“I am soaked to the skin,” he agreed.
“I want to lick the moisture from you. All over.”
Desire leaped in his eyes. “Do ye, then?”
“Ah, ja. Then I want to do all those things I have been imagining for the past three days.”
“I should no’ wish to hamper ye.” He helped her off with her cloak.
She took it from him and spread it on the dirty floor. Removed her boots, one of which held the knife. Laid aside herother weapons that she’d donned before they left. “Help me off with this.”
Her tunic proved difficult to remove, it being wet, as did her leggings, the strips of leather that bound them tightened by the wet. He stood and watched as her body came to his view, and she could not tell what he thought.
Matter-of-factly, she said, “I am not a—a buxom kind of woman. I have no spare flesh. I work too hard for it. And I have no hips to speak of.” Her breasts, now peaking in the cool air, were firm and high. “Whatever I am, Quarrie MacMurtray, I am yours for this night.”Forever.
“Ye be perfect.” His gaze alone touched her, from the tumbled hair on her head to that below, and on down her legs. “Never doubt it.”
“Good. That is good.”
He shed his own cloak and, just as she had, the clothing beneath it. His body, long and lean, showed corded with muscle and rough with hair darker than that on his head.
When he caught her watching him, he slanted an amused look at her. “I am what I am, also.”
“Do you hear me complaining?”
A smile curved his lips. “I would no’ want ye to be disappointed after three days’ wondering.”
For answer, she moved into his arms. Placed her mouth against his wet shoulder and sucked off the rain. He drew in a breath, and just like that, desire came alive in the lowly place. No need at all for frivolous questions, or further wondering.
“Come,” he whispered. “Lie wi’ me.”
They had done this before, Hulda thought dreamily as he stretched out upon her cloak and drew her down atop him, pulling his cloak over them both, as she—keeping her promise—moved her mouth over him from the hollow of his throat, over the rippled muscles of his chest and stomach. The taste of himwas familiar. More than that, it was just as she’d imagined it to be. The scent of him, as she moved ever lower, brought back memories.Memories.
She kept her eyes shut against the intense pleasure of it, and feeling him, he might have been another man. One with a mane of dark-blond hair and sea-blue-green eyes. A name appeared unbidden in her mind.Deathan.
Whatever his name, he was the man she adored above all others.
An interesting dilemma, but as she traversed his body and made her way to something far more distracting, all other thoughts fled. He stood proud for her, did this man she desired.
Only for her. For her, always.
Unabashedly, as if she had done so a hundred times, she took him in her mouth.
He began to speak, what sounded like praying. Music to her ears. His hands closed around her head, fingers entwined in her hair, and he drew her from him.
“No’ yet. No’ yet.”
He pulled her up his body and she kissed his mouth. Her blood began to hum. A perfect state of being, this was. His mouth joined to hers. His flesh at her fingertips. She could ask no more because there was naught more to be had.
His fingers, rough with calluses, yet still incredibly gentle, found her breasts. Men were seldom gentle with her, she who lived and worked with them as an equal. It undid her, that he should touch her so.
She broke the kiss only to guide his mouth to her breast, a gesture of silent supplication.
No man owned Hulda Elvarsdottir, but she gave herself completely to this one.
And who could have convinced her, ever, that such sharp and beautiful bliss existed? That every part of her—blood, sinew,muscle—would want so intensely to be part of him that she could lose every restriction, could very nearly lose her words?
Because it happened that she could only manage to say, “Inside me. Now.” She had forgotten all other means of speaking in her tongue or his.
