Page 62 of Truly, Madly Viking

He tipped her chin back with a forefinger so that she was staring up at him as he propped himself on one elbow above her. His anger had melted away, replaced by a rueful acceptance. "A big lout, hmmm?" he remarked with a self-deprecating grin as he fingered the ends of her hair, still damp from her recent bath, then sniffed her. He nodded, as if pleased with the scent of her shampoo. Lilacs... the same as her bath salts had been.

"The biggest," she answered with a small sob.

"And you wanted me a great deal?"

He was leaning so close that his breath fanned her lips as he spoke. When she declined to answer, he nipped her bottom lip with his teeth and rubbed his erection against her at the same time.

She jerked back at the exquisite sensations those brief caresses engendered. If that wasn't bad enough, he nudged her legs farther apart with his knees, then cupped her bottom and rocked her hips against him.

She squealed. She actually squealed. Then she admitted, "A great deal."

"And still do?" he persisted.

Now he was alternately wetting the inner whorls of her ear with the tip of his tongue and blowing it dry.

It was as if a thin, erotic thread connected her ears to her breasts and genital area, because each flick of his tongue was causing her to swell and throb in delicious agony.

"Still do," she whimpered. "But, I repeat, we can't make love."

To her surprise, he nodded. "Well, a kiss then.Surely it would be no great shock to your daughters'

sensibilities to see a man kissing their mother."

She laughed softly at his too-obvious ploy. "You don't even like kisses."

"Oh, m'lady, you have sung that song too many times already. I have told you more than once that I have changed my mind on that issue."

"A kiss? That would be all?"

"Well, a little touching, too."

"A little touching? Aha! Men have been saying that throughout the ages. A little touching leads to a lot more, and before you know it, well, you can guess where it all leads."

"The injustice of your remark wounds me, m'lady," he said. "If I promise to give you only kisses and little touches, then that is what I will do. My word is my bond."

She nodded, because she really did want—no, need a little bit of his loving tonight... some thing to seal this change in their relationship.

"To be fair, I must advise you that I have been told I have clever hands."

Clever hands? What does that mean? I don't want to know. Yes, I do. Oh, boy!

"Mayhap it is the calluses on my palms from wielding a long sword for so many years. Or mayhap it is the flexibility of my fingers, which must neethrust a spear or pull on the reins of a blood-maddened warhorse with equal dexterity. Or mayhap it is the things learned in the Eastern harems that—"

She put her hands on either side of his neck, pulling him down for a kiss.

He drew back a hairbreadth from her lips and said, "I may be willing to accept your terms, but he forewarned: there are things I want to do to you that no man has ever done afore... "

Maggie's heart skittered wildly at his words, and a hot dampness pooled between her legs.

"Even so, I will keep my word, for now. Mere kisses and little touches... that is all."

Joe kept his promise then, but there was nothing mere or little about him.

And, as to clever hands... Lordy, lordy!

Jorund sat at the head table of Mag-he's great hall early the next afternoon, awaiting the Thanksgiving feast.

Actually, there was no great hall... not even a hall at all, for that matter. And only one table. But then, Mag-he's keep itself was not all that large; he could touch the ceiling in any of the chambers. It was not as humble as the longhouses of his Norse cotters, nor as grand as the wood castles he, his father, and his brothers had erected in his homeland, following the Saxon and Frankish styles.