PROLOGUE
“Oh, God, Sven! Harder. Yes! Just like that. Ah, yeeeessss…”
Sven grunted his approval at the woman’s unfettered and very vocal enthusiasm. How often had he heard those words over the years? Dozens of times. And yet today…today they sounded different. From the heart. The woman under him, so soft and luscious, felt different, which was no wonder.
Because everythingwasdifferent.
Though he was by no means an untried lad, and he’d had his share of women, Sven had never taken a woman to his bed without getting to know her beforehand, without even knowing her name. And yet here he was, buried deep into this unknown woman’s heat and marveling at everything she did. She was wholly unrestrained, telling him what she liked, expressing her pleasure and her needs in the most honest way.
He’d not been able to resist the admiration in the Saxon’s black eyes when he’d caught her staring at him earlier. He’d been exiting the hut, ready to go into the forest, and she had happened to be walking past at that exact moment. The naked desire he’d seen on her face had singed each and every one of hisnerve endings. The connection between them had been palpable, almost visible. Sven could no more have resisted it than he could have stopped himself from hurting if someone had shot an arrow through his chest. He’d held out his hand to her, and after the briefest of hesitations, she had taken it.
He’d closed the door and told her his name was Sven. The only reason he’d only told her was because he’d hoped she would scream it when pleasure overcame her. When he’d sat her on the table she had let out a sigh so filled with lust that he’d feared for a moment he would unman himself. His head had disappeared underneath her skirt before she could say anything else.
A moment later, he’d heard what he wanted to hear. His name, uttered on a long, raspy moan.
By the gods, every moment from then on had been spectacular. He’d made her erupt more times than he could remember. And now, at last, it was time for him to let go. He reared up and brought both her legs up onto his left shoulder. If she wanted it harder, he would give her harder; if she wanted more, he would give her more. Because he, too, needed more, needed to be deeper, needed to become a part of her, like she was already part of him.
Knowing this wouldn’t be the last time he reached his release that day, he withdrew before his seed shot out of him in a series of uncontrollable spurts. For a long moment, the Saxon remained there, limp, her stomach drenched with the pearly substance. Marked as his in a primal, indisputable way. The male in him roared his satisfaction.
She was his. There would be no going back after this. Deep down, Sven knew it. She was his.
“What have you done to me, woman?” he mumbled in Norse, knowing she wouldn’t understand him. They would talk tomorrow once he’d gotten his sanity back. For now, he was too bewildered. “What the hell have you done?”
1
EAST ANGLIA, SUMMER 1073
“Are you all right, my dear? You sound tired.”
Eahlswith gave the old man’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Trust him to know how she was feeling, even if he could barely see. And in truth she was tired, not that she could tell Osbert the reason why. She had spent the night being thoroughly debauched by a big, hulking Norseman called Sven.
Sven.
She only knew his name because he’d told her before burying his face between her thighs with the obvious intent of making her scream it out loud—which she had, only a moment later, when his scandalous tongue had catapulted her into a place she wasn’t sure was altogether of this realm.
He’d been without a doubt the most wicked, the most generous and the most insatiable lover she had ever had but other than that, and that he looked indecently handsome, she didn’t know anything about him.
Their meeting had been completely fortuitous and what had followed, little more than folly, an indulgence she had allowed herself in a moment of madness. As she was exiting her friend Cwenthryth’s hut after her visit to her newborn daughter andgetting ready to walk back home into town, she had turned her head in time to see a man coming out of his house bare-chested.
Not just a man, but surely the human equivalent of a Norse god.
Grinding to a halt, she had stared at the most perfect example of masculine beauty she had ever seen—or was ever likely to see again. Everything that made other men appealing had somehow been enhanced in him. His hair was long and clean, of a stunning golden color and braided around the temples. His eyes were of a blue as cool as the fire in them burned hot. His chest, his arms, his hands even, every inch of him was utter perfection.
All the female parts within her had surged at the same time.
Her nipples had gone hard, her core had burst into flames, her tongue had darted out of her mouth to come lick at her suddenly too dry lips. After a long, tension-filled moment during which their gazes had locked, he’d held out his hand to her and it had seemed the natural thing to take it, even knowing what it entailed. She’d followed him into the hut. Doing anything else would have been unthinkable. As soon as he had closed the door, he had taken her into his arms and whispered that his name was Sven. Before she could reply, he’d sat her on the table and proceeded to lick her until she’d screamed the name he’d just given her in a series of shocking cries.
After that, he had not let her go until he’d finally collapsed by her side late into the night, as spent as she was.
Never had she been so well pleasured, nor for so long. The handful of lovers she’d had in the last five years had not been as determined to ensure her total and complete satisfaction as the Norseman. One release had not been enough for him, or even three. Even with Edwin, she had not reached such dizzying heights. No, she had not, and that was precisely the problem. Precisely why she felt so wretched.
A new wave of guilt sliced through her.
She did not regret giving in to her impulse, after all it was not the first time she had allowed herself to act on her desire for a man, even if, admittedly, she usually got to know them before she allowed them to take her to bed. But she had not anticipated that this wild lovemaking would open something inside her. How could a complete stranger threaten to force his way into her soul when the other men she had taken to her bed since Edwin’s death had not even scratched its surface? It was frightening, and the reason why she had left the hut in the middle of the night, before Sven could stop her.
She had fled as soon as she’d been certain he was asleep, unable to deal with whatever unexpected wave of emotion had submerged her, ashamed at the sacrilegious thoughts fluttering in her mind.
“I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep, don’t worry,” she told Osbert, forcing joviality into her voice.
