Page 38

Days passed, stretched into weeks, then months.

Taranc found no cause for complaint at the bargain he had struck.

Brynhild set his home to rights, assisted by Annag.

His meals were wholesome, hearty, and hot.

She weaved, she marched about his village, cloak billowing in the stiff northerly breeze which heralded the onset of the colder month, ordering his people about.

She showed them how to salt the fish they caught, and insisted that a deep pit be dug in which to store ice in the winter.

They could preserve their meat in ice, she insisted, enjoy fresh food in the depths of the harshest blizzards when it was impossible to hunt or fish.

She never stopped, was always moving, always working, as though by constant movement she might stave off the need to think, to reflect upon the injustices which had brought her here.

Did she long for her home? For those left behind?

He did not know and would not ask again.

He had offered, just once, to take her back to the Norseland if she so wished and he would have aided her in presenting her case to her brother, if not Ulfric then the other, Gunnar.

Brynhild had refused, insisting that she had no desire to ever see Ulfric again.

If there was one thing he could say with certainty about his lovely Brynhild, it was that she held a grudge well. She swore she would never forgive her brother for his betrayal and Taranc saw no cause to doubt it.

Privately, Taranc could find no reason to quibble with Ulfric's decision, wrong-headed though it had been. Taranc had emerged the victor.

Brynhild was happy, he was sure of that.

He knew she found pleasure in managing her household and enjoyed the company of Dughall.

She spent most evenings at the manor house in Pennglas, but was always pleased to accompany Taranc back down to the coastal village and to writhe with undisguised lust in his arms the moment their door was closed and barred.

She was a truly glorious lover, responsive to his touch but equally ready to initiate their lovemaking.

She was inquisitive too, and inventive, a sensual creature who once awakened revelled in her own pleasure and in his.

He would chuckle and insist he had unleashed a siren of old, a Nordic goddess devoted to sensuality and lust. Brynhild would laugh and assure him that the goddess Freyja had far weightier matters to concern her than the state of a Celtic fisherman's cock, but she would have no hesitation in dropping to her knees before him and releasing that same swollen cock from within his woven trousers.

She would cradle his erection in her hands, lick the tip, taste the juices which flowed from the slit there before taking as much of the head and shaft as she could inside her mouth.

Then she would work her tongue and teeth and throat until his seed spurted forth.

She would swallow hard and lick him clean, a contented smile playing about her sensual lips as she sat back on her heels inordinately pleased with herself.

Cold? Never.

Distant? Lacking in affection? He believed not though she was not even remotely demonstrative in other ways.

Always proper, always respectful toward him in public, Brynhild was quietly efficient and fair in her dealings with his people and seemed to have found contentment here at Aikrig.

This was all that mattered to Taranc. He loved her. It was that simple.

"Do you have a few minutes to walk with me?"

Taranc glanced up from the timbers of the fishing boat whose hull he was coating with pitch.

Brynhild stood behind him, her cloak flapping in the breeze.

Her elegant features appeared tense, her skin paler than he liked.

He hoped she was not sickening in this unfamiliar land, this strange climate, though surely she was accustomed to worse.

"Is all well with you, my Viking?" He rose to his feet and wiped his hands down his trousers.

Brynhild picked up a piece of rag and offered it to him. "Here, clean your hands. Yes, perfectly well. Come."

She turned to pick her way along the beach, turning just once to make sure he was indeed following her.

Taranc took a few moments to admire the tempting sway of her hips as she moved away from him.

Perhaps she might not object too strenuously if he was to suggest she get herself back here right now and drape herself over the rail of the boat he was working on.

She might even be so good as to invite him to lift her tunic to reveal her bare arse.

He would ram his cock into her from behind, for he knew she loved it when he did that, and perhaps drop a few playful spanks on her delectable cheeks.

The notion had real merit. He opened his mouth to summon her back, but she chose that moment to pause and turn around.

"Please, hurry. I... I need to talk to you."

The troubled expression on her beautiful features dispelled his errant thoughts. He strode after her, then fell in step alongside.

"Tell me," he ordered.

"Soon. I just?—"

He stopped, took her hand and turned her to face him. "Tell me."

She tilted her chin, her jaw flexing in a defiant expression he had come to know well. Belligerence was writ across her features, as though she expected him to take her to task. What had she done?

Taranc waited, arms folded.

"I am pregnant."

"Ah." He should not be surprised, he spilled his seed into her on a more or less nightly basis.

It was only ever a matter of time. Yet, he was taken aback.

Perhaps it was her attitude towards this turn of events which dictated her hostile reaction rather than the news itself.

"You find this to be a matter of some concern? "

"Do you not?" She stamped her foot in indignation, as though that might change anything.

Taranc shrugged. "No."

"We cannot wed."

"Can we not? Very well."

"My child will be a bastard."

"Our child will be chief of this village in due course, and my heir. I shall acknowledge and own him."

"What if it is a girl?"

"The same."

"Oh. Well, that is all right then. Thank you, Celt. I merely wished to make sure." She turned to leave him there on the beach.

Taranc watched her retreating form for a few seconds, allowed her to complete five, perhaps six paces, then he set off after her at a sprint.

He caught her up, seized her about the waist and tossed her into the air, Brynhild flopped back down into his arms in a chaotic flurry of flapping cloak and kicking legs as she shrieked her outraged protest at such undignified treatment of her person.

"Set me down at once. What are you doing? You are quite deranged, Celt, a savage. I shall?—"

Taranc put an end to the tirade before she could properly warm to her theme by the simple expedient of kissing her.

Brynhild went still in his arms, then curled her wrist behind his head and pulled him closer.

She could never resist a direct assault on her senses.

He exploited that trait without mercy, deepening the kiss as he strode with her up the beach and into the cover of the surrounding trees.

"Where are we going?" She managed to mutter the question against his lips. Taranc did not break stride, nor pause to respond.

He soon reached his destination, a secluded copse ringed by a dense undergrowth.

Here, the trees were less closely packed and soft meadow grass carpeted the ground.

Dappled sunlight tumbled through the branches overhead, the illumination soft and pale, delicately painting the earth below.

Here, Taranc set her on her feet. He spread his cloak on the ground then drew her down to her knees beside him.

"Lie down, sweetheart."

"Here? Why?"

"Yes, here." He grinned into her started face. "And do it because I asked it of you."

She eased herself onto her back, eyeing him with undisguised suspicion. Her brow furrowed even more when he moved to kneel between her feet, but she did not protest when he lifted her skirt to her waist.

Blonde curls greeted him. Taranc bent to press his nose into them, inhaling the sweet, musky aroma of her, a scent which he loved.

He fancied he could detect the slight change which denoted her pregnancy, though of course that was whimsical and she would laugh out loud were he to voice such romantic nonsense.

His practical Brynhild had no time for such capricious sentiment.

He spread her thighs and drew the flat of his tongue through her folds, already damp.

Her breath hitched as he eased the tip of his tongue inside her entrance, she lifted her hips, thrust forward.

He pushed her knees up toward her chest, raising and opening her to him.

His beautiful she-Viking, so prickly moments before, relaxed in his hands and allowed her thighs to part.

She flung her hands behind her head, her eyes closed as he lapped at the sensitive button of her clitty.

The delicate flesh swelled, peeped out from within the hood which had shrouded it just moments before, darkening to a deep, rich pink as her arousal built.

He could fuck her. She would love that, he knew, as would he.

But not this time. This time, he had something else in mind.

He scraped his teeth across the tip of her clit, then suckled gently upon it.

Brynhild writhed on the ground before him, twisting her hips one way then the other as she sought to increase the intensity of sensation.

Taranc held her still. On this occasion, he would control and she would accept. There would be no coercion, just a determined and ruthless erotic storm designed end executed with deliberate intent to send her past the point of oblivion. It was time his Viking learnt the true meaning of surrender.

He brought her to the edge of her release, then retreated. Brynhild arched her back, her heels now planted on the blanket as she pressed her demanding cunt against his mouth. She tasted so luscious, so exquisite, so utterly delicious he could have wept.

"Taranc, please..." her voice was ragged, her moan verging on desperation.

This was good, but his beautiful Nordic lover had some distance to travel yet, Taranc determined. She would beg and plead and weep for her release, and her pleasure would be all the sweeter for it. He slipped two fingers into her channel, then a third.

Her inner walls fluttered about his thrusting digits as he plunged deep. He turned his hand, angling his fingers as he sought that spot which would send her wild. He found it, smiled as she lurched under his skilled touch.

"Now. Taranc, I need you to... to... oh!

Oh!" She thrashed her head from side to side on the cloak, her fingers now tunnelling through his hair as she sought to control the precise angle and pressure of his assault on her senses.

Her efforts were to no avail, Taranc was determined upon that, but he enjoyed witnessing her futile attempts to force the pace.

He lifted his head and gazed up at her, her features were flushed now, the rosy hue spreading from beneath her cloak and creeping up her neck. Her jaw was tight, her lips flattened against her teeth. She glared at him.

"What are you waiting for. I am ready."

He splayed the palm of his hand across her lower abdomen, his thumb lazily tracing a gentle caress over the tip of her clitty. She gasped and arched upwards.

"You like that?"

"Yes," she ground out.

"What else do you like?"

"You know what I like."

"Tell me. Tell me what you want, and you shall have it."

"My release. I want my release. Why are you doing this?"

"How do you want it? Tell me."

"I do not understand. You know?—"

"What do you want me to do to you? How would you prefer to be touched?"

"With your mouth!" She yelled the words at him. "Your mouth, your tongue, inside me."

Taranc smiled. "Ah, not so hard after all, once you stop resisting your desires. My tongue, then..." He leaned back in and parted the lips of her cunny with his thumbs, then plunged his tongue as deep as he was able inside her quivering entrance.

Brynhild trembled. She shuddered, panting softly as he drew his tongue in and out.

"Your fingers now. Deeper..."

"My pleasure," he murmured, driving three fingers deep again. He wondered if she would have the words, the awareness of her own body which would enable her to ask him to stroke that pleasure spot.

"There is somewhere, a place where it is more..."

Ah, so she had been taking notice.

"You mean just here, my sweet?" He found the placed and pressed.

"Yes. Oh... yes..."

"Is there more I might do for you? Remember, you have but to request and it is yours."

"Your mouth..."

"Again? Of course. Is there any particular?—?"

"Suck me. That place. Just here..." She released her grip on his hair in order to lay her fingers over her swollen clit. "It feels good here."

"Oh yes, I know it does. Like this, then..."

He took the plump bud between his lips and scraped it with his teeth.

He watched as her eyes rolled back in her head, her entire body now shaking as he brought her once again to the very brink of ecstasy.

This time, he did not retreat. This time he held her there, his fingers inside her, his mouth, teeth, tongue working on her clitty to draw every last frisson of sensual delight from her body.

He knew it, the precise moment she yielded. He knew the exact instant she gave herself over into his keeping, her pleasure his to create, to give or withhold as he chose.

He witnessed the definitive juncture when she handed him her trust and he took it into his keeping.

Satisfied he had attained his goal Taranc hollowed his cheeks to increase the suction on her clitty, just enough to send her spiralling past the point of no return. His fingers stretched and caressed her inner walls, his tongue flicked the tip of her clit without mercy and she was lost.

Brynhild fisted his hair between her fingers and she screeched her release to the heavens.

After, she lay still, spent in his arms. He held her, enjoyed the gentle rise and fall of her chest as her breath returned to normal.

His hand lay within the folds of her cloak, her breast beneath his palm.

He allowed himself a private smile as her heartbeat slowed, settled to a steady, rhythmic beat.

He believed she was happy, here, with him. Or she could be, if she could be reconciled to her past and embrace her future. Their future.

"Why did you do that?" she murmured drowsily.

He did not pretend to misunderstand. "Why, for the sheer joy of it, Brynhild. For the sheer fucking joy of it."