Page 69 of The Last Viking

“Don’t think for one minute I’m going to hop in the sack with you because of some sexual secrets. Buzz off and find another place to scatter your pollen, you oversexed…insect. This bee isn’t interested.”

“Ha-ha-ha! I am laughing at your jest. See, Merry-Death, I told you that you have a sense of humor.”

“Well, I’m not laughing now, and this is no joke. You either stay in Maine, or I go home with you. And that’s that.”

“Nay.”

“Yes.”

“Nie þýðir nei,” he said sternly. “No means no, and that’s final.”

“Not in my vocabulary.”

He inhaled and exhaled several times with exaggerated loudness. “Mayhap I should share one of the secrets with you to change your mind. Just one, do not beg for more. But you must promise not to reveal it to any other.”

She rolled her eyes at his persistence.

To her horror and amazement, he went into graphic detail about some erotic foreplay that involved tongues and ropes and immense size and remarkable out-of-this-world staying power.

“You lie,” she accused. No one, man or woman, could do what he’d just described.

He arched a brow with displeasure. “Did I not tell you that I never lie? If you cannot credit that secret, mayhap you will be more believing of the ‘Hot Oil—Cold Sword’ secret. That one is for more accomplished warriors in the bedsport.” He grinned at her. “I have done it many a time.”

She clucked at his overinflated ego. Really, if she weren’t so angry, she’d have to admire his adorable charm. “Go away, Rolf. I will not marry you.” She rolled over, facing the back of the sofa.

“Have you e’er made love in bed furs, Merry-Death?” he asked in a silky rasp. “There is no better sensation in the world for a woman, I am told, than the caress of the furs at her back, and the seductive torment of her lover’s furred skin at her front. I would give you that experience.”

A thrum of excitement whisked through her.

“And then, of course, we shipbuilders have particular talents.”

“Oh, Lord!”

“It comes from working with our hands. We love to touch…and touch…and touch. The skin on our fingertips has become so sensitive. Have you e’er made love with a man who bears the calluses of his trade, Merry-Death? I would warrant you have not.” He paused, the sound of his breathing heavy in the air. “It is a pleasure beyond all others, this I promise you,” he ended on a whisper.

She turned back, facing him. “Don’t do this to me, Rolf.”

“I love you, Merry-Death,” he said fervently, leaning forward to lay his warm lips against hers. “I cannot promise you a perfect manifestation of this love. I can guarantee no future for us. But this I do swear; I will do the best I can to make you happy in the days we have. No man could do more.”

With that, he stood and walked away from her. At the patio door, he stopped. Over his shoulder, he repeated, “I love you, Merry-Death.”

“And I love you, Rolf,” she choked out. But he was already gone. And Meredith got a foretaste of the slow death she was going to suffer when he abandoned her for good.

A whirling dervish hit Maine the next day, and its name was Geirolf Ericsson. Now that he had a mission, he worked with a feverish intensity. And his mission, in this case, wasn’t the return of the relic. The mission was—Heaven help me—her.

How would she ever be able to resist him?

When she came home from the college at six o’clock, Rolf and Mike were glaringly absent. But the progress made on the project in just that day of Rolf being back on the job was phenomenal. Although Rolf’s ship appeared much the same as the day before, the college longship—which they’d christened Fierce Eagle after the school mascot and to complement Rolf’s Fierce Destiny—had a skeleton framework standing proud on the stocks, highlighted by an impressive fifty-foot keel. Even the stem and stern had been hand-riveted on. Rolf had been right. Already this ship looked much sturdier and more finely crafted than Gramps’s had.

She’d left for work at seven, having a pile of project paperwork to tie up and lessons to prepare for classes, which resumed on Monday. Before her departure, she’d studiously avoided even a glimpse of the side yard where she could hear Rolf working. Coward that she was, she’d feared facing him after their monumental disclosures of love the night before, followed by his infuriating opposition to a future for the two of them. But she wouldn’t be able to dodge him forever.

She began to walk around the site. There were more of the students than ever before—at least three dozen. Apparently, as word of the project spread, more young people volunteered their time. Meredith had received three phone calls this morning at her office from area newspapers wanting to do feature stories on the Trondheim Venture. That should garner even more support.

To her dismay, Meredith had also found a message on her answering machine from the producer of Home Improvement, which she’d yet to return. And, even more incredible, Mike had a message from Sharon Stone. “Hey, Mike. Just calling between scenes to chat. Later, babe. Sharon.”

Strolling farther, she glanced at a crude worktable set up at the side of the house, above which several papers had been tacked on a makeshift bulletin board. Apparently students had been organized into work groups, following detailed schedules for their duties that Rolf must have printed off from her computer. Cutting of planks. Wood shaving and sanding. Cooking. Weaving of wool and animal hair for caulking. Making wood nails. Trough for water soaking of timbers. Drying of skins.

Huh? What skins? What drying?