torment, Gavin could not fight the supreme pleasure brought by this coupling and the complete silence. Another breath and he felt sleep pulling him into its grasp.

  “My angel,” he whispered, both in thanks and as a plea for her to stay.

  He smiled, realizing even in his stupor, she was most likely only imagined while under the influence of the healer’s brew. Ah, if he had to have a dream, even one caused by herbs and ale, this was a wondrous one to have. He might have Haakon seek more of the potion after all.

  Then sleep claimed him and he thought and heard nothing.

  Chapter Two

  Katla watched as the Truthsayer faded into sleep before she moved a muscle. Her body ached in a not-unpleasant way from his use of her, but it had been nothing like Harald’s way of swiving her. That warrior had not shamed her as he could have by sharing her with his men once he had taken her maidenhead. His attentions to her were frequent, brief, and unremarkable. He’d even offered to take her as his second wife, giving her an honorable place in his household.

  Nothing she’d done with Harald could have prepared her for what the Truthsayer had done. Her body had reacted under his touch like a thing unknown to her, shivering and trembling from her skin to deep inside as he caressed and kissed and even licked places she had not paid attention to before. Another ripple of pleasure shook her as she tried to move away from him without disturbing his sleep. Tugging her tunic down over her legs as she eased away, Katla sat a few feet from him and studied him now that passion no longer ruled her.

  He was called Gavin of Durness, for the place where he’d been found and raised. His blond hair and light eyes spoke of Norse parentage, but none had ever claimed a link to him. That was all she’d discovered about him, other than some rumors of his powers.

  No one, none of the earl’s trusted servants or men, spoke of his impairment, of the pain he suffered constantly or why he did not live on Orkney, closer to the earl’s palace. Clearly, he was mad or going mad and the earl used the churning, dangerous waters of the firth that separated Orkney from the rest of the southern lands to keep him from the view of his court.

  For several days, she had watched him from above, through a hole worn by the river as it flowed into his cave, observing as he dosed and drugged and drank himself into a stupor—or as he tried to. He ranted, he cursed, he called out to people not present, and he swore to any god and against all of them. When he was not yelling, he was swiving. His servant came and went each day, bringing woman after woman to serve his master’s needs.

  Gold seemed of no matter to him, nor did comfort or lack thereof. He lived in a cave that opened to the unruly ocean when he could live in the comforts of a noble’s palace. Because of the service he provided to the earl, one of the most powerful men in the Norse world, his every whim and command was fulfilled and obeyed. If she’d not spoken to trustworthy people, people who still held her in high esteem despite her father’s death and her brother’s uncertain fate, Katla would never have believed some of the wild stories and rumors.

  A touch of his hand during the peak of the full moon could bring forth the truth from anyone he chose. No secret could remained hidden from his ability to hear the truth within a person’s mind.

  She sighed, seeing no sign of otherworldly power just now. He snored loudly as though to confirm her low opinion. But, there had been a moment, when his ice-blue eyes seemed to glow with some mysterious light and when her will seemed to fade, replaced by a call that rippled through her blood. Gavin of Durness shifted then in his sleep, reaching his hand out to the place where she’d lain.

  “Angel,” he whispered.

  So drunk that he thought her a Valkyrie first and then an angel! Katla shook her head in disbelief and looked up and down his sleeping form. Not an ounce of fat marred his body. Tight, lean muscles covered a tall frame, and she felt their strength as he’d held her and caressed her and when he pulled her on top of him. Because he’d not bothered to undress her or himself, they’d tupped in their garments so she’d seen little of his body. Now though, she realized he’d fallen asleep with his trews loosened and his cock was there for her to see. As he whispered “Angel” again, it filled and hardened as though ready once more for another bout of bedplay.

  Katla smothered a laugh, afraid to bring him out of his sleep or to gain his attention again. Not afraid of swiving him, but of being discovered before she’d made all her plans. Her brother’s fate now lay squarely on her shoulders, and she had little time to discover something valuable to the Truthsayer, something she could use to bargain with him for his help.

  The earl used the Truthsayer’s talents only for the most important matters, and her brother was not high enough in his esteem to warrant such an intervention. The Scots’ king had sent questions of his own about charges of treason against her father and brother and was demanding that Kali be sent to him for judgment. Only Earl Magnus’s own journey to the Norse king had delayed the matter. But on his return, expected in weeks, she did not doubt that the reprieve would end. Once Harald turned Kali over to the earl, there would be no guarantee of his safety or his life.

  Standing now, she gathered her hair and tied it back. During the climb down the steep cliff to the cave, she’d lost her
head cloth and the leather strap that bound her hair. No doubt the unruly mass of pale blond curls had made the Truthsayer think she looked like an angel.

  She smiled then, for no one in her life had ever thought her to be such a soft creature as that. Hellion was more the claim and the curse, spoken in anger by her stepmother and her father as she tried time and time again to be more than just a daughter to the great warrior Sven of Gairsay.

  And more than just the daughter of a freed slave woman who’d caught the eye of the powerful chieftain. Freeing her mother as she struggled to give birth to his child had been Sven’s only act of kindness, and it was said that Katla only had status in her father’s household because she resembled her dead mother so closely.

  Searching around the cave, she found a blanket and covered Gavin with it.

  This man was a stranger. He had used some strange power to draw her into his embrace and to make her lose her own will. At least for a short time…but even when her mind had cleared of the haze of his control, she could not make herself stop him.

  Truly, she’d never felt anything like the sizzling sensations that pulsed through her body and soul as he touched and caressed her. Harald’s attentions had not been unpleasant, but never had they caused the waves of pleasure and desire that this man had. Small spasms yet rippled deep within her, and part of her wished to wake him, to crawl back into his embrace so she could feel them again…and again.

  Shaking her head, she forced away such thoughts and walked around him to the rocky entrance. The roar of the ocean was louder there than the rushing of the river from overhead. She shielded her eyes from the sun and searched for the small, hidden trail on one side of the entrance. Climbing down was difficult, but climbing back up along the steep and slippery path would be even more treacherous. Katla reached down, gathered the length of her tunic and gown in her hands and drew it up between her legs, making it easier to climb.