When it was so perfect here—and it was prefect—when even her toes had had forgotten what it was to be encased by soft satin, and they slept beneath the chilled satin of the stars at night, why spoil it, even thinking that?
She could not tell him about Cyril. He would never understand it. Already his behaviour with the dress had demonstrated a jealous side. She didn’t do more than kiss her supposed husband to get here but she had done more than kiss this man. The truth wouldn’t just require his belief, it would require his trust.
As for Snotra? Malice wrapped her arms around her knees and opened her eyes. Despite this, despite being here in a place that might be perfect, when there were those who prayed for rescue she must also pray . . . that if they were it would be all right.
She could surely deal with a few pigs trotting around the floor, the chickens too, by putting them out, couldn’t she? Together they would build barns. Because she knew, she knew perfectly it was Snotra who had him that way. He wasn’t going to go back to Snotra. Heavens. The amount of times he’d made love to her would surely have secured that. It was worth risking herself each time to ensure it.
“Did you go to the camp?”
He seemed confident of rescue. They all did. But three weeks was three weeks. She didn’t need him to tell her the men were growing impatient.
“Where do you think I got the fish?” He leaned forward, his hair falling like a curtain across his darkly stubbled jaw. “To keep our sea witch happy. I told them I was doing my best.”
“Really?” If the men were getting impatient, it was probably folly but he was so deliciously close, longing tingled. Besides if it was dangerous, would his lips quirk quite like that? So she wanted to feel them on hers. So she wanted to feel them on hers. She wanted to sweep the ends of his hair back too. My God, for all he was a man, his hair was always so unexpectedly soft beneath her fingertips, it drew them automatically. “And did you tell them how?”
“Hmm.” He pressed his mouth to hers. The kiss was gentle and all too short. She tried prolonging it but he drew his lips back. “I should add some of them thought they could do better.”
He was joking, wasn’t he? All right, she knew her situation was precarious and in that respect it was better not to think it too much about it. Rather to acknowledge that his breath wouldn’t hover quite so close to her lips unless he was joking. His eyes wouldn’t flicker like that either. Lazily. No. If there was a problem he’d say so. There wasn’t, which was why she slid her hand over his back, drawing him closer so his body pressed against hers. Her palms sweated despite the fact the damp hem of her chemise clung to her thighs. Nor were her thighs all that was damp. “And what did you say?”
“What do you think I said?” He cocked a brow. “Malice, seriously, this isn’t a game. I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up.”
Seriously? When she’d edged across his thighs and it was perfectly obvious given what bulged against her sex he could certainly keep things up. Or was there a problem? And was it just she aroused him regardless? The thought filled her with something she’d seldom felt. A sudden thrill at her feminine power. “Well.” She brushed her lips over his. “I don’t know about me, but you’re doing a fairly good job.”
“Listen to me—”
“I am.”
She clasped the hand he pressed to her face. Really, she wished he wouldn’t trouble her when she had this in hand. Not only in the matter of lying. The matter of running Strictly. All right, maybe not right now but she was a business woman, wasn’t she? She could deal with people. It was one of the reasons that had made this so difficult to start with. He did not understand this. Snotra neither.
She especially wished he wouldn’t trouble her when what pounded through her didn’t give too much of a toss about listening to him. And everything about having him. “I am not only listening to you. I am always all ears where you are concerned. I’ll talk to them later. I swear. I’ll think of something to say. The Reindeer will come eventually.”
Heavens when her nipples pressed against his bare chest, the Reindeer wouldn’t be the only thing. A good job she wasn’t wearing drawers, they’d have burned to a cinder, what immolated her thighs and crotch in that instant. The hard feel of him in these tight trousers stretched across his own crotch, made her insides melt.
After all, the pair of them could run, couldn’t they? They could hide. And she would talk to the men later. Those who were disgruntled. It wasn’t even as if it was them all. When this was an exercise in restraint such as she had seldom known, did she want to be troubled with thinking about their adversaries?
Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to his, her heart skipping beats at the knowledge of her own power. At the groan that came from the back of his throat. So much so she lifted herself on her knees. Grasping the hem of the chemise, she tugged it over her head.
He clasped her bare thighs. That was more like it. Reason enough for her to slide her fingers inside his breeches? Forget slide.
She slipped off his thighs. Viking breeches were difficult things. He straightened one leg to peel them off. What flamed in that instant inscribed fire on her heart. Closing her eyes, she rose up, gripped his shoulders fiercely and straddled him. His erection rubbed along the seam of her sex, delicious friction jolting through her, forcing a moan.
A noise of pure ecstasy. The kind she’d failed to make the first night he’d asked her. He clasped her waist, drawing ragged breaths. His lips curved against hers. Longing for them to curve against other parts of her flooded. She rose back on her knees. All she cared about was feeling certain powerful inches of him inside her. She lowered her hips.
“Sin!”
Her mind froze horribly. What she was trying to do . . . with him. Sin, so sweet passion overwhelmed her and her veins suffused with milky warmth. A problem on an island teeming with men.
“Potlicker, where are you?”
On an island teeming with Ari too. He blundered down the hill, making as much noise as a herd of elephants, crashing through the bracken. She dragged a ragged breath. And not just Ari. Ragmoose, Gunkel, all of them. Oh my God, when she wasn’t just not wearing a stitch, she was straddling Sin Gudrunsson like one of her courtesans.
What was it she’d thought about talking to the men later, those who were disgruntled? She leapt for her chemise, the sheer folly of her failure thudding in her mind. Run? Her toes appeared to have sprung roots. The sand was sludge beneath her feet.
“Troll’s teeth.” He scrambled up, yanking at his breeches. “Stay here.”
Obviously she wasn’t going to stay here. Was he stupid? Ari thrashed his way down the slope, slipping and sliding, bounding too, his silver-gold plaits dancing around his face as he leapt from bracken clump to bracken clump. All these men could not be against her. But in some respects whether it was two or ten did not matter. Clasping her chemise against her chest, she sprung for the nearest bush. As she ducked behind fronds big as fists, Sin strode forward.
“Well? Troll’s teeth, don’t tell me I’m going to have to fight all of you again, because—”
“She’s yours and we’re going to have to pay you compensation. Well, have it in advance.” Coins clinked onto the sand. “Believe me.” Ragmoose yanked his sword from the cow-hide scabbard dangling at his hip. “It’s worth every silver sceatta to put an end to that witch.”
That witch? Malice peered at the bushes to the right of her, then at the celery stalks sprouting to the left, although it was perfectly clear there was no-one else about he meant, was prepared to pay compensation in advance for too. Her gaze roamed what glinted on the sand. Perhaps after all she should have paid a little more heed to the perilous nature of her position and a little less to the gifts of fish. A little less to Sin Gudrunsson too.
“Sin. I tried.” Ari ground to a halt. He bent forward, clutching his kne
es, trying to regain his breath. “They just wouldn’t listen.”
Malice pushed her quivering hand though her chemise and tugged it over her head. She had no idea what was going to happen, whether she could rely on herself, or not. But only the second cousin of an idiot would face these men naked, bolt from them naked either.
“Who wouldn’t listen? You, Ragmoose? Well, that’s a surprise. Who else here wants to add their silver to the pile?”
One, two, three, four, five, if the coins raining on the sand was anything to go by. Indignation tore Malice’s throat. She would, however, sooner swallow a river of crocodiles than take issue with it. There were times when crocodiles were good things to have around that way. Besides it could have been six, or even seven men who wanted rid of her.
As Sin stood there with his head bent, she wanted to say so but it didn’t seem politic. That might be to invite more. Already the lack of acceptance that stared her in the face cinched her chest like a steel band and made her heart pound, undercutting her thoughts she could belong somewhere. Did she want to make this worse for herself? She crouched lower behind the Dwarf Birch, which true to its name wasn’t that tall.
“It’s like this, Sin. No you stay back there.” Gunkel’s fist slammed Gilli’s chest.
“I have no argument with the fang-toothed troll. Most of us men here don’t. But she made promises. There’s Thor Thunderbones just wanting home to see his new son. And I don’t mind saying, you’re not the only one hoping to wed. Some of us are family men.”
Family men? That some people were simply not self-aware was undercut by the thought . . . hoping to wed. Even as she tried to push it away an image of Snotra rose, a glassy-eyed monster from the deep. Malice’s heart clenched. He couldn’t marry her. That was then. This was now.
Although now would count for nothing if she did not find a way out of this. She drew further behind the waving fronds, wincing as a stone cut into her sole. Running might be her only option but she would sooner swallow an elephant. She had never run from anything in her life.
Gunkel bared his blackened teeth stumps. “And then of course, some of us just want a woman to keep us warm at nights the same as you. Fair’s fair.”
All right. There was a first time for everything. Besides she had run. She had run that night from Cyril—their wedding night. Although running down the stairs was a mite different from this, she’d do it. Now. She took a step backwards into the shelter of the pines.
“Malice doesn’t keep me warm at nights. I keep her.”
The deep timbre of Sin Gudrunson’s voice reverberated through her. The reason? He scrunched forcefully over the sand towards her, his hand extended. “Now some of you here may think that’s an easy task. It’s not when our safety here depends on me getting it right. She’s a sea witch. Isn’t that so, Malice?”
The fine hair on the back of Malice’s neck stood up. Maybe it was so. How would she know? What she knew was she wasn’t stepping from behind this, or any other bush, letting this crowd see her half naked. She would sooner swallow a camel.
She wasn’t taking his hand either. She dragged her own free as his ice cool fingers clasped it as if he intended on hauling her out. The chemise was too short and her legs were on display. She knew by the look he shot them. She also knew how appetizing they were. She needed her hands to cover her modesty.
“And sea witches aren’t ordinary women. They have unusual tastes. Isn’t that so, Malice? They like finesse in a man.”
No. They didn’t. Not at this moment in time. What they liked was being left in peace. Terror bolted like a trapped rat across her scalp and down her spine. Dear God. What was this? An invitation to rape her? To think she had thought his recovery was good. Good? She shrunk back into the foliage although the chemise offered little protection against the pine branches poking her shoulders and tangling in her hair. She had always found the scent of forest greenery vaguely comforting before. Now it made her stomach churn, her nerves stand on end.
His jaw tightened. “But maybe she’d like her dress back first before she tells us about them, because sea witches don’t face rabbles in nothing.”
They didn’t. In fact they didn’t face them at all. Just as every nerve threatened to burst from her body, he stepped back. Wordlessly he strode to the little makeshift shelter he had constructed for them—no more than a canopy of conifer branches woven together and tied with pieces of sea-grass, a few yards away. Her chest contracted as he reached inside. Then it clenched when she saw the tattered green bundle he dragged out. Her dress. What there still was of it anyway. Her lips contorted around her frozen breath. He surely didn’t mean her to go over there and get it, did he?
“Well, Malice?”
He did. How could he? What was she meant to do? She could actually do with that dress to cover herself with and perhaps he thought it was better that she step out there. A few yards was only a few yards. She took a tiny step forward over the carpet of pine needles and moss. A few yards might be a few yards too many though if one of these men staring at her bare legs decided to do more than leer. She stopped, her throat scalding dry. At least he had the decency to stare the other way. He thrust the dress closer. Then, when she did not move, strode towards her, his face purposeful.
“Here.”
“Well, isn’t this time wasting all very fine?” Ragmoose’s eyes looked at her but through her. “She’s got that dress, let’s be having her out here. Hear what she’s got to say.”
She did indeed have the dress. Had stepped into the satin tangle lit by the sun too, despite her legs wobbling like jelly. Somehow her fumbling fingers lost hold of what was in them. As the dress slid back down her legs, Sin Gudrunsson caught it. Her hands balled into useless fists, ones that yet snatched the narrow sheath of satin from him in a bid to pull it over her hips. “Yes. Yes. If you will all of you just be so kind as to give me a moment?”
“You’ve had three weeks now.” Steel clanged as Ragmoose raised his sword. “Well, some of us know what we came here for. Clothed or not, doesn’t make a faen’s worth of difference.”
For the first time since she’d known him, sheer terror forked Sin Gudrunsson’s gaze, icy determination tightening the tanned skin over his cheekbones.
“Run, Malice.”
Run? She’d like to. But, how the blazes was she meant to run when her dress was tangled around her knees? When he didn’t even have his knife to defend himself with?
She gazed into her eyes. She had promised the Reindeer for three weeks now. If she could not run, could she promise it again? Somehow make them all believe it was out there, a flapping sail on the far horizon.
“Wait!” Aware of Ragmoose there behind Sin, she thrust her arms into her dress. “Touch me and I swear the Reindeer will never come back. It will sink in these same waters.”
“Not so deeply as you will when we’ve finished with you.” Ragmoose nodded. “Right, lads?”
She braced beneath the shock of being swept off the ground and then almost finding herself knocked back on that same ground as her head struck bone. Dear God, did Ragmoose intend using her as a battling ram against Sin Gudrunsson and Ari?
“It is there.” She swept a tendril of hair off her lips. “It . . . It . . . It . . .”
God in heaven above. It? It was no lie. A trick of the way she spun. First this way, then that, sand, trees and water swinging around her. That grey and yellow sail, swelling into sight and the sleek, distinctive dragon’s head bobbing in the waves, hugging the rocky promontory, was surely the Reindeer?
She strained harder, catching the gong’s boom like a mournful heartbeat across the bay. The Reindeer wasn’t the only thing heaving into view though. The woods were. If she ended in the woods with Ragmoose she was finished. “No. Look. Look. It is the Reindeer.”
Ragmoose heaved her higher on his shoulder
. “And I am my pretty Aunt Frigga. Now, let’s go, you and me have business to finish.”
Silence fell. A silence even he must listen to because that same silence was broken by deafening cheers. A chorus that must make him turn his head, see this wasn’t a lie? That she spoke the truth with every pathetic breath remaining in her body? And the fists she pummelled against his back?
The Reindeer was here. It had come back. Just as she had said it would. Surely this giant slug no-one seemed able to trample would put her down? The ground spun again as he swung around to face the sea and she fought to get her breath back. There was a smack. A resounding one. So close to her ear, it travelled the length of her quivering body.
“I think you should put Malice down, maggot mouth. She’s not yours. She’s Sin’s.”
And then her feet did sink into the soft sand. She toppled backwards, her breath tightening. Ari stood there, glaring from beneath his ragged brows, the wind fanning his hair, his face like an iron rampart. She closed her eyes. Ari. How she didn’t fall on the ground in that second she’d no idea. She caught her balance. Then she did almost sink to the ground. The gamble she’d taken on this, on that sleek ship surviving at all, seemed bigger than anything. This beach, the men on it, the sky and its universe of stars, each one seeming to dance at the back of her eyes for all it wasn’t dark.
She was safe.
She parted her lips. Snagged another breath. The laugh, the way Ari buried his forehead against Sin Gudrunsson’s shoulder found an echo in her own blood. Yes. They were safe. They really were. It was over. She was going to leave this beach and everything on it. Go back to Juggesland.
THE VIKING AND THE COURTESAN Page 24