Her back stiffened, but in the end she shrugged and walked toward his second-in-command, leaning over him and tapping keys to silence the alarms.
Dagr halted beside Cyrus. “Where is my cousin?”
“Grimvarr wouldn’t sit still. His pacing made me nervous, so I set him to guarding the ore.”
“The ore doesn’t need guarding. Who among their crew can even open the containers?”
Cyrus smiled. “He doesn’t know that. He has another with him to keep him from being too bored and getting into trouble.”
Dagr grunted again. Bored wasn’t what he felt. Itchy was a more apt description. “You look comfortable,” he said wryly. It was likely Cyrus hadn’t stirred except for the trip to the transporter room since they first took the ship.
Cyrus raked a hand through his hair and grimaced. “Forgot how much I missed this. I’ll get up shortly and make rounds to check on all the systems.”
“What about the crew? Can we make use of them?”
“If we keep the nerve centers guarded, they can’t hack in to get a message out or to disable anything. And if they think you’ll harm their captain, that should be enough to keep them in line.” Cyrus’s lips twisted in a half smile. “But, Dagr, you can’t look at her the way you do and convince them you’ll slit her throat.”
Dagr grunted again, knowing the woman was reducing him to primal communication. Just looking at her made him feel savage.
“She intrigues you,” Cyrus murmured.
“She is strong, not so much physically, but she is self-possessed. Sure of herself. I like that.”
“She’s also so attractive a dead man would sit up and take notice. More than a match in bed even for a Viking?”
Dagr grimaced. “Are you counseling me?”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Cyrus smiled.
“Concern noted.”
“Take my seat,” Cyrus said, pushing up from the captain’s chair. “You won’t be able to access the systems ... unless you want to, that is. I can enter you in the database too.”
“No, I have no desire to command the ship.” He clapped Cyrus’s shoulder. “It’s why I have you.”
Cyrus bowed his head. “I’ll be back shortly.”
“Take that one with you,” Dagr said, indicating the large Outlander who couldn’t keep his gaze off his captain.
“His name is Baraq Ata,” Cyrus murmured. “By the way he fidgets every time you disappear with the lovely Honora, I believe he’s been intimate with her.”
Dagr breathed deeply, eyeing the man. “Give him to the princess. She wants to learn the ship. He can be her guide.”
Cyrus laughed. “Do you think to make them bond over their hatred for you? That could be dangerous.”
“Birget would never betray a Viking for an Outlander’s cause, no matter how angry she is with me. Baraq will do nothing to expose Honora to harm. But their mutual distrust will keep them busy.”
Cyrus shook his head, then laughed softly. Turning, he lifted a hand. “Baraq!”
Baraq’s guarded gaze sliced toward Cyrus. Cyrus beckoned him, then strode off the deck, not waiting to see if Baraq would follow.
Baraq looked at Dagr, but Dagr didn’t betray a thought with his expression, letting the man make up his own mind whether this was at his behest.
“Best not keep him waiting, Baraq,” Honora said softly.
Baraq tightened but ducked his head in a reluctant nod.
Honora swung to Dagr, and raised a finely arched eyebrow. The woman was far too clever.
Remembering Cyrus’s warning, Dagr dug his fingers into the chair’s arms and hardened his expression.
Nine
Birget eyed the silent man striding in front of her. He was tall for an Outlander, certainly taller than she. Swarthy skin and black eyes lent him an edgy, masculine, and almost sinister beauty, which made her nipples tingle and her core soften. A wretched reaction to a man who was far, far beneath her notice. Still, the steadiness of his gaze when he’d been assigned her, and then the stubborn tilt of his jaw, spoke of an inner core of strength. Hel, even his close-cropped black hair appealed. She had the overwhelming urge to scrape her fingers through it and see if the texture was as silky as it looked.
“Shouldn’t you be telling me what you’re showing me?” she asked, wanting to break the silence. He’d barely spoken a word since Cyrus left them together.
“Do you really care what you’re seeing?” he muttered, glancing back.
She shrugged, really not all that interested. But she did want him talking. His accent was lilting to her ears, his tone deep and naturally sensual. “I guess I should care. It seems as though we will be here a while. I could get lost,” she said, her tone teasing, but he didn’t smile. Which annoyed her. She was flirting for the first time in her life and he didn’t seem to notice. Maybe she should have practiced more.
They strode down another gray metal corridor with oval doors on each side. She sighed, bored and getting angrier by the moment. Dagr was trying to keep her busy and away from the command deck where everything was happening. And the man he’d assigned to accompany her had no respect for her rank or interest in her as a woman. Perhaps she should challenge him to a fight. At least then she could lose a little of the tension that kept her mood brittle.
Baraq halted unexpectedly, and she nearly plowed into his back.
He turned and speared her with a dark scowl. “Why are you with them? You’re the only woman among them. And it’s obvious Dagr wanted to drop you on the planet. Why would you resist?”
Again, Birget shrugged. Truth be told, she’d defied Dagr because she enjoyed annoying the Wolfskin leader. “If he had left me behind, I’d have been under guard, every movement and word weighed and judged. I am not a Wolfskin, you see.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s supposed to mean something to me?”
“I come from a kingdom at war with the Wolfskins. The Black Wolf is my sworn enemy.”
“And yet you fought to accompany him.”
“Why should he and his clan have all the glory?”
Baraq shook his head, his lips curling in disgust. “Since you are all probably going to die, I don’t see the precious glory.”
She halted and looked him up and down. “You seem like a warrior.”
Baraq planted his hands on his lean hips. “And I can’t be a warrior if I’m not willing to die for a lost cause?”
“It’s not lost. We will prevail.”
“Because you believe your Black Wolf is invincible?”
She snorted, straightening as tall as she could to make her gaze level with his. “No, we will prevail because you are weak.”
His jaws ground together. “Really, Princess?”
Birget arched a brow. “Look at you. Did you see how easily we took you, with swords and fists against your modern stun guns?”
“You surprised us. That’s all. But without one of our own, a traitor to us, you couldn’t continue to hold this ship.” His hand waved in dismissal. “You haven’t the necessary skills or training.”
“Are you saying we are stupid?” she bit out. “Too primitive to best you?”
“I’d be a fool to say that,” he drawled, “seeing as how you’re the one holding the weapon.”
She stepped closer, so close her chest grazed his. “Do you want to go to the brig? There’s plenty of room there now.”
“Not particularly.”
“Would you like to have sex with me?”
Baraq blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Perhaps she’d been a little too militant. She lightened her expression and lowered her eyelids a fraction. “There’s not much else to do aboard this ship.”
“So why not choose one of your superior specimens of manhood?”
She canted her head and sniffed at his neck. “They don’t smell as good. You smell sweet. You wear perfume like a woman.”
His body stiffened. “I wear a man’s scent.”
She leaned back her
head to see his expression. “To entice your pretty captain?”
His cheeks flushed, and his eyes glittered angrily. “Is there something else I can show you? The latrines? The waste disposal unit? I can demonstrate their use.”
“You could show me this,” she said, cupping his cock. “Your suits hug your loins immodestly. I’ve watched it grow. You want me.”
Baraq wrapped his fingers around her wrist and dragged it slowly from his sex, so slowly her fingers traced his entire length through his trousers. The man was semi-aroused. So why did he figh her?
“Don’t you understand the word no? I may be aroused, but I still have the choice of whether I act on a physical response to a woman.”
She tugged her arm, trying to free herself, but he held her a moment longer before he opened his fingers.
Birget spun on her heels and headed back toward the hold.
“Woman, we’ve already been there,” he called after her. “You have no sense of direction.”
“I’m sure one of your crewmates will be more than willing to give me what I want.”
She widened her stride, head held high, but she didn’t get far before he caught the top of her shoulder and spun her. He pushed her against the corridor wall, knocking the breath out of her, which excited her beyond all good sense.
“Why is it that I think this has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with your leader?” Baraq said, crowding his lean, muscular body closer to hers. “Will he care if you fuck your way through the crew?”
She tightened her jaw and narrowed her eyes.
He shoved his knee between her legs and slid it upward until his hard thigh pressed against the juncture of hers. “Will he care?”
“What is it to you why I do this?”
“Because I’m only interested in fucking you if he will care.”
Birget huffed out a breath, eyeing the rigid cast of his features. He was every bit as angry with the wolf as she was. Was it because of the woman?
Birget gave herself a mental shake. She didn’t really care why. Only that she’d have him and make sure Dagr knew she didn’t give a damn about keeping her virtue intact for her husband. She’d have preferred taking Dagr as a lover, just to make sure Eirik always knew he’d had her first. But this man would do.
Already her body heated to the harsh set of his jaw and the strength of the thigh tucked so close to her sex.
She bit her lip and rubbed her pussy on him, liking the way the rough wool of the trousers she’d borrowed scraped against her folds. Her sex was moistening, her clitoris swelling.
“You’re called Baraq,” she whispered, unwilling to fuck him without at least names being exchanged. Sex for revenge’s sake needn’t be a cold act.
“Baraq Ata.” His eyes darkened, and he slid his curved forefinger underneath her chin and tilted her head toward his. “And you?”
Such a small, but tender action. And it caused her sex to flood with moisture. Was that why he did it? Because he wanted her fully aroused, or because he valued the gift she would give him? “I am Birget.”
“Sounds harsh,” he whispered. “And yet your skin is soft, your curves feminine.”
“It means ‘protector.’ Our language always sounded harsh and primitive to your people. You tried to stamp it out. Made us adopt yours. But we kept our names, and some of the old ones preserve the language for the day we return to Midgard.”
“Do you really want to talk history right now?” he said, his lips hovering just above hers.
“No.” But she was a little nervous. His hands roamed her body, delving beneath the layers of fur and wool to glide over her back and sides, seeming to shape her curves with firm caresses that pulled her closer and made her gasp with the pleasure of the sensation.
“I want a bed beneath your back,” he rumbled, dragging his lips along her cheek.
“Hurry.”
He lowered his thigh from between her legs, grabbed her hand, then pulled her toward a corridor, up a circular ladder to another constrictive passageway. They arrived breathless and grinning in front of a door that he swept open and gestured for her to enter. The room was small, smaller than the room that housed her clothing at home. But there was a bed, the blanket pulled taut, the pillow fluffed, the casings free of any wrinkles. A soldier’s neat and meticulous bed.
He closed the door behind them and strode toward the bed, pulling back the covers, then turning to her. His hands made quick work of the laces that held together the fur vest and the tunic beneath it. When he found the metal breastplate beneath her clothing, he raised an eyebrow, but didn’t pause as he raised it over her head. Then he eyed the stretchy cloth she’d used to bind her breasts close to her chest and reached for the knife at her side.
She inhaled sharply, having forgotten about her weapons and the fact that she was alone with a warrior who might be able to take her, but his steady gaze challenged her not to move as he pulled the knot tied over the binding and cut it. Her hand clutched the fabric against her chest. Her harsh breaths shivered through her.
When he slowly slid her blade back into the sheath, she couldn’t take her gaze from his eyes because they smoldered, the slow slide of the blade drenched in sensual tension so ripe, so compelling, that a curl of heat tightened around her core. She squeezed her thighs together and dragged shivering breaths between her pursed lips.
His hand covered the one she held against her chest, and he cupped the back of her head with the other and tilted it. He would kiss her now. She knew because his gaze fell to her lips. She wet them with her tongue, eager to feel the press and warmth.
But before he bent to take her mouth, he squeezed her hand and pulled gently. She released the cloth that whispered to the floor.
He inhaled and cupped one breast, his thumb sliding over the pink crest, causing the nipple to tighten. His gaze met hers. He bent slowly, his lips sliding over hers, then opening.
She opened to him as well, accepting the thrust of his tongue, then sucking to draw it deeper, because her body was beginning to rock against the erection bulging at the front of his uniform. She needed something of his inside her.
Baraq broke the kiss first and turned her toward the bed built into the wall. When she stood with her knees against the mattress, he pulled the rest of her clothing away, and then pushed her down to sit on the edge.
He stood back, toed off his boots, shoved down his trousers. The skin-suit revealed his sex, molding around the shaft that filled and rested against one thigh. He released the fastening at the top of his collar and slid it down the suit, peeling it open. His chest was broad, the hair covering it as dense as a Viking’s but straighter, silkier-looking. She wanted to touch it to discover its texture for herself.
When he pushed the suit the rest of the way off and straightened, she couldn’t look away from the stalk rising from his groin—thick, with bluish veins that ran up and across the length of him. The skin that stretched around his cock was satiny and brown, the crown swollen and purple. A bead of moisture glistened at his opening, and she leaned forward without thinking and swept it away with her tongue.
His hands sank into her hair, and he pulled back her head. “Not yet,” he ground out. “I’d not last long.” Baraq turned her again, arranging her lengthwise on the mattress. Then he came down on top of her, his knees enclosing hers, his cock pressing into her belly and causing her core to cramp with need.
Having never had a naked man lying against her body, she blinked at him, surprised at how pleasant and overwhelming it felt. Her nipples tightened, beading harder and scraping his chest every time he took a deep breath. His cock was steamy and hot, digging into her belly, and she knew it would come inside her, had watched men frigging with women in her own keep and knew how it was done, but she couldn’t quite believe his would fit inside her. Still, she wished he’d hurry so they could try.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to praise me,” she said, her throat tighten
ing. “I am here. I will do this with you. I won’t change my mind.”
He smiled even while a frown lowered his brows and once again gave him a sinister appearance. “Are you trying to rush me?”
“And if I were?”
“I’d say I have little power. You and your kind have taken my ship and my captain, but here, I have you trapped beneath me. I want to savor the moment. Any objections?”
The words reminded her how vulnerable she really was. Her mouth dried instantly. She shook her head. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a demon or a vengeful god?”
He kissed her mouth, then slid his lips along her cheek to her ear. “Never,” he whispered. “If I’m so frightening, why me?”
“I didn’t say I was scared of you, just that ... you’re so dark. And the way your eyebrows arch like a bird’s wing ...”
She lost her train of thought when he sucked the spot just behind and below her ear. Her toes curled.
Baraq scooted down her body, his tongue flickering, his lips suctioning. When he latched on to a nipple, she nearly screamed because the electric tether stretched between her nipple and her womb tightened and sparked. She undulated beneath him, rolling her thighs against his cock, trying to tell him with her body that she was ready for him to take her.
But he moved farther down, parting her thighs and pushing his knees between them. The wet, succulent sound her pussy made as it opened had her blushing, but he didn’t seem to mind and instead chuckled, low and husky, while he fingered her opening, tracing the edges of her folds down and up.
Lulled by the lazy caresses, her head rolled back and forth on the bed; her chest lifted and fell faster with her deepening breaths. He pushed against her inner thighs and she opened them, letting them fall to the mattress. The cooler air licking at her hot sex was enjoyable, but not nearly as much as his feather-soft touches.
When he slid the tip of a finger between her folds, she froze, in an agony of anticipation for him to slide inside her and ease the ache blooming in her pussy.
Birget reached above her for the pillow and shoved it beneath her head to elevate it so she could watch as he thrust his fingers inside.
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