by Joanne Rock
He caught her easily, locking an arm about her waist. Perhaps, now that she was hurt, she would see the wisdom in following where he led. Briefly, he debated investigating the extent of her injuries since the idea of peeling up her skirts held considerable appeal. But he sensed the fight had not gone out of her yet.
“Where are you taking me?” She winced with the first few halting steps, so he bore a bit more of her weight. “If you sought no more than a moment’s pleasure, you could have taken it on the beach.”
“Perhaps I seek more than a moment.”
“Maybe a moment is all you can afford since I am a prisoner of great worth. My overlord will seek me before he hunts for the altarpiece you stole. We do not have much time.” She peered over her shoulder as if she half expected a rescue to come riding up the cliffs at any moment.
It seemed the woman was no stranger to spinning lies convincingly. A less experienced warrior might have believed her.
“Are you wed to Alchere?” That was the only reason he could imagine the Saxon overlord mounting a search party immediately. Otherwise, the only thing driving him would be pride. And while that would no doubt bring him in search of Gwendolyn soon enough, it would not draw him out of his protected keep while Harold Haaraldson remained at his walls.
Wulf had a day or two here with her at least before he’d need to secure her better.
“Of course not.” Her lip curled in distaste. “Alchere is an arrogant pig—”
She bit off the words with a quick glance to his face. Worried. Considering. Wulf laughed at the transparent thoughts in her expressive face because midway through the passionate assertion, she seemed to realize it might have helped her cause to claim marriage to him.
“Too late, Gwen.” Wulf lifted her gently over a rotten log, the damp of spring making the ground give under their feet. “I would not have believed you anyhow. The Danes already know your king has entrusted Alchere with several high-born widows of political importance to the kingdom. I imagine if Alchere was ever given permission to choose one of his wards for himself, he would not pick the most imprudent one of the lot.”
“How dare you—”
“He would also not choose a woman who did not obey him implicitly,” he continued, ignoring her obvious desire to argue. “If you were his wife, he would have ensured you were locked in his bedchamber with a guard at the door before a raid.”
He paused at a sound in the trees, quickly drawing Gwendolyn close and putting his hand over her mouth to staunch any noise. They had not been followed from the beach, but what if they’d strayed close a nobleman’s land? He would never be mistaken for a Saxon, even at a distance.
In that moment of stillness and silence, he peered down at his captive. A fresh cut marred her cheek from her run through the trees to escape. The veil she’d torn on a rock back on the parapet now had even more holes in the delicate material. But above the constraining weight of his hands, her eyes peered at him with dark fire in their depths—a willfulness and simmering anger that stirred more than lust within him.
Amusement at her headstrong ways? Nay. It was more than that. This was a woman who would fight for what she wanted no matter the cost—
Thor’s hammer.
He realized at once why he’d taken her. Why he wanted her. Gwendolyn possessed the strength and spirit that Hedra had lacked—the strength that might have given her enough courage to claim happiness with both hands instead of dutifully doing what her family wanted.
With a curse, he released Gwendolyn’s mouth. The noise in the brush had only been a curious hare anyhow. Angry with himself, he vowed he would forget all about the deeper reason he’d been attracted to Gwendolyn once he had her beneath him. She would become any other woman then and this dark fascination with her would be broken. Powerless.
He tugged her forward a bit more roughly than he’d intended. They needed to make better time if they were to reach the ruins before dark.
“I do not wish to be your—pleasure. I will serve no man’s pleasure.” Her cheeks burned so hotly he could easily imagine how she might look with another kind of flush on her face. Was it from fury? Or did she imagine his touch upon her and resent a stirring?
He hoped for the latter. But either way, he had time to incite the response he wanted. How long would it be before he would see her skin heating with excitement from his touch instead of the mixed emotions she must feel now?
“Are you not a widow?” He did not address her concern directly. Her comment stirred questions of his own. Why would she refuse pleasure when it was offered? He understood her refusal of him. For now. But why dismiss pleasure altogether?
All at once, she fell to the ground, becoming boneless in his grip so that he lost his hold for an instant.
And just like that she ran, limping and slow as a wounded doe after the hunt.
Where was the woman’s sense? She was all fight and fire, reflexes and instinct.
“Woman.” He jogged toward her, not needing to run any faster than that. Collaring her, he gripped the back of her dress and reeled her backward. “You do yourself greater harm than good. And if you run again, I will carry you the rest of the way like a sack of grain over my shoulder, a position that will be far more enjoyable for me than for you.”
He hid a grin, appreciating the vision of that scenario tremendously.
“You do not scare me, Norseman.” Her lie could not have been more obvious, but he understood the need to bolster oneself when frightened. “I will escape you, and you will be left with no gold and no pleasure to show for your trouble.”
“I am surprised a widow would be frightened at the idea of shared pleasure.” He stressed the shared this time, wondering if that had not been clear when he’d first introduced his intentions.
“You are a heathen marauder,” she accused, as if his choice of gods also made him witless. “Your idea of pleasure is raping and thieving when you are not killing Saxons and burning whole towns. I would never share your pleasures.”
“I have never done battle for the blood sport and I have never taken a woman against her will, even during the heat of a raid.” No man under his command would dare brutalize innocents during battle. Those kinds of distractions left a man’s sword useless and his back exposed to his enemy.
“That has not been my experience of your people and I have no reason to trust your word.” She trudged along beside him, keeping pace while her gaze tracked the tree line nearby, obviously searching for somewhere to run.
“What of your experience of me?” he demanded. He had been judged unfairly before and did not appreciate her assumptions. “I saved you from certain death when you were about to fall from the castle walls. I have not harmed a hair upon your head, even when you bit me, ran from me and hurled insult after insult upon my fathers. What reason have I given you to fear me?”
He flexed his fingers, tightening his grip to encourage her gaze.
Finally, she peered up at him with dark, thoughtful eyes.
“Perhaps I have misjudged you as much as you’ve misjudged widows.” She made it less an admission and more of a challenge. “Not every widow is eager for—a man.”
At last, he’d learned something about her beyond her bold spirit. Though the revelation might delay his inevitable seduction of the woman, it provided him with valuable insight. She wasn’t merely frightened of the Danes. She’d been mistreated—or at very least unappreciated by the last man who’d touched her.
“Then let us judge one another only on what we know.” He hastened toward their destination before darkness caught them alone in the woods with no shelter. “So far, I know you’re a brave woman since you ventured out onto the battlements while invaders stormed the beach. I know you think your overlord is an arrogant pig and that you are surprisingly comfortable on the sea.”
“You have a fine ship,” she admitted. “And I know you disagreed with your men on the way here. They do not approve of your taking me. Also, you are an enemy of the other
troops that landed on our shores today. Other than that, I cannot claim much knowledge of you other than that you have uncommon strength and stamina.”
He wanted to remind her that those qualities would be beneficial in their pursuit of pleasure, but held his tongue since she hadn’t yet grasped how rewarding this would be for them both.
“You see?” Thumping his chest with his fist, he gave her his victory sign. “I am not a man of undue violence.”
“But you are convinced you are right all the time and do not accept others’ counsel. I suspect your friend from your ship would agree.”
She had to mean Erik. And wasn’t she an observant one?
“Leading men requires decisiveness.” He peered out into a clearing between patches of trees, and when he deemed it safe, nudged her across the open meadow.
“Leading a woman involves discussion.” She seemed to consider the matter seriously. “And I do not wish to be some object of lust for an overbearing warrior unaccustomed to being denied his smallest desire.”
If only she knew what he’d been denied. His home. His rightful place in a noble house. But long before either of those—love.
“This matters naught, Gwendolyn. Because whether you will it or nay, you please me.”
TIME PASSED SLOWLY TUCKED against the Norseman’s side.
Gwendolyn could not be sure how far they’d traveled, since the journey had a dreamlike quality that made it feel unreal. She had never been so physically close to any man for that length of time. Not once had Gerald slept in her bed a full night. Not once had they taken a long journey together. And while she’d always been thankful that her husband had not spent much time in her presence, traveling with Wulf felt strangely intimate.
At one point, she’d become distracted feeling the beat of his heart close to her own. At other times, shivers shot through her when he lifted her against him to carry her over a treacherous patch of earth. Yes, he’d been oddly solicitous for a man who had the power to harm her. She’d spent most of the trek wondering if he truly believed in this idea of shared pleasure.
A foolish notion. She resented him for planting the concept in her brain when she needed to be thinking about escape.
Considering that she’d been so aware of every moment of the journey to a dilapidated structure near old church ruins, it surprised Gwen that she couldn’t guess how long it had taken them to arrive. Now, she sat before a fire in a dusty hearth where Wulf had made short work of starting a blaze.
That had been his first order of business upon arrival. While Gwendolyn searched the small hut for a weapon or escape routes to use once he fell asleep, Wulf then ensured no rats had made a home in an old pallet and settled her among the rushes. The scent of sweet straw and dry wildflowers wafted about her when she moved and she guessed someone must have used the weather-beaten lodging the previous fall.
She’d never spent a night outside a powerful keep before, so she was briefly charmed to think that her pallet had been employed by others. Then, recalling Wulf’s reasons for bringing her here, she went back to plotting her escape. Was it foolish to leave in the dark when she had spied no houses on the way?
For now, she decided yes. She had already traveled so far today and it seemed wise to eat before she made another trip. And Wulf barely left the ruins. Even when he caught two slippery silver fish, she noticed he kept his eye on the lodging for all but the moments it took him to plunge his arms into the nearby stream.
Her heartbeat sped up, the same reaction she had every time he neared. Fear? Yes, and yet, she could not fool herself that this was fear she would be raped and left for dead. He could have done that long ago on the beach or forest floor. And he had saved her life from the first.
If he’d not appeared on the wall when he had—as if Fate had intervened—she would not be alive right now full of anxiousness and emotions too confusing to name.
Lesser men might indulge petty violence. Wulf Geirsson was a leader of men, and a wealthy one at that. He could have commanded far more beautiful women to his bed. For that matter, he could have persuaded many women to do his bidding simply because he was strong and handsome, his compelling azure eyes enticing a woman to comply with his every whim…“Gwendolyn?”
Her cheeks heated and she thanked the saints for the soft, orange glow of the fire that would hide her discomfort. Had he spoken before now and she missed it? She’d been wrapped up in that disarming gaze so at odds with everything else about him.
“Hmm?” Why was she thinking about other women he’d been with? Why would she care?
“Does your knee still hurt from your fall earlier?” He’d set down near the hearth. Now, he threaded the fish on a thin stick that he mounted between rusting iron brackets that must have long ago held a cauldron.
“No.” She tucked her skirts closer to her sides, all-too aware of his nearness. His attention was on her legs even though her skirts covered them completely. “Why?”
What would a brutish Viking care of she bruised her knee? The assortment of scars on his arms suggested he’d taken far worse abuse in his lifetime.
“We might have to move quickly if anyone follows us, and I would not have an injury slowing us down.”
She’d forgotten about Alchere. And Wulf’s Danish enemy, Harold. Then, there was the threat of her in-laws who still sought control of her fortune through her. To face the in-laws at least, she thought she might prefer to have a merciless, hulking Norseman at her side.
Wulf’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“You will drink.” He had dipped a small wineskin into the stream; now he handed it to her.
“Perhaps it is confusion between our languages,” she started, wondering where he’d learned his manners. “But we tend to ask people ‘will you drink?’ as opposed to telling them they must.”
She took the wineskin and squeezed water into her mouth, the icy liquid not doing anything to quell the strange heat that flooded her skin at his attention.
“Ah, but you must drink.” He reached to wipe a stray droplet from her cheek. “It is important to sustain yourself after a long journey.”
Perhaps it was the glittering seriousness of his otherworldly eyes or possibly the heated brush of his fingertips along her skin, but she went very still. Oddly, she feared if she allowed herself to move, she might very well lean toward the Dane instead of away from him. But she told herself that was only because the barbarian represented the only thing standing between her and the wilderness—the only protection she had in the world now that she no longer was under her overlord’s care.
Still, her skin hummed pleasantly where he’d touched her cheek and she could not understand why.
The scent of burning pine and savory fish filled the shelter even though a hole in the roof above the hearth allowed much of the smoke to escape. Gwen nestled deeper into the one corner of the room that still provided protection from the elements.
“Even when you know what is best, sometimes it is more polite to offer people a choice in the matter.” Her words felt soft and scratchy in her throat, as if she’d not used her voice in a long time.
“I am not the only one who thinks they know best.” He settled near the pallet, his strong thighs splayed close enough for her to touch.
You please me.
His pronouncement echoed in her mind, confusing her when she longed to take refuge in her anger at him for stealing her away.
“You will never have what you seek from me,” she warned him. Or did she warn herself? She had no earthly reason to feel this strange warmth when he came near.
“I seek to check your knee.” His hands reached toward her and it took a moment for her mind to catch up to his words. “And this I will do.”
No sooner had he finished the warning when she felt his hand between her legs.
She arched back, away from his touch, but she’d already scooted into the corner, her spine pressed to the plank wall. Her hands went to his chest, seeking to hold him off or push him bac
k, but all of her strength did not equal a small fraction of his. He merely shifted his shoulders, keeping her arms at bay while his hands made free with her under her gown.
Panic welled as his fingers skimmed up her calves and dipped into the hollow at the backs of her knees where her skin lay bare to his touch. His thumbs stroked a hot path along the inside of her legs.
She expected impatience. Perhaps even violence. But she did not anticipate the gentle probe of his fingers against her swollen flesh. Tenderly, he felt around her knee, front and back. And even though his upper body pinned hers with easy strength, he seemed to use care with his callused hands.
She wanted to protest, but she seemed frozen. Words dried on her tongue as the warmth of his shoulder penetrated her gown about her waist. For a moment, she almost thought he touched her because he wanted to, because he’d decided she should be captive to his pleasure after all.
The notion did not disturb her nearly as much as it should have with his thumb rolling up a tendon toward her thigh. Sweet sensation shimmered along her skin. His scent surrounded her, his potent proximity stirring something deep within.
Her breathing quickened as they stared at one another in silence. The hearth fire popped and hissed. Then, without warning, his bold hands drifted up her thighs, awakening her good sense.
“Nay!” Squeezing her thighs together, she finally found her voice in the odd battle of wills.
If he was going to force himself on her, she would at least make sure he did not touch her without a fight.
He leaned back, no longer pinning her, but not releasing her, either.
“You will bleed from the scratches of my nails,” she threatened, rearing back so hard she banged her head on the wall behind her. “You will discover the wrath of the Christian God.”
“It is slightly swollen.” His voice remained utterly calm, as if he had not heard a single word she’d spoken. “If we need to leave during the night, you will let me carry you so we can make haste.”
His hands disappeared from her legs as he rose to his feet, her gown falling back into place to fan about her knees where she sat.