Page 90 of A Tale of Two Vikings

She sidled away from the door, closer to the fire.

He leaned back against the door, folded his arms over his chest and crossed his ankles. Then he just stared at her.

She did her best to look back at him, but only above the waist.

What to do with the wench? Well, actually, he had ideas aplenty. The question more accurately was: What to do with her first?

“Take off your clothes, Esme,” he said so softly that the ice in his voice could barely be discerned.

“What?” she squawked.

“You heard me. Take off your clothes. I would even the battlefield here—for the first time in ten days, I might point out.”

“You can kill me with my clothes on,” the obstinate witch said. “I do not mind if you bloody my gunna.”

“Take…off…the…damn…clothes.”

“You don’t have to yell,” she muttered as she began to disrobe.

Yell? The gall of the woman. He would say she had a death wish if she hadn’t depleted her lifetime supply of death wishes by her vile treatment of him these past ten days.

She’d already taken off her surcoat and gunna. She stood before him in a chemise thin enough to show her thigh hose underneath. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“Not right away,” was all he would disclose. Actually, it was all he knew at this point. He waved a hand for her to continue disrobing.

While she lifted her chemise over her head and bent at the waist to roll down her hose, she remarked, more to herself than to him, “I may as well take my final vows as a nun, since it appears you will not be helping me to regain Evergreen.”

The sight of her standing now, nude and absolutely glorious in her beauty, took his breath away. When he was able to speak, he said, “M’lady, there isn’t a convent in the world that would take you when I am done with you.”

She tilted her head to the side in question. When she understood his words, a flush swept over her face, down her long neck and over her breasts, which were full, rose-tipped and glorious. Her gaze fixed then on that part of him which was especially appreciative of her bodily charms. “You would rape me, then? That is to be your method of punishment?”

“There will be no rape.”

She exhaled on a sigh of relief.

“But there will be sex. Lots of it.”

Her eyes shot wide. She appeared about to say something nasty to him, then thought better of it. “So be it,” she said, lifting her mulish chin. “Let us get it over with so I can get on with the rest of my life…whatever that will be.”

She walked grimly over to the bed, like a Christian to the lions’ den. She should be quivering with fright. She should be begging him for mercy. She should be apologizing till she was blue in the face for what she had done to him. That was what he wanted of her. Wasn’t it?

Within minutes, she was spread-eagled on the bed, just as he had been, arms and legs tied to the bedposts. He would not bother with the gag because no one would defy his wrath by coming to her aid, even if she screamed…which she did not. Instead, she just stared levelly at him, awaiting his next step.

Some men might feel guilty for shaming a woman so. He did not. His wounded pride and thwarted plan to avenge his brother’s death rankled too much.

He dressed himself and pulled a chair near the bed. Rubbing a hand over his mouth, he studied her. He was aroused by her nudity, of course. What Viking worth his salt wouldn’t be? But he was in control of his senses and would not assault her while his temper roiled. In truth, he would not assault her at all, despite his fury. He would couple with her at some point, though…that he knew without a doubt.

“Are you not even curious as to the Witan’s decision?” he asked finally.

He saw the shock that overtook her. “Yea. Of course. Oh, Blessed Mary, how could I have let such an important thing slip my mind?”

“Well, you were distracted,” he remarked.

“Go. Find out,” she demanded.

He had to laugh at her nerve. Bare-arse naked and trussed up like a chicken and still she ordered him about. “I will go when I am ready.”

She made a tsk-ing sound of disgust.