The Enchantment (16 page)

“Marta,” she said, smiling and willing him to smile back. He did not. She turned and started for the cook chamber, but stopped as his voice rumbled behind her.

“Marta.”

“Yea, Leif Gunnarson?” she said, turning back, her heart feeling as if it were winging from her breast at the sound of her name on his lips. But his face and eyes were dark and fierce once more.

“Do not come near me again.”

Marta colored hotly, lowered her head, and hurried out. But once in the cook chamber, she curled her hands into fists and spread her feet in unconscious imitation of Aaren's most determined stance.

“I'll come near whomever I please, Leif Gunnarson. And there is not a thing you can do to stop me.”

J
ORUND HAD SPENT
the first half of a sleepless night in the loft of the thrall house, having his aching frame warmed and massaged by several nubile young wenches whose busy hands and generous body heat should have pleased him. Instead, their coy ministrations had annoyed him and he was hard-pressed to show enough enthusiasm to keep from hurting the wenches' feelings. When they finally slept, he extricated himself from their embraces and crawled from the loft to spend the second half of the night in his own little-used sleeping closet, in the long hall. The small, curtained chamber was dark and cold, and his handsome pallet furs were musty from disuse. As he lay there, wide-eyed, his body on edge, he understood too well the reason for his discontent.

Aaren Serricksdotter rose from the troubled pool of his thoughts like a water nymph: as exquisite and tempting, and as impossible to catch. Her tawny eyes and flame-kissed hair, her hard thighs and soft, jiggling breasts, filled his senses. Muscle by muscle his body contracted until he was aching all over again, swollen with wanting. He could have slaked his flesh-need in any number of pallets, even in the middle of the night, yet that possibility held no allure for him. He was past taking a woman's body just to vent a troublesome urge. His real need, he knew, was to conquer Aaren Serricksdotter with pleasure. And he would be truly satisfied with nothing less.

By morning, he had gone over and over their wretched harvest-battle and its aftermath, and realized two important things: There was something soft and vulnerable inside Aaren Serricksdotter . . . and to reach it, he must have her to himself. With others around, she would always swagger and bluster and play at being the warrior. But alone, without her pride to defend, she could soften to his touch, to his word-skill. And he could reach inside her to ignite the womanly passions that lay imprisoned in her warlike shell.

Alone, he decided firmly. He had to get her alone, somehow.

The women's house was quiet that morning when Jorund stuck his head inside the half-open door. In the dim interior, he could make out two feminine forms . . . one lying on a bench in the far corner, the other sitting on the bench beside her. It was his battle-nymph and one of her young sisters—the one Garth was forever laying claim to—who was rubbing oil into her bare back and shoulders. He lifted wistful eyes skyward and murmured a silent thank-you, then slipped inside.

EIGHT

J
UST AS
the battle-maiden's sister turned to pour more oil on her hands, Jorund clamped a hand over her mouth, startling her, and put a finger to his lips, commanding silence. The flaxen-haired maid stared at him while he gestured that he would take her place, then she glanced between her sister and him uneasily. He gave her his most irresistible smile and she yielded her place and duty to him.

He settled on the bench beside Aaren, aware that her sister was hovering anxiously by the door. He poured some of the oil into his big hands while his eyes roamed the exotic taper of her back and the tantalizing bulges of the sides of her breasts, where they were pressed against the swath of linen beneath her. She was completely bare from the waist up, and from the waist down was covered only by a pair of deerskin breeches that were noticeably loose . . . probably not tied.

She wriggled her shoulders drowsily, entreating, “More. Do more.”

More.
The word sent a blast of dry heat through his lungs. He took a deep breath and sent his fingers gliding over the smooth surface of her body, just as he had in his mind the day before. Her skin was silky and soft; pale where the backplate of her armor had lain against her skin, and reddened where her upper shoulders had been exposed to the sun. With light pressure from his big hands, he traced the firm, neatly defined muscles beneath her skin, starting at the small of her back and flaring gently outward to the caps of her shoulders. She was indeed hard and soft to the same touch . . . all latent power and unexplored sensuality, at his very fingertips.

When he pressed his thumbs together and dragged them up the sides of her spine, a pleasure-filled groan slid from her half-conscious form. He grinned. When he gently kneaded the muscles of her upper back and the tops of her broad shoulders, she mewed, half in pain, half in pleasure. His eyes began to glow. He ran his hands in a long, leisurely caress up her sleek sides, where his fingertips stroked the compressed roundness of her breasts . . . and the rhythm of her breathing changed.

A tiny shiver proceeded from her shoulders downward and his eyes narrowed. She was coming alert. With his gaze hot on the lashes lying just above her elegant cheekbones, he slid his hands slowly down her sides . . . and straight under her breeches. Then, with only a slight turn of his wrists, he cupped her buttocks and massaged firmly and sinuously.

This was
not
a sisterly bit of massage! Aaren realized, surfacing from the netherland of physical release. She tensed and blood flooded into her face and breasts at the outrage being inflicted on her bottom. She wasn't being kneaded—she was being
touched
!

Her eyes flew open and she pushed up and around . . . to find Jorund Borgerson grinning at her.

“You!” She bashed his hands from her and curled around in a flash to face him. “H-how did you . . .” She fumbled to raise her breeches and jerked at the ties, then suddenly realized she was also bare from the waist up—“Ohhh!”—and scrambled to pull the linen from beneath her knees to clutch against her breasts. By the time she scrambled off the bench and backed away, humiliated heat was sinking all the way down into the tightening tips of her breasts.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was just helping to rub the soreness from your . . .
body,
Serricksdotter.” He advanced a step.

“In a sow's eye, you were.” She jolted back. “You—you were
touching
me—” The sight of him, so big and warm—his eyes darkening with some private pleasure as they skimmed her exposed body—knocked her wits end over end. She was embarrassed and confused, and—she cast a panicky glance around the main chamber—she was completely alone with him. Where on earth was Miri?

“Of course I touched you, Serricksdotter. That is the only way to rub soreness from a . . .
body,
” he said smoothly, knowing full well it was the intimacy of his touch that had offended her. He smiled, guessing what was interfering with her formidable wits just now. He advanced again with his slow, stalking sway. “Can it be that you are afraid of being touched, Battle-maiden?”

“No,” she said, clutching the linen tighter against her breasts.

“Then perhaps it is me you fear.
My
presence.
My
touch.”

“No!” she said, grasping at the merest wisp of ire. “I do not fear anything or anyone, Jorund Borgerson. Least of all you.”

“Shall we test your truthfulness, Serricksdotter? Shall we see what you fear?” It was the perfect taunt . . . her pride would force her to prove him wrong. He had managed through the subtle shifts of his shoulders to back her toward the wall beside the bedshelves . . . straight into a corner. When her back smacked against the wall, her eyes flew wide and she tightened her grip on her inadequate cover. He planted himself a foot away and reached for her shoulders.

She had watched him stalk her, knowing she should knee him and run for her blade. But she couldn't make herself do it. There was something potent stirring in her blood . . . something that seemed more in his control than hers, something that he called forth in her. And—Freya help her!—she wanted to know what it was. There was no other man in the village who made her feel this peculiar swirling in her senses and set her entire body on edge. He knew about women. And just this once, she wanted to learn about women . . . about her own body, about this thing that was rising up hot and formless and powerful within her.

She saw his hands reaching for her and made no move to stop him. She wasn't afraid of him . . . or anyone . . . or anything. She wasn't afraid—

His hands closed on her shoulders and her knees went weak. Pleasure went trickling through her like a warm spring shower. As he began to massage those aching muscles, she felt her resistance melting. Wonder coiled in her mind as his fingers curled behind her head, kneaded the tense column up the back of her neck, then threaded through her damp hair to stroke her tingling head in slow, expert circles.
Slow-hand,
the women called him. Now she knew why.

“Does this frighten you, Serricksdotter?” he said with a ragged edge.

“No.” She whispered the half lie with her eyes half closed. On one level it was entrancing, on another it truly was terrifying. Control of the situation was clearly in those big, firm hands that were making butter of her muscles and mush of her will.

“And what of this?” he murmured, moving his hands down her back, so that she was forced slightly forward, against his body. With his arms fully around her, but not quite embracing her, he traced her spine and caressed every muscle in her back. “Does this make you want to run from me?”

“No,” she breathed, lifting her eyes to his. Those great, shaded pools of sky, filled with equal measures of pleasure and hunger. It was a mild surprise for her to realize that what he was doing to her seemed to give him pleasure, as well.

“Or this?” He raised his hands to her shoulders, then slid them down her naked sides, where they clasped her waist tightly and pulled her forcefully against him.

She could scarcely shake her head. The size of him, the sudden impact of their bodies, and the feel of his lean musculature against her own tautly molded frame overwhelmed her senses. She felt the ridge of his hardened flesh against her belly and was mildly shocked to realize that it was meant for her . . . that she had caused it and that her body responded to it.

Thigh to thigh they stood, hardness to hardness. And there was suddenly a new ache deep inside her, one that could not be assuaged by a simple massage.

“You spoke truthfully, Long-legs. I believe you do not fear my touch.”

She watched his generous lips as he spoke and longing surged so powerfully in her that it took her breath. It was a magic peculiar to him, his own unique enchantment, that allowed him to draw the life-breath from another mortal being without even touching her.

“Breath-stealer,” she said in a whisper. “When you steal a woman's breath, what do you do with it?”

“I'm no thief. I always give it back,” he vowed, his voice thick and sultry, enveloping her like the steam. He lowered his head and ran his hands up her sides, to the sides of her breasts, driving all the air from her lungs in a soft rush.

“Have I stolen your breath, Fearless Maiden?”

She could only answer with her eyes. “Then I will be pleased to give it back to you.” He lowered his mouth to hers by agonizing increments, then paused a hairswidth away and blew ever so gently on her lips. That hot, moist stream of breath drowned her mouth in swirling, liquid sensation. Pleasure surged and eddied through her lips, engorging and weighting them so that they parted.

But his restitution was a sham, for instead of giving back her breath, he dangled it between them, allowing her use of it only in short, shuddery gasps. Then he covered her mouth with his, flexing his lips softly over hers, moving in slow, lazy circles that coaxed her to return that shockingly intimate contact.

Mouth-to-mouth, they stood, softness to softness. Her arms went slack and her knees buckled. As she clung to the remnants of her sanity, the thought surfaced in her head: This was what he did with his mouth that pleasured the women so! It shocked her enough that she pulled back, breaking that hypnotic contact.

“You don't bite,” she murmured wonderingly.

“Not unless I'm bitten first,” he whispered over a soft chuckle, pulling her back to him.

The force of his mouth on hers deepened and his tongue traced the edges of her lips and the lush crevice between them. She had never imagined two people doing such a thing: pressing their mouths together, opening to each other, feeling the soft, liquid slide of tongues over lips and of teeth gently raking. It was like being devoured . . . but oh, so pleasurably.

His arms tightened around her, leaving no room between them for the defensiveness that held a scrap of linen in place. She withdrew her arms and wrapped them around him, where they began to trace the bold contours of his back. He was a marvelous broad plain beneath his soft woolens. How enthralling it was to be joined to a man in this way . . . to fill her arms with his strength and warmth, to have her senses drenched with his musky male scent and the subtle motions of his male body against hers.

A muffled gasp burst on the quiet around them. But it was the sound of Aaren's name that penetrated the pleasure-fog in her senses. The sound of feet thudding on a packed floor and more gasps and murmurs sent her shoving back blindly in Jorund's arms. But his embrace tightened around her and held her to him as he swung them around to face the intruder.

Miri and Marta stood just inside the door, panting, and behind them, eyes wide and jaws slack, stood Helga, Sith, and wraithlike Inga. They had come at a run, expecting to find bloody mayhem committed in their women's sanctuary . . . and found the battle-maiden and their Breath-stealer locked in heated embrace instead of heated combat!

“Aaren?” Miri squeaked out, her face crimson. “Aaren?” Marta echoed, blushing.

Aaren was struck speechless as she glimpsed their shocked faces. She was caught in her enemy's arms . . . weaponless . . . half naked . . . and worst of all,
half surrendered
! What in the twisted roots of the great tree Yggdrasil had come over her, to let herself be drawn into such a disgrace? She shoved furiously against his ribs and freed herself, only to face further humiliation when her linen cover stuck to his shirt and her breasts came away bare. She snatched the cloth back and covered herself.

“I-I was afraid of what would h-happen when I left you,” Miri stammered in explanation, her innocent gaze riveted to the sight of Aaren's flushed skin, passion-darkened eyes, and swollen lips. “I told Marta and then Helga . . . and w-we were afraid you'd be . . . you would be . . .”

“Cuttin' each other up,” Sith finished for her, eyeing the pair of them as if committing every detail to memory. “Well, they ain't doin' no cuttin',” she declared to the others, “and we ain't gettin' th' churnin' done by standin' here. Come on.” She gave Inga and Helga a shove and snagged Miri's and Marta's arms to drag them out the door. But the look the old dairywoman cast over her shoulder as she departed said that the only thing getting churned that morning would be her tongue. Her story of finding the battle-maiden half naked in Jorund Borgerson's arms would soon be all over the village!

The instant they cleared the doorway, he reached for her with a grin, apparently intending to take up where they had left off.

“Don't you dare touch me, Borgerson,” she said as she struggled to hold her cover in place and fumble with the ties of her breeches. “Not if you wish to keep your wretched hands.”

Jorund blinked and jerked his chin back, then retreated a step. She'd gone from flaming ember to frozen clinker in the bat of an eye! Watching her quaking hands grapple with simple ties, he realized she was embarrassed at being caught half naked in his arms, and guessed that she resisted and protested now to salve her pride. Well, he was not about to let her pride interfere with the sweet savor of the prize he sensed within reach.