Page 52 of Truly, Madly Viking

"It's not?" he asked, eyebrows raised in question.

"Both feet of both partners need to be on the floor to qualify as dancing."

"They do?" He stared at her, dubiously. "More's the pity."

He let her body slide down his body till her flat shoes rested on the floor. The sensations he created along the way were so intense Maggie feared her eyeballs might be rolling back in her head. She blinked once, then twice, just to make sure.

"Just holding you like this makes me breathless," Joe told her in a raspy voice.

His eyes were heavy-lidded and smoldering.

Breathless? I make him breathless? Oh, why does it feel so good to know I can affect him so? And, hey, is that my heart beating like a jackhammer? "You make me blush when you look at me like that. Stop it!"

A slow grin spread across his lips. And he continued looking.

She dropped her eyes before his steady, slumberous gaze. She didn't want him to see—or sense—the hot ache that was building in the pit of her stomach. All from a mere dance.

"Your arousal arouses me," he admitted, almost as if he resented the fact, then proved it by adding, "I do not want to be aroused by you. I need to get back to my time. I need to help my brother. I need no complications."

"And I would be a complication?"

"Lady, you could be the biggest complication of my entire life."

"Even more than your wife?"

He exhaled with a dismissive sound. "My wife was never a complication. She was an arrangement.

Never, ever, did she affect me as you do. Not she or any other woman."

"Bet you say that to all the wenches."

"Not even when I am seducing them into the bed sport. Well, there was that one wench in Cordoba—"

Maggie punched him lightly on the shoulder. He laughed softly, a low, masculine sound, barely more than a growl. She loved his laugh. He did it so rarely.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

She laughed then. "Hey, that's supposed to be my line."

"I can scarce believe I am about to ask you this question. I swore, after Inga's death, that I had had enough of women... except for the occasional coupling, that is." He inhaled deeply, as if for courage. "I do not suppose that you would consider coming with me when I go?" he inquired tentatively.

"To the tenth century?"

"Yea, to my time and country."

How could she take such a proposal seriously? "On the back of a killer whale?"

"God, I hope not." Then he thought of something else. "On the other hand, if we were both bare-arsed naked..."

"You are impossible." She shook her head and smiled up at him. "No, I would not consider going with you. Keep in mind, I have two daughters who need me here."

The somber expression that immediately blanketed his face told her loud and clear that he wouldn't be bringing up time travel with her again... because he didn't want a reminder of her twin girls.

They continued their dance in silence then, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her face resting against his chest. It was a beautiful moment... a perfect ending to a perfect day.

Why, then, did Maggie feel like crying?

The next day Joe disappeared, without warning, from the Rainbow hospital. His sword was missing, too.