Page 48 of The Blue Viking

He nodded in understanding. “And I laughed when you asked.”

“That you did.”

“Maire, I was on the Norse king’s business then … business that could have involved the lives of many men. I could not have taken you with me, even had I wanted to.”

She made a moue of her lips, which relayed her skepticism. She knew as well as he that she had been just a passing fancy at the time.

“I did not behave honorably toward you,” he admitted.

“That is true.”

“I will make it up to you.” He thought of the amber necklet in his saddlebag and decided that he would definitely give it to her later as a wergild. Even though the Anglo-Saxon term wergild denoted the value set upon the life of a slain man in accordance with his rank, Rurik felt it applied in this situation, as well. In truth, he had killed Maire’s dreams. She deserved just compensation.

Her face brightened. “You will make it up to me by honoring my wishes not to make love?”

“Nay, that is not the reward I will give you. There will be another reward.” He made a tsk-ing noise with his tongue. “The die has been cast, witchling. We will make love. I thought you accepted that. You have no other option.”

He was bigger and stronger. She had to know she could not win this battle. But he did not want her passive … he wanted a she-warrior in the bed furs, an enthusiastic participant who would match him stroke for stroke. That was not what he would get, he realized, noticing her shoulders slump with defeat. He thought he saw tears misting in her beautiful green eyes.

He almost gave in then.

Almost.

But he was not a total fool. “Because you want to punish me?” she berated him.

For the love of Valhalla, the woman never gives up! He shook his head. “ ’Tis more than that. You put your mark on me, Maire. You—a woman—gave the world reason to make jest of me. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you made a public statement this evening, belowstairs, that I failed to pleasure you in the bedsport.”

“Just because you did not or-gaz me? Hah! As if I want to be or-gaz-ed!”

Rurik shook his head from side to side. “There is no such word as or-gaz. Bolthor made that up. The word is orgasm, and it refers to… oh, never mind. You will know soon enough.”

She stamped her foot angrily. “Are you listening to me, you thickheaded lout? I… don’t… want… to … know.” She expressed her sentiment slowly with evenly spaced words, as if he were a … well, a thickheaded lout.

He waved a hand to indicate her wants were neither here nor there. “My manhood is at stake now. I need to prove that I am master in this man-woman relationship.”

Her upper lip curled with contempt. “And that is what this is all about, then … your ego?”

Enough! Whilst they had been talking and Maire had been distracted, he’d been gathering up the fabric of her shift, fistful by fistful. He stepped back now and flipped the hem of the garment up and over her head, then tossed it over his shoulder. She was too stunned at first by his action to attempt to hide her nudity from him.

He was stunned, too. By all the Norse gods and all the saints in the One-God’s heaven, she was glorious.

Her red hair hung in waves about her bare shoulders and down her back. Her uplifted breasts were fuller and heavier than he’d expected, considering her slender frame, with dark rose, slightly puffy areolas and pointed nipples that he yearned to explore in more detail. Her waist was small, with flaring hips, which framed a flat stomach and indented navel. Her woman hair was darker and curlier than that on her head, as if hiding some mystery. All this led down to exceedingly long legs and high-arched feet, with toes that curled childlike in the rushes.

He was the one who moaned then as he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. Burying his face in the curve of her neck, he whispered hoarsely, “Nay, my ego or your punishment have naught to do with this crackling in the air betwixt us.” He licked wetly at the pulse that beat in her neck and delighted when it jumped in response. “What this is about, m’lady, is one man and one woman. Me and you. And a fire that must be quenched… lest we both die of the heat.”

“Life is not that simple,” she murmured in a last, desperate plea for mercy.

“It is exactly that simple.”

In that moment, Rurik realized the truth of his statement. He could not predict what the future held, but his destiny … for this moment in time … rested right here with this woman. He had not meant to speak his thoughts aloud, but somehow, as he laid her on the bed and came down over her, the words slipped out in an awestruck whisper. “This is our destiny.”

This is our destiny.

Maire replayed Rurik’s poetic words over and over in her mind, trying to ignore their poignancy. “Is that what you tell all your wenches afore you tup them?” she asked with decided sarcasm and more coarseness than she usually employed.

If he had chuckled or laughed aloud, she could have forgiven him, but instead he gazed at her through those sky-blue eyes, serious as a clansman at a laird’s funeral, and said ever so softly, “Nay, just you.”

She moaned then … again. Oh, she well knew that the far-too-handsome, far-too-confident knave thought she moaned because she was overcome with lust for him. He had an ego the size of the English Channel. Nay, she moaned at his soft-spoken avowal that this act of love they were about to embark upon was their destiny when she understood that they were mere words he spun for his own wicked purposes. The skilled fornicator saw destiny as a temporary event, lasting only till he left her land, or lost his erection.