He set the cream on the bed, sat down, and without a word, pulled her into his arms. He rubbed his large hands down her back, only to remember that her back must still be sore from the beating Thrasco had given her. He rubbed her scalp, just holding her with one arm loose around her back. He said things to her, words that had little meaning to him, to her, just words, but their tone was gentle and reassuring, and he supposed, vaguely, that was what was important. He realized he might be holding Taby, stroking him, telling him everything would be all right because he, Merrik, was here now and he would take care of him, he would protect him with his life.
She moved against him and then he felt her breasts.
She wasn’t a child and he felt like a fool. No, she wasn’t a child and he felt a surge of lust for her. It was unexpected and he didn’t like it. She was Taby’s sister. It was just that it had been a long time since he’d had a woman, too long. But, of course, he remembered the softness of her, the feel of her when she’d hugged herself to him in Kaupang.
He didn’t intend it, but he kissed her temple, felt her soft hair tickle his cheek, his nose.
“It’s all right,” he said again, but now his voice was deep and hoarse with his burgeoning need. “I won’t hurt you.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she hiccuped. His hands came around to close around her chin and he lifted her face. Tears were wet on her cheeks and she was gulping for breath. Her eyes and nose were red, her hair was loose from its braids and straggling over her forehead. She looked as appetizing as a gutted herring, and he thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
And he wanted her.
In that moment, he forgot Taby, forgot that this was Taby’s sister. He leaned forward and kissed her. The second time. He tasted the salty tears, and something else, something sweet and dark and mysterious, something that had no part of either of them separately, but something that was both magical and an odd enchantment when he touched her mouth, when the two of them came together. It was something he’d never experienced before; it was something he wanted for himself, and he wanted it badly. He was a man with a man’s needs and she was here alone with him. She belonged to him.
She wasn’t moving. Yet he wanted her even more now. He kissed her again, harder this time, willing her to part her lips, but he realized suddenly that she very probably had no idea what to do. And that stopped him cold. She was innocent in deed, if not in what she had witnessed during the last two years.
She didn’t know how to kiss him. He started to say something, to pull away from her, but suddenly, she leaned forward, her hand came up to touch his cheek, and she kissed him. Her lips were soft and firmly together and she just pressed them to his mouth, but it was a kiss and it was she who was freely offering it. A virgin’s kiss.
He opened his mouth slightly and let the tip of his tongue lightly touch her mouth. She jumped. Then, to his surprise and pleasure, she leaned into him, and this time her lips were sightly open as well.
He felt the surge of lust throughout his body, not just his groin. He was swelled and ready, but that wasn’t all there was to it. He felt that mystery again, felt that something deep and still hidden from him, felt it moving within him, pushing him toward her, and knowing even as he felt those odd feelings that coming together with her would change his life. He fought it even as it swamped him, lured him toward her. Surely she was just a woman, and he’d known many women, but at the same time, she was just herself and like none other. He drew away from that. It struck fear in him, for he believed a man must remain unto himself and not give himself over to anyone else, particularly a woman, particularly this woman who was scarce a woman really, just a girl who was so thin that surely she wouldn’t have the strength to take him as a man, and she was Taby’s sister. He had not saved her to ravish her. He had not saved her to hurt her.
No, he saved her because she was Taby’s sister, nothing more, nothing less. Suddenly, he saw her as he’d seen her so long ago now, aye, ages ago, it seemed, yet not really, but he saw her very clearly in his mind’s eye—the ragged boy, defeated yet as proud and defiant as he was himself, standing there, helpless, in the slave pit of Khagan-Rus. No, he’d looked at her and looked again and he knew now that what he had felt was different, for she had touched him with the essence of herself. He would never be free of her just as he would never be free of Taby.
He supposed that right now, at just this moment, he didn’t want to be free of her, didn’t want to rail against it and try to protect himself, for his lust for her was grinding him down. When her tongue lightly touched his, he gave it up.
There was no rape here. If he hurt her because of her thinness, so be it. He would try not to, but...
He pulled her down and came over her. The feel of her beneath him made him want to shout and groan and come into her, all in the same instant. His hand was wild on the skirt of her gown, and he was jerking it up, his movements frantic. His fingers scraped against her bare leg and she jerked and cried out.
At first he didn’t realize what had happened. Then he knew. He’d hit her burned leg and hurt her. He drew a deep breath, feeling his whole body shudder with the force of the control he was trying to find within himself.
Her breasts were heaving against him, but now it wasn’t desire or even a girl’s excitement in the unknown, it was the pain he’d just brought her. He gathered her up against him and whispered against her ear, “I’m sorry. Damnation, I hurt you. I have the cream. Hold still and soon the pain will lessen.”
Laren lay there, breathing hard from the curious mixture of intense pain and feelings that she herself couldn’t begin to describe. She just knew that she’d never felt such things before, in such places, and it was wonderful and she wanted them again. She didn’t want them ever to stop. She didn’t want him to stop, but he had because he’d hurt her. She looked at him now and he was flushed, his hands none too steady.
She felt his fingers, chill with the cream, lightly touch her leg and she gasped, the pain making all the other feelings recede. She tried not to cry out, but she couldn’t help it.
He said nothing, just looked up at her and saw that she was crying and her eyes were closed, the tears just seeping from beneath her lashes and trailing down her cheeks.
He saw the print of his fingers on her still-red flesh. He gently rubbed in the cream. Actually, her leg looked much better. If there would be scarring, it would be slight. He began a gentle rhythmic motion and stuck to it. His desire was nearly gone, and for that he was grateful. He would find a woman this night and drain his desire so this wouldn’t happen again. Then he realized he could not leave her, could not leave this sleeping chamber. He was in here with his concubine and none must doubt it, least of all his brother.
“How is your back?”
She got control of herself. No more damnable tears, no more weak moans and groans. The cream was leaching out the pain. She could manage it now. “My back is fine, Merrik. My leg is better too.”
He should look at her back, but the thought of her naked made his belly seize with cramps. But he’d seen her naked before and it hadn’t particularly moved him. But that had been before he’d kissed her and held her hard against him and touched his tongue to her lips, to her tongue, breathed in the scent of her, felt the wondrous feelings that had passed between them, locking them together in that brief instant of time. It was beyond what he could understand or accept. He hadn’t come inside her; he hadn’t spilled his seed in her and come to his release. No, it was just the simple kissing, the holding of her close to him, and those simple acts had brought him to the edge. He had never lost himself before, certainly not with the simple matter of sex, certainly not in the simple things that came before sex. It wouldn’t happen to him now. It would never happen to him. He wouldn’t allow it. He would look at her back, rub in more of the cream if necessary, and it would be as it had been before.
But he wouldn’t kiss her again. He wasn’t that great of a fool.
He said, his voice so stiff and cold it surprised him more than it did her, “I will help you off with your clothes. I will look at your back. You know nothing, for you can’t see yourself. Now, stop arguing with me.”
Actually, she hadn’t said a word. He helped her sit on the side of the box bed. He untied the knots of the tunic at her shoulders and pulled it over her head. He unlaced the front of her gown and eased it down to her waist. She wore only a plain linen shift beneath, the one he’d bought for her at the market in Kaupang. He didn’t want to notice but he did. It was tight on her, her breasts crushed against the material. He knew he had to get her onto her stomach quickly.
Once she was facedown, he pulled her gown and her shift down to her waist. He brought the oil lamp closer. The marks from Thrasco’s whip were still clear, long narrow marks that crisscrossed her back. The ugly redness had given over to pale pink now, there was no puffiness, no red angry or dark lines radiating out from the marks, or any other sign of illness. Still, the cream couldn’t hurt. He scooped up two fingers full of cream and began to massage her back. She was stiff as a board, but he said nothing, just continued to rub her, his touch lightly stroking. Soon, he felt her ease. Soon after that she moaned with the pleasure of it and he had to smile.
He should rub in the cream every night. Her body was tense too and he rubbed her shoulders. She moaned again.
