by James, Elle
Then Ari’s mouth was on mine, and I couldn’t care anymore. She was shaking, hips twitching, her soaking wet slit pressed against my cock. I held her close lest I take her there and then. With my tongue on hers, biting and suckling, I pushed my fingers into her, and she rocked back down on me.
“Teothir, please,” she whimpered, voice gone rough. “Please, I’m begging you.”
“Begging for what?” I growled it out, barely holding on. “What do you want, Ari?”
“Fuck me,” she wailed, head flung high and hair streaming down her back as she sat upright and ground into me. “Take me, now.”
I prayed to every god I could think of then flipped her onto her back and entered her in one swift thrust. Coming home, wetness and warmth surrounding me. I fought for control, that coldness threatening at the edges, and held still inside her. Her quim fluttered around me, her breath hard and harsh in the still, cold air. My fingers gripped her too hard, and I knew she’d wear my fingerprints on her skin in the morning, It was then my control broke and the red haze descended.
With no pain, no thought, I sat back on my heels and wrenched her body upward, one arm around her waist and the other in her hair, pulling her head back. I lifted her, and then hauled her downward, thrusting my cock deep. Over and over I pulled out then thrust into her, slamming her down against me. Her moans, her wails, penetrated the haze and made me beastlike, growling as I hunched over her and fucked her with every bit of strength I could find in my battered body. A small bit of my mind knew I would be in agony when the haze wore off, but I did not care, knowing I should take more care even though Ari was shuddering against me. My balls drew up, heat gathered and flooded, and with a snarl that tore my throat, I came deep in Aridhe.
My wife, true and real.
The haze retreated, and my thigh ached and cramped. With enormous effort, I laid Ari on the bed with as much gentleness as I could muster before pulling out and collapsing beside her. She grunted softly as I pulled out, as my seed pooled on the blanket beneath us. I looked up and Bersi had an unreadable look in his eyes, but he left, the Jarl on his heels.
Fasti turned back to face us and smiled down. “Welcome, Ari, tried and true wife of Teothir.”
“Fasti, thank you,” Ari said, her voice still uneven and breathless. “For staying, for everything.” She reached out and took the other woman’s hand and pressed a kiss onto her palm.
Fasti grinned down. “My pleasure. And I’ll be off to take mine since you two are joined properly now.” She smirked and sauntered off.
I waved as she left, then pulled up a blanket over us.
The silence in the long night was warm and welcoming, and Ari curled into my side, her cool hand stroking along my hip bone. Her fingers touched the fur around my cock, and it twitched.
“Could we do it again?” she asked.
I pulled her up to straddle me, our mingled love pooling and slicking as she rocked against my still-soft cock. The pain retreated again in the soft haze of wanting.
“I don’t know if I can fuck you,” I said, as I pushed my hand between us. “But I’ll make you shake and moan again, as many times as you’d like.”
She shuddered and shivered against me, and I praised Frigga and Freya—as well as Sjofn and Astrild and Balder—for what she offered, and then took it.
New Words
Teresa Noelle Roberts
Cordoba, Al Andalus, Eighth Century AD
“You are to call me Arnulf,” Walladah’s new husband said. He spoke slowly, which gave each syllable great weight. The Northman convert whose name was now Faiz ibn Asim spoke Arabic poorly, heavily accented with his angular native tongue, and probably struggled to find every word. But because his voice was deep and rich, he sounded considered, rather than awkward.
It wouldn’t do to let him know that his voice affected her. He might be Walladah’s husband, but he was a wild Northman, though he had bowed to the yoke of Allah. Faiz was a clever trader as well as a warrior, according to her father, but he must be only a little less ignorant than the dogs and cats that prowled the streets of Cordoba looking for scraps. The rough name Arnulf was part of his old life. He shouldn’t cling to it now that he’d embraced civilization.
“Faiz rolls more easily from my tongue than your Northman name, husband,” she said, trying to sound mild. She didn’t know what Northmen expected of their women, but he was a barbarian after all. He might expect complete subservience, not realizing Walladah was an educated woman, a poet, and raised to be treated as a queen in her own home.
He laughed, a great, booming sound that belonged on the deck of one of his people’s narrow ships as it cut over a green-gray, roiling ocean. He looked too big and wild for the room they would share, with the delicate wooden screens that shaded the high, arched windows, the vine-like traceries carved into the walls, the rich hangings. Too big and wild for Cordoba or for her life, like some exotic animal in a menagerie. “I’m sure it does, but in the bedchamber, a man likes to hear familiar words and here, I am still Arnulf.” He touched his heart, and then his loins.
Oh, he was a bold one! They were married now, though they’d met only that morning, so there was no reason for him not to be.
Or, for that matter, for her not to let her gaze follow his big hand and speculate about the body hidden beneath the silk and linen robes he wore as if they were his rough native wools and furs. She stifled a nervous giggle as heat rose within her. She’d been trying so hard not to look at anything other than his very blue eyes and pale beard, so fair it was nearly white, which reminded her that he was a foreigner, though he had converted to her faith. Trying so hard to remember why she had been displeased with this marriage. As the youngest of five daughters, a scholar and poet known to be a bit eccentric, she was lucky to get an offer from a young, virile man, not some pudgy old fellow with a first wife possessing a shrewish tongue. But she had hoped for a man who did not butcher her beloved language. She had come to the marriage prepared to feel contempt.
But while her new husband didn’t speak Arabic well, he sounded like an intelligent man learning a new tongue, not a lackwit who couldn’t learn.
And now that she was letting herself take a good look at him, she had to admit Faiz, or Arnulf, was a handsome man. Tall and broad-shouldered, he moved with grace. He had ruddy skin that had seen much weather, and hawk-like features, severe but well sculpted, softened by a mobile mouth that seemed adept at smiles and laughter. Rather a surprise, that lovely smile, but why should it be? A warrior needed the release of humor or risk running mad, and while Faiz was a merchant, he and all his kin were warriors at the core.
Even his brilliant blue eyes and fair beard were not displeasing. She found herself wondering if he had shaved his head as many men did, or if his turban hid a wild blond mane like those she had seen on other traders from the far north. She almost hoped for the mane. For all his civilized silk and linen attire and his new name, there was something wild about Faiz/Arnulf that the long hair would accent.
He looked like a man who would know his way around a woman’s body, she thought, and felt herself flushing. He must have seen her blush, because he smiled at her, a warm, teasing smile, and his blue eyes darkened.
With desire, some instinct told Walladah. She had read much poetry (some of the sort her father would not have approved her reading), talked with the singing girls who performed at the house, and asked pointed questions of her married sisters, and of the old women of the household. She knew about the ways of men and women.
Old women felt free to be gratifyingly direct about the male member and what, when properly wielded, it could do for a woman. And last night, since she was about to get married, the old aunties and married women of the family and several hired singing girls had explained the ways of man and maid, singing erotic songs, dancing provocatively for each other, and telling tales of their own sexual experiences. Moreover, they’d had mimicked sex in great, bawdy detail, at one point employing a cucumber to demonstrate
what she might expect.
She hoped her husband was not as large as the cucumber they had used for their pantomime, let alone the stallion they’d all teasingly mentioned. But he was such a big man it was possible.
She imagined that beautiful, mobile mouth on hers, those tall body lying over her, doing the things that her sisters and the old women had explained happened in the dark. Her body caught fire. Walladah’s religion taught that men and women should treat another with propriety, but she knew from poetry, tales, and simple gossip how often people fell short of the ideal. But she hadn’t understood why until that moment.
For the first time, Walladah understood the sweet madness of lust, understood the poets who wrote they would die for a glimpse of their forbidden beloved, understood the lovers who would risk everything to be together. And her husband had not even touched her yet.
She had to think about something else. There was no sin in desiring one’s husband, but she was a reasonable, educated woman of Cordoba, not a wild creature who might throw herself upon her mate without shame. Not a woman of her husband’s people; she’d heard they were brazen, openly approaching men they desired.
She’d like to be shameless right now. But she wouldn’t know how to go about it. Wouldn’t even know how to flirt when she could not charm him with poetry.
Shouldn’t they converse as best they could, get to know each other a bit before consummating the marriage? She had to say something. Anything. Even if it was wrong. “Faiz is a strong name. It means victorious.” She said the word victorious in Frankish, a language she knew he spoke with some fluency, better than his halting Arabic.
“You speak Frankish?” His voice was full of wonder.
She shrugged. “Not as well as Hebrew or the Christians’ Spanish,” she said, continuing in Frankish since he seemed more comfortable with that tongue. “I know a bit of Latin, as well. Most people in Cordoba speak several languages, since we are a city of many peoples. I read only Arabic, though.”
He sighed, and the dark light of desire faded in his gaze. “I can’t read any language well. Your letters are lovely, but not easy to learn. They twist so on the page. In my tongue, I know numbers and how to make my mark, but I had no time for scribes’ work, and others could do it for me more easily than I could learn.”
He couldn’t read? “But how can you know the holy Koran if you cannot read?” She knew she sounded shrill, but she was truly shocked. Even those who could never afford a book of their own could read a bit, so if they ever had the opportunity, they might read the Koran.
“Like this. In my heart.” Then he began to recite.
His Arabic had been halting before, but now it flowed like a river. He spoke well, inflecting the sentences as if he understood them, and moreover, as if he believed. She realized to her embarrassment that while she knew the passages he recited, she could not join in because she had never memorized them word for word the way she had favorite poems.
She kept waiting for the river of words to dry up, assuming he had learned a passage or two during his time of instruction. But it flowed for an amazingly long time. When he finally halted, he shrugged. Watching his shoulders move, she thought, was like watching mountains dance. “That’s all I know so far. I need to hear it several times to remember it, since I’m still learning the language, and I cannot always find someone to read to me.”
Walladah blinked a few times, stunned by his memory, and by his obvious respect for words. “I will read to you.” Words meant something to him, and out of respect for that, she would call him by the name he preferred in private, once she could shape her tongue to it properly. For now, she’d just avoid addressing him by any name at all. “Better, I will read with you, so you can learn the letters, as well as the sound of the words.”
How could such a severe face light up so much when the man smiled? “Thank you. The words of the Koran are words of great power, and I wish to know them by heart. Words of such importance you should carry in your heart, like poems. Still, it would be good to read them, since one’s memory might need refreshing when a book is so long.”
Before she could reply, before she could even react, he crossed the room and embraced her.
The space between them had seemed as wide as the sea, yet it took him only four steps to cross it.
Her husband pressed her harder against his big body. His masculine, clean smell surrounded her. Many foreigners didn’t bathe enough; you could identify them on the street by their stench as much as by their exotic garments and curious speech. But he smelled good. Not scented, just good. Either he had adopted local customs along with Islam, or his people knew the value of cleanliness, at least for special occasions like a wedding.
She should say something to him, shouldn’t she? She opened her mouth to speak.
Faiz’s lips covered hers.
She expected her mouth to be ravaged—Northmen were notorious for raping and pillaging, though she was already learning that much of what she thought she knew of Northmen was wrong. Instead, his lips were gentle on hers, but firm. Inescapable.
Not that she wanted to escape. He tasted rich and spicy. His neat blond beard wasn’t bristly on her skin like she’d expected, but pleasant. Soft, but with a little tantalizing scratch. Her body felt languid, liquid, and she found herself leaning more into him.
His tongue darted against her lips and instinctively, she opened them.
One hand cradled the back of her head. The other slipped down her back to rest at the curve of her buttocks. She wore two gowns, a silk qamis or undertunic and narrow-legged sarawil as undergarments, but she swore she felt the heat of that massive hand on her bare skin.
Which made her eager to actually feel him touch her that way, and to explore his body in turn. Even through layers of fabric, she could tell he was strong, muscular.
Aroused.
It wasn’t as large as an overgrown cucumber, let alone massive as a stallion, but it seemed immense enough to an excited virgin’s imagination.
Her body felt odd, tingly. Her skin was so sensitive she thought she might actually burst into flames, but at the same time, she seemed to be turning into liquid. Only her husband’s strength held her up.
When he drew back from the kiss, she was trembling. “I think I will like this marriage, Walladah.” Then he said something in his Northern tongue.
“What was that?”
“That your lips are the sweetest I have known. They are like…I cannot remember the words. You know…” He gestured, his big hands flapping like wings, and made a buzzing noise. “What the little creatures with stripes make.”
She laughed and clapped her hands. “Nicely done! The word is honey. And it’s made by bees.” She pronounced the new words slowly.
Then she let herself truly understand what he’d wanted to say, not just the clever way he’d overcome the limits of his Arabic, and her blood sang. “I have known no man’s lips but yours, but they are as sweet as wine, and as intoxicating. And happily for me, not forbidden by the Prophet like wine is.” She felt herself flushing. When had she become a wanton? A singing girl or dancer might say something like that to a patron, but teasingly. Walladah meant it.
And the blue fire in Arnulf’s eyes told her that he knew she meant it. “Then get drunk on me,” he whispered, slipping off his open outer robe as he did. It rustled to the floor with a sigh of heavy silk.
He plucked off the light veil, fine enough to pass through one of Walladah’s rings, that covered her hair. “Like night,” he sighed, running his hands through the heavy locks.
Walladah closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, wishing she could purr like a cat to show her pleasure.
After that, he said little, other than to repeat, “Beautiful” over and over again as he helped her remove her crimson outer gown and the deep green one she wore layered beneath it.
Finally, she stood before him in nothing but sarawil and a long qamis, both made of sheer silk the pale pink of the inner petals of a rose.
Arnulf cupped her breasts through the silk. Her nipples crinkled, dark and obvious through the light fabric, and he laughed that big shipboard laugh. “I lack the words to praise you. My mouth must find other uses.” Kneeling before her, he took one nipple into his mouth.
The light fabric didn’t block the sensation of his tongue, lips, and teeth all working together to suckle. If anything, the damp silk added its own subtle caress. She could even feel his beard prickling her, which didn’t seem like it should feel nearly as delicious as it did.
Heat flared like a lightning bolt from her nipple to the secret place between her legs. She moaned and put one hand on his shoulder.
He still wore his turban. She wasn’t sure how to unwrap it without its length getting in their way, so she simply lifted it off his head and tossed it aside. As she’d hoped, he had a lion’s mane of white-gold hair, or at least a great deal of it, chin length, but cut in a way that would be tidy if he had been bareheaded all day.
He paused what he was doing just long enough to give his head a good shake, to loosen where it was matted by the turban.
She reached out to touch it with something akin to wonder. It was merely hair, not so different from her own dark locks, and slightly sweaty hair at that. And yet wasn’t. There were plenty of fair-haired people in Cordoba, but not like him. His hair was pale as moonlight pouring over the olive skin of her inquisitive fingers.
When he turned his attention to her other nipple, her grip tightened of its own accord and she found herself pressing his head against her breast. He hardly seemed to object. His tongue swirled on one nipple, and he teased the other with calloused but gentle fingers, and he clasped the curve of her ass with his free hand.