“And what of you, husband?” I pulled my dress higher and opened my legs, offering him the view he sought. “Will I need to punish you? Or will you forsake your wickedness once we’re wed?”
In a single movement, he knelt before me. “I have eyes only for you, wife.” He winked, making clear where he directed his admiration.
Wrapping his long hair around my fingers, I tugged back his head. “Helka’s been teaching me how to use the bow. Give me cause, and you’ll need to guard your own behind.”
He pretended to ponder, and I jerked harder, laughing, but eased my hold as his hands came to rest just above my knees. His palms were calloused from wielding not just sword and axe but hoe and spade, from farming in the fields, but they were warm, and his touch gentle.
“You need not doubt my fidelity.” He sealed his promise with a kiss upon my inner thigh. “There will be only happiness.” He continued upward, his golden beard grazing soft against my skin. “And many children.”
His voice was husky as he brought his mouth to my curls. His tongue found me, the tip flicking back and forth, and I moaned, feeling my wetness grow. The familiar ache stirred low in my belly. Eirik had shown me what it was to be desired and to crave in return.
His heart was mine, he said. Yet, I held back some part of me—afraid of him seeing how much I needed him.
Not so very long ago, he’d left Svolvaen at Gunnolf’s command, to make a marriage of alliance. Duty was stronger than love, he’d told me. Even now, on the eve of our wedding, I didn’t know if I could trust my heart to his care.
Nor did I know if I could trust myself.
On the night of Ostara, when Gunnolf had seduced me, hadn’t I welcomed that strange, consuming oblivion? I’d believed myself betrayed—that Eirik had never loved me, that he’d come back wedded. Piece by piece I’d died, letting Gunnolf claim what Eirik had so carelessly cast away, until I barely remembered who I was. I hadn’t wanted to remember.
I pushed against Eirik’s shoulders, suddenly fearful, unsure of myself, but he grasped my waist and pulled me firm toward his mouth.
“I want you.” He buried his tongue deeper, reaching where his cock would soon follow. “And this—forever.”
I struggled only briefly, holding fast to the raised portion of the deck until I could think only that he must not stop. It had always been so, from the first days, when he’d come to Holtholm as a raider, and I’d been powerless to deny him.
I slid my fingers through his hair, yielding to the urgent hunger of his mouth. With yearning pain, I wanted him, but he took his time, for it aroused him to see me so. He teased me long and slow, until my belly tightened with sweet pain and I shuddered, blinded by brilliant light.
Unfastening the brooches that held my gown, he pulled all that I wore over my head, until I lay as naked as he, and he moved to cover me.
He pressed his lips to my eyelids and my forehead, and to the hollow of my throat, scooped back my hair to nuzzle behind my ear.
I twined my arms about his neck, welcoming his weight and the long sliding push of his penetration—lost to the sensation of being filled and stretched.
“So tight. So warm.” He buried his face against my breast, suckling with each thrust, then grazing my nipple with his teeth, yielding sharp pleasure.
I could not lie still. I wanted all of him. Caressing his buttocks, I pulled him deeper, wrapping my legs around his. “Eirik!” I breathed his name, gasping for air, trembling, while he clasped me tight. A searing jolt seized me, white-hot and blazing. I raised my hips to receive him, crying at the depth of his final invasion, arching as he spurted his seed—desiring all that he would give.
* * *
Irubbed my cheek on his chest, listening to the slap of water against the side of the boat as we lay together.
Eirik cradled me. “You’re mine, Elswyth.” His lips touched the crown of my head. Tenderly, he stroked my hair. “I wish only…”
I raised myself to my elbow, wishing to know what troubled him, but he shook his head.
“’Tis foolish— for she is dead these thirty years.”
Sitting up, I placed my hand over his heart. He’d spoken of his mother only once—of her abduction when Eirik had been but three summers old.
“Do you wish to tell me of it?”
A shadow crossed his face. “It changes nothing to dwell on the past.”
I brushed the hair from his eyes. “But it may ease your heart and—”
He caught my wrist and turned my palm to meet his lips, holding it there for several moments. “You wish to know what pains me, wife, that you may share in understanding.”
“I do.”
