Zarabeth had been kissed before, furtive little forays, but nothing like this. And then he said against her mouth, his breath warm and sweet from honey mead, “Open your mouth to me. I want to taste you.”
She did, without hesitation. His arms went around her and he drew her upward, his hands clasping her firmly at the waist. And he didn’t stop kissing her. Deeply, then light nipping bites, followed by soothing licks, and she responded. She didn’t seem to have a choice, and when she did respond, he immediately stopped and straightened. He smiled down at her, that triumphant smile that made her want to laugh and punch him in his lean belly at the same time.
“You see how good I make you feel?”
“ ’Twas just a simple kiss, nothing more. Any man’s mouth could make me respond thus.”
He kissed her again, then several more times, each kiss more probing than the preceding one. Once again he didn’t stop until she responded fully to him. His look was filled with such pleasure when he released her this time that she did nothing at all, simply stared up at him, wishing he’d kiss her again. She felt his strong hands roving up and down her back, warm hands and big, hands that would give her endless pleasure, hands that would keep her safe.
“Good morning, Zarabeth,” he said at last. “You were here waiting for me. That pleases me. I like your taste and the softness of your mouth. In the future you will open your mouth to me without my having to instruct you.”
She nodded, words stuck in her throat.
He leaned down and lightly kissed the tip of her nose. He was smiling. He was completely certain of her now. “Did you speak to your stepfather?”
Her foolish besottedness faded and she was once again here with a man she’d never seen in her life before yesterday. She shook her head. “He asked me if something was wrong,” she said, looking toward Micklegate, the main great street of York.
“Why?”
“He thought I seemed different; he noticed I was somehow bemused, I suppose.”
“Naturally,” he said, and his arrogance made her smile. “Why didn’t you speak to him of me?”
“I did, finally, but not about what you wanted. I wasn’t really certain that it was what you really wanted. Me, that is. You could have changed your mind.”
“I have told you I do not lie. I am not pleased with you, Zarabeth. I want to wed with you, and that is that. It should not have been difficult for you to tell him what you wanted and what would happen. I will go to his shop now. I have trading to do and he is as honest as most merchants here. I will deal with both my furs and you.”
She grabbed his sleeve, panic filling her. “Wait, Magnus, please. You must understand something about my stepfather. He seems jealous of men who pay attention to me. I don’t know why, truly, but ’tis true, and it frightens me.” To her chagrin, Zarabeth actually wrung her hands. Again she was shocked at herself. However, that action, so utterly female, touched him as nothing else could have.
He smiled down at her, lightly caressing her cheek with his knuckles. “Don’t worry, little one, I will take care of Olav the Vain.”
“I’m not at all little.”
“You are to me.” He paused, looking at her, stopping at her breasts. “I want you naked, Zarabeth, and I want you beneath me. I want to kiss your breasts and fit myself between your legs. It tries me to wait to have you.”
She caught her breath. She thought she had come to understand him just a bit; then he would catch her off-guard, shocking her, making her turn red with the explicitness of his words.
She turned away, looking down at the muddy rivulets that ran black near her booted feet. There was refuse everywhere, by the well, from both human and animal. She breathed in deeply. The air was filled with human and animal smells, few of them pleasant. The air itself seemed heavy with the weight of people, always people, too many people. She said suddenly, “This valley where you live, Magnus, it it clean?”
“The air is so pure you will want to suck it into the very depths of you. There are more and more people in the valley each year, for the land is fertile and they want to survive and thus seek to work for me, but there is still enough space for all of us and our boundless fields. There is not the filth of towns like York, Zarabeth.”
She was silent.
“I will take you to Kiev someday. There the air is so sharp and pure and cold it hurts you to breathe. Then it rains and snows and you want to die from the endlessness of it all. You see, if you chance to sail into Kiev too late in the fall, why, then you could be forced to remain until spring. The river freezes, you know, and you are a captive for at least six months.”
She looked at him then, and there was hunger in her eyes, such hunger that it startled him with its intensity, and he continued, wooing her with the magic of the places he was painting with words. “And the steppes, Zarabeth, nothing but miles and miles of thick dry grass, and then suddenly there’s nothing but stretches of barren land for as far as the eye can see. No trees, no bushes, nothing, just that endless savage land. Little survives on the steppes. They are awesome in their primitive beauty. The people who live there are savage and give no quarter. But then again, you would expect none, for they are as they are because they must be to endure.”
“You would truly take me to see these places?”
He nodded. “Aye, I’ll take you trading with me. But when we reach Miklagard, I will have to take care to protect you, cover your hair and your face with a veil, for the men there would seek to capture you from me. The vivid red of your hair”—he touched his palm to her braids—“and the green of your eyes, aye, they would want you and they would try to take you from me.”
“I remember Ireland, the vivid green of the trees and grass. It rained so much there, you see, more than it does here, and the colors were richer, almost lavish, and they blinded the eye. But there was always fighting, endless attacks by the Vikings on the Irish and by the Irish on the Vikings, and so much misery, and it never stopped. My father died in one of the attacks.” She stopped, gazing again around the square. “But this is a vastly different place and I have grown to a woman here. There is much here that interests me, mistake me not, and I have many friends, but...” She broke off, struggling to explain, but she couldn’t find the words to suit her feelings. She shrugged. “I grow foolish.”
“Nay, not foolish, merely you have a Viking’s longing for other places, the longing to taste the endless variety of the world. Everything I learn about you pleases me. Once you’ve wedded me, the life you wish will begin.”
“You make it sound so very easy, so effortless. I have never found life to be so accommodating.”
“It is. You must simply trust me and believe in me. Give yourself to me.”
