Page 107 of The Last Viking

“Tell him we’ve stopped interviewing.” Meredith took off her reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She noticed then the paleness of Mike’s complexion and the way he held a fist to his mouth, as if to suppress some great emotion. “Are you sick?” she asked with concern, standing and moving to the side of her desk.

He shook his head. “I think you’ll want to meet this…applicant,” Mike insisted. “He’s perfect for the job.”

With that, he stepped back, calling over his shoulder, “Sonja and I will go pick up Thea at the school.”

Before she had a chance to react to Mike’s unsolicited offer, a very tall man started to back into the room, speaking softly to Mike as he entered. At first, all Meredith could see was long legs encased in loafers and designer jeans, and broad shoulders covered with a collarless, white linen dress shirt and a dark blue blazer.

But, no, she observed something else in that split second. Long, pale brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Just like…

Her heart lurched, then pounded madly against her chest as the man turned in what seemed an exaggerated slow motion. And a pair of familiar whiskey eyes clung to hers with staggering adoration.

As blood drained from her head, a wave of light-headedness swamped her. She grabbed onto the edge of her desk to prevent herself from fainting. She blinked once, twice, three times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. The proof stood before her still, eyes brimming with tenderness, waiting for her recognition. A Viking, to be sure, despite the modern trappings.

A sob escaped her tortured lungs.

“Dearling,” he rasped.

“Rolf!” she cried and threw herself into his arms. “You came back!”

At last! Geirolf thought when he got his first glimpse of Merry-Death. In that brief flash of time before she launched herself at him, he saw that she’d reverted back to drab brown braies and shert, and her luxuriant mahogany hair was pulled back into a nunlike knot at her nape.

He would change that soon enough, but for now he closed his eyes as an overwhelming rush of pleasure surged over him. His misery at being parted from Merry-Death had been a physical pain, he realized now. One touch from her and he was healed.

Kicking the door shut with his heel and flicking the lock with a snap of his fingers, he proceeded to lift Merry-Death more tightly into his embrace, her legs dangling above the floor, his face buried in her neck. He inhaled deeply, and the faint scent of roses filled his senses.

He was home. At last!

With a bone-deep sigh, he raised his head. Then he couldn’t resist skimming his mouth lightly across hers. He almost swooned with the heady bliss of his lips on hers once again. Immediately, the kiss turned hungry and devouring. It had been too long. Too damn long!

Finally, she tore her mouth from his, panting for breath. She held his face in her hands and gazed at him with pure love. Tears streamed down her face from eyes that looked like liquid emeralds.

“Did you feel the tingle?” She gasped, pressing the fingertips of one hand to her lips. “Oh, God, I haven’t tingled for six long weeks.”

He smiled. Yes, there was a definite tingle on his lips…and other unmentionable body parts. He smiled wider.

Somehow, they’d moved to the desk, and she was half-sitting, half-leaning against the side with him bent over her. Rolf stretched out an arm and swept all the papers, pens, and other profess-whore-ly debris from her desk, then hoisted her up so she could lie flat on her back.

In a pinch, Vikings were known to improvise a bed for coupling anywhere. In fact, some said a Norseman could mate on a glacier if the lust was upon him, Geirolf recalled. His brother Jorund once claimed to have made love in a tree, but Geirolf hardly credited that as true.

In his haste, he didn’t bother to undress her, or himself. He merely pulled her braies and silk panties to her knees in one swoop, buttons flying hither and yon. And he undid the snap and zipper on his jeans—Lord, these modern men knew what they were doing when they invented zippers. In the blink of an eye, he was poised over her. He would have bruises on his knees from the hard desk, but who could worry about that now? Every Viking warrior knew the best-won battles were worth a little pain.

Her eyes narrowed at him. “You haven’t been tingling anyone else while you’ve been gone, have you?”

He tried to laugh, but it came out as a suffocated gurgle. “Sweetling, would I be on you like an overeager pup if I had been tingling another wench?”

She smiled sweetly, pulling him forward with one hand wrapped around the back of his neck. The other hand was wrapped about his man-part to guide him, thus causing stars to burst behind his eyeballs. He fought for restraint. And then—Bless the gods!—he was inside the hot, welcoming sheath of his beloved.

Between his strokes, he planted feathery kisses on her eyelids, chin, the soft pulse spot beneath her ear, her forehead, the tip of her nose. And intermingled with his kisses were soft-spoken endearments expressed by them both on how much they’d missed each other and how wonderful it was to be together again.

“You broke my heart,” she whispered.

“I’ll put it back together,” he promised, “with my love.”

“Never leave me again.”

“Never!”

“I love you, Geirolf Ericsson.”