Page 63 of The Very Virile Viking

taking vows of a different sort."

"And those would be?" Magnus smiled broadly. He was in a cheery mood now that the priest had given him a dispensation of sorts from his vow.

"Wedding vows."

Magnus's smile disappeared.

Oh, Lord, spare me from the fury of a Norseman…

It was nine o'clock on the second night since Angela had left the Blue Dragon. Only a day and a half, but she missed everyone miserably—not just her grandmother, as usual, but all nine of the "Viking" children, each in his or her own way, and most especially Magnus, the most endearing of all to her. The only way she'd been able to handle her loneliness was to bury herself in work. As a result, she'd just returned from the office with a briefcase loaded with "homework."

That was when she heard a loud banging on her door.

Looking through the peephole, she saw nothing but the chest of a very tall man. Uhoh ! She knew only one person who was that tall. Magnus .

How did he get here?

How did he manage to get past her doorman?

Had something happened back at the Blue Dragon… something so bad it required personal delivery of the news? Oh, God! Oh, God! Please don't let it be Grandma… or one of the kids .

Quickly she opened the door. It was open only a crack when Magnus shoved it wide. With barely a glance in her direction, he stormed past her and into the living room, leaving her to close the door. Was it ominous that he was back to wearing his Viking attire—wide-belted tunic and cross-gartered ankle boots? The only thing missing was his sword.

"Magnus! Is something wrong at the Blue Dragon? Is someone hurt?" Angela followed him into the living room, where he was pacing like a caged animal. He'd placed an old overnight bag of her grandfather's on the floor. He slammed the leather fanny pack that Grandma had bought him several days ago onto the coffee table. It looked as if he was planning an extended stay. "How did you get here?"

"I paid a friend of Juan's to drive me here. In his Jeep. My ears are still ringing from the heavy iron music on his raid-he-oh." He cast her such a look of hostility that she reeled. "Nothing is wrong at the Blue Dragon, and no one is hurt… except me."

"You? You're hurt? Have you been to a doctor?"

He waved away her concern. "Not that kind of hurt."

Reaching for his fanny pack, he unzipped it and asked her in a cool voice, "Have you ever heard of

birthing control, Angela?" Before she had a chance to answer, he held up a very long strip of foil packets.

Condoms. At least two dozen of them.

She tilted her head to the side in question. "Of course I've heard of birth control. Who hasn't?"

"I have not."

"Oh, come on, Magnus. Everybody over the age of puberty, and even those younger, have heard about birth control—pills, IUDs, injections, the works."

"I have not," he repeated. If looks could kill, the one directed at her then would have done just that.

"Magnus, I don't understand any of this. Why are you so angry? Why are you pretending to be unaware of stuff that is common knowledge everywhere in the world?"

Instead of answering her question, he asked, "Do you take pills that prevent conception?"

She nodded. Even though she hadn't been sexually active for a long time, it was a habit she had never dropped.

He appeared to breathe a sigh of relief, despite his continuing fury. "I cannot believe that you have tortured me these past few days with all that half-sex nonsense when we could have had whole sex anytime."

"I thought you liked the way we fooled around," she said, more than a little bit hurt at his criticism. "You said you were satisfied with almost-sex."

"I lied. Or else I was muddle-brained with frustration." He arched an eyebrow at her sardonically. "I like half-sex. I love whole sex."

"But what difference does it make? You took a celibacy vow. That was why we couldn't have sex."