Page 31 of My Fair Viking

Adam's bedchamber door swung open two hours later without anyone having knocked. At first he thought it might be Alrek and his brood back again, wanting to do him another unwanted, disaster-ending favor, like the recent hose laundering in which his hose had become food for several hunting dogs. But, nay, it was Tyra this time.

He looked up from his book, which he was reading by candle light… a copy of Hippocrates's journal outlining head wounds and how they might be treated by trepanation.

"You kissed me," Tyra charged. She was wearing some kind of sleepwear… a voluminous chemise of white linen, which probably belonged to one of her sisters because the sleeves were too short and the hem fell about mid-calf. Her pale blond hair was loose and wild about her enraged face.

She was beautiful.

Nay, not beautiful.

Different?

Sensual?

Spectacular?

He couldn't quite come up with the proper word to describe her. She was not pretty, by any definition, but she was definitely attractive… to him, leastways.

In answer to her kissing charge, though, he merely said, "Yea, I did."

"Don't do it again."

"Why?"

"Because… because that's not what I agreed to."

He tapped a forefinger against his lips, which were pressed together to avoid smiling. "Methinks kissing would be good practice for nude snuggling in the bed furs. Don't you?"

"Oh… oh… oh!" she sputtered.

He was willing to wager that she rarely, if ever, sputtered in front of her fighting men. That must mean he was different in her mind. That could be a good thing. Like her being different was a good thing to him.

"Wouldst like to try again? Practice-kissing, I mean," he offered in his most conciliatory tone, as if he were offering to do her a big favor, when in fact he would be the one most favored by such an act. The woman, despite all her manly attributes, did have the most irresistible, kissome lips. "In truth, that barely counted as a kiss. 'Twas a mere brush of skin against skin. A true kiss betwixt a man and woman should last much longer."

"How much longer?" He could tell she immediately regretted her hastily blurted question.

He waved a hand airily. "Oh, five minutes or so. And tongues should be involved, of course."

Her jaw dropped open, and her eyes went huge, before she gasped out, "Five minutes? Tongues? Are you mocking me?"

"Nay," he replied. Then, "Well, mayhap a little."

"Lackwit," she snapped and stormed out of the bedchamber.

Adam went back to his journal, but he was smiling now.

Moments later, Rashid announced cheerily, "He kissed you."

Tyra was leaning her forehead against the corridor wall outside Adam's bedchamber, trying to slow her heartbeat and make sense of the knave's effect on her. Thus far, she could find no sense in it… just nonsense. 'Twas naught more than teasing, of course. But she'd been teased before, and her heart did not go boom, boom, boom, boom like a battle drum.

And now the Arab wanted to discuss the ignominious subject.

"Yea, the teasing toad kissed me. But 'twas just a jest on his part. Do not make a big thing of this, Rashid."

"Big thing? Big thing? How can I not make a big thing of it when my master has remained chaste for two years? And now he has kissed a fair maiden."

"I am not a fair maiden." She thought a moment. "Did he kiss some other woman, too? A fair maiden?" Disappointment rippled through her at the idea. Was it one of her sisters? Or a serving maid? Perchance one of her soldiers' ladies?

"Nay, just you." Rashid was smiling from ear to ear.