Page 120 of The Caged Viking

“What? You don’t want to know why I had two sets of arm rings?”

“At this moment, I do not care if you have ten sets. Enough blather!” He picked up the top edge of the bed fur covering her and flipped it up and back to land at the foot of the bed.

“Hauk! I’m getting cold.”

“You won’t be cold for long. Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The tattoo.”

“I was saving that for later.”

“Well, there’s no saving this.” He cupped himself, then put one knee on the edge of the mattress and swung the other knee over her body, managing to land exactly where he wanted, skin to skin.

“I can see your point,” she said, raising her hips a little, which caused his enthusiasm to become more enthusiastic, pressing against her belly.She was probably being sarcastic, but he was beyond caring.

“Are you still cold?” he asked.

“You’re better than a bed fur any day, babe, but, yeah, I’m still a little chilled.” She put her arms around his shoulders. “A few kisses might heat my blood.”

“Kisses? I’m beyond that now.”

“I thought you liked our kisses. I could reapply my lip gloss.”

“Later,” he said. “Must we talk?”

“Just one thing. I love you, Hauk. If we love each other, we can work all the little details out.”

“The little details!” he exclaimed with consternation. “Like your deserting me? Like your pretending to melt your arm rings? Like you sobbing your eyes out when you’re finally in my arms?”

“Minor speed bumps on the road to love,” she proclaimed airily. “You do love me, don’t you?” The slight quiver of her lips told him that she was actually unsure what his answer would be. Foolish woman!

“My hands are shaking. My brain is spinning. My stomach is churning. My knees are wobbling. My heart is racing. My cock is throbbing.” He ran out of bodily descriptions and shrugged. “Must be love. Or else I’m suffering from herfjöttr, or war fetter, like some head-battered berserker.” He paused to consider that last possibility. “Nay, it must be love.”

“You’re never going to let me forget that Cosmo article, are you?” She smiled.

His racing heart skipped a beat and seemed to grow and grow. If a smile could do that to him, he wondered what a more overt expression of her pleasure would do to him. He could scarce wait to find out.

He grew more serious then as he began to make love to his wife. He wanted to go hard and deep, to imprint himself inside her so that she would never leave again. A fanciful thought! Like those lamebrained poets who spoke of lovers becoming one. That’s what she was turning him into…a fanciful dolthead. And so it was with special care that he made slow love to his wife.

And she returned that slow love right back at him. Kiss for kiss. Caress for caress. Moan for moan.

But then…

He couldn’t believe it, but then…

As he wet her ear with the tip of his tongue, then blew it dry, over and over, an erotic technique he knew she enjoyed, as evidenced by her little sighs and shivers…but then she insisted on talking. “I had my brother make me a separate set of arm rings, not because I plan to go back, but just in case there is some emergency.”

“Like?” he asked, meanwhile moving lower to lick her nipples into hard points. Another of her special erotic places that Hauk had discovered on earlier occasions.

She arched her back to give him better access and remarked, “Oh, I don’t know. A plague or something.”

“A plague! We have ne’er had a plague in the Norselands afore. Unless you know something that is to come in the future.” He shot up to a sitting position, his buttocks resting on her thighs. “Oh, my gods! What will it be? Locusts? Boils? Frogs? Disease?”

“No, no, no! I don’t know about any specific plagues. It was just an example of an emergency that could occur.”

“I swear, you will be the death of me,” he said, lying back down over her.