Page 13 of The Last Viking

“Nay, ’tis you who have cast the spell, my sweet witch. Now, come,” he coaxed, “do not gainsay me with pretenses that you do not want the pleasuring as much as I.”

“I don’t,” she lied, even as she felt an insistent heat coil in her midsection and move enticingly downward.

“I will show you how a true Viking makes love,” he vowed silkily, “and you can show me your witchly arts in the bedding. ’Tis a bartering I anticipate with great fervor.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she protested weakly. They had circled the sofa. Now her back was to the fireplace, and he was on the other side of the couch. “We have to talk. There seems to be a big misunderstanding here.”

“We can talk later. Afterward. And the only big thing here is—” His hand, which had been rubbing his bristled chin—he must not have shaved in days—moved lower to demonstrate.

“Don’t you dare.”

The progress of his hand halted midway and he fingered his belt, rubbing it in an almost erotic fashion. He was playing with her, like an overconfident cat with a helpless mouse.

But her eyes homed in on the ornate clasp of his belt, and she recalled the primitively carved figurehead from a ship’s prow lying outside. Sanity began to return.

At first, Meredith had believed that this guy—this very attractive guy—had been sent by her brother, in collaboration with Mike. But maybe that was just what she had wanted to believe. Something wasn’t right in this picture.

He was a stranger who’d shown up unexpectedly in her home. He claimed the bruise on his forehead came from the falling mast of his dragonship. A new wound—a shallow, six-inch slash across his back—had resulted from the sword of someone called Storr Grimmsson.

All of the modern gadgets in her home fascinated him. Not just the telephone or refrigerator or stove or running water or electricity. Even little things like ice cubes or metal cans or rubber bands.

And another thing. He knew a lot about tenth-century history. In fact, he claimed to be living in that time period, which she’d discounted as a joke earlier. But maybe he hadn’t been joking. Oh, God, maybe he was an escapee from a mental institution. Some nutcase with delusions of being an ancient Viking prince.

“Listen, Rolf,” she said sternly as they circled the sofa once again, “we are going to talk. Now. It’s important that we get a few things cleared up.”

His jaw stiffened and he seemed about to argue, but then he shrugged. “If you wish, we can talk,” he conceded, “but then we will make love.”

Her heart hammered. She was an obsessively honest person. She’d never been coy or prone to games. “Maybe,” she agreed as a blush heated her face.

“Maybe?” he questioned, tilting his head cynically, bracing his hands on his sexy hips. “Maybe?”

“Try to understand. One-night stands with complete strangers were never my style—”

“Oh, I daresay I will be here for many nights,” he drawled. “Leastways, till my ship is completed.”

“That’s what you think,” she retorted at the interruption. Then, flustered at the prospect of all those nights he alluded to, she went on, “I’ll admit that ‘Love with a Warm Viking’ is looking better and better. And hard as it is for me to believe, I’m actually considering a meaningless sexual encounter. It’s just that I need some answers first.”

His lips twitched before he smiled lazily at her.

She hated it when he smiled lazily at her.

“Warm Viking?” he scoffed. “My lady, this Viking is hot.”

Chapter Three

“Unleash your tongue,” he said. “I am listening.”

After throwing two more logs on the fire and stoking it back to life with a poker, he sank down onto the soft cushions of a narrow, bedlike structure facing the fireplace. Propping his long legs on the low table in front, he took an apple from the bowl in its center and began to chomp with a relish born of near starvation. That plate of “worms” she’d given him for dinner had done naught to fill his empty stomach.

When he looked up, Merry-Death was gaping at him and the half-eaten apple.

“What? You ne’er saw a man eat an apple?”

“Of course, I’ve seen a man eat an apple. It’s just that you make yourself at home…in my home. You don’t even wait to be asked if you’d like to sit down or eat or…whatever.” The last word came out with a tiny embarrassed squeal.

She couldn’t fool him. He knew why the wench was skittish. She was thinking about the pleasuring to come. Like a mare in heat, her body made ready for their coupling.

“By your leave, may I sit down, Merry-Death?” he inquired with amusement.