Page 70 of The Caged Viking

She hated when he smiled like that. Actually she hated/loved his smiles. “Yes, that is a bad thing. Embarrassing.”

He sighed, obviously unable to understand, or maybe he just didn’t agree. With exaggerated patience, he asked, “How will they know, dearling?”

She hated/loved when he used such endearments with her. With a tsking sound of disgust, she waved a hand in front of her neck and chest. “The sex flush. It happens when a person has engaged in intercourse and climaxed. Blood rushes to the surface, and…oh, what difference does it make how it happens. Just know, it’s a telltale sign.”

He was frowning with confusion. “So, it doesn’t just happen when two people engage in sexplay? Just good sexplay? The kind that leads to a peaking?”

“Well, yes.”

He grinned some more.

She slapped his arm for the grin. “Stop smirking.”

He pressed his lips together to stop his grin. Then he studied her face and chest area. “I thought you were blushing,” he said and began to grin again.

She smacked him on the arm, again. “Don’t gloat. You’re flushing, too.”

“I am?” he glanced downward but was unable to see himself. “I have a sex flush?”

“Yep. So, let’s just eat something in the kitchen.”

Instead of being embarrassed like she was, he began to smile, slow and sexy. “You are a font of information, my wife. This time I enjoyed your lecture. Immensely. A sex flush! Imagine that!” He beamed at her, grabbed her hand, and yanked her forward to enter the hall where loud cheers greeted their entrance.

There were about fifty people sitting in loose groups on benches on both sides of the four long lines of trestle tables, half as many people as would be there normally, many having left during the lean years with no jarl in residence. Hauk had told her earlier that most of them would return in the spring, once word got out that Haukshire was again a thriving estate. Kirstin had to admire his confidence.

There were few women in the hall, aside from the serving maids, which didn’t surprise Kirstin, but she was surprised to see that many of the diners were servants. In many estates, even in the Norselands, a class system existed, and only the jarl and his family, his hersirs, and fighting men with their wives would be seated in the great hall. Once again, she had to admire Hauk, this time for his democratic attitude toward his people.

Just then, a bundle of brown fabric flew by them. It was the little boy, Gorm, whose homespun tunic was blowing back as he ran past them, his skinny legs pumping like mad. Immediately following were two boys, considerably larger, one of them with a goose egg prominent on his forehead, and the other sporting a bloody lip.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Hauk said, grabbing the older boys by the back of their tunics, lifting them a foot off the floor. “What are you bratlings doing? Each of you has at least two stone on that little mite.”

“Little mite? Little mite? That dirty bugger. I’m gonna kill Gorm and feed his guts to the pigs.”

“I’m gonna stomp on him like a maggot. A little mite maggot. Squish!”

Hauk set the boys in front of him and kept them in place with a heavy hand on each of their shoulders. “What did Gorm do to you that prompted this chase?”

“He hit me with a rock in a sling,” the boy with the goose egg told him with disgust.

“He put me boots in the manure pile,” the other boy said, swiping with the back of his hand at his bloody mouth.

Kirstin saw Hauk’s lips twitch with a barely suppressed smile.

“And what did you do to him first?”

The boys ducked their heads sheepishly, not even trying to deny Hauk’s good guess at culpability.

“’Tweren’t nothin’,” they claimed at the same time.

“We jist put a little bit of water in his bed furs.”

“What kind of water?” Hauk asked, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.

The little idiots looked downward toward their groins.

She looked at Hauk. “Did they pee on his bed furs?”

Once again, Hauk’s lips twitched. “It appears so.”