Page 31 of Her Viking Warrior (Forgotten Sons #2)

Chapter

Seventeen

H e burst into cold black night. Expectation was a coin spinning inside him.

Vellefold had stamped her needs on one side, his brothers had stamped theirs on the other.

Everyone had their wants. The mess was written in footprints scattered outside the feast hall.

A single torch lit them. Large and small, the settlement had gathered for food and unity.

They’d gathered with longing in their hearts for their old way of life—to be rich and powerful again.

One fresh pair of footprints diverged. Ilsa’s.

She was a lodestone, a puzzle, the most solid woman he’d ever met.

And he couldn’t trust her. He wanted to.

By the gods, he wanted to. Wind howling at his back, he tracked Ilsa’s footsteps along an unlit trail until he spied her flaxen-crowned head.

She threaded a lonely path through trees bordering the practice field.

“Ilsa!” he yelled.

She spun around. “Bjorn?”

He trotted fast, leaves crunching under his boots. Ilsa stood in the shelter of a tree, more goddess than simple Viking woman. Tall and proud, rich white fur crested her shoulders, the tips caressing her jaw. Green eyes glowed up at him, pale as virgin glass.

“Is something wrong?”

How smooth, her voice. It turned a coil inside him.

“I could ask the same of you.” He cupped his hands and blew warmth into them. Aged trees were giants around them. “Why did you choose this path to your farmstead?”

She tilted her chin, defiant. “You wonder why I didn’t take the main road which exposes me to harsh wind blowing off the harbor.”

He grinned at her haughty Are you daft? tone.

Scant light touched her sloped cheeks and smooth skin. This was the second time they were alone, the fact echoing inside his body. He ought to ask about the footprints. To follow through with all the questions his brothers expected him to ask, yet sound judgment faded the longer he faced Ilsa.

Take me drifted between them. Night whispers, he was sure.

Why did he want to kiss this woman so badly?

A thick, messy braid rested on the swell of her breast. He lifted the flaxen tip.

Unplaited locks shined like rare white-gold.

He rubbed the silken strands as if he were a merchant considering his next purchase.

Ilsa tolerated his attention. Barely. There was unbridled certainty about her, which had not been there when she was a child.

The coil inside him wound tighter.

Was this part of their riddle? Him, longing for the Ilsa he once knew yet fascinated by the womanly creature she’d become?

She was, and always would be, the dust of his past.

“Do you remember the last time I pulled your braid?”

“No.”

“You were in the market with your mother. It was Midsumarblot. ” He swallowed raspiness in his throat.

“You were studying a display of knives for sale. I’ve never forgotten the look on your face…

you bartering with the blacksmith’s wife.

How prideful you were for such a reserved girl.

You were determined to get the price you wanted. ”

Nostrils flaring, she was stiff. “Save your stories for the practice field tomorrow morning.”

He tugged ever so slightly on her braid. “Where we can labor through our frustration?”

Ilsa’s breath hitched.

The tiny sound stoked his pride. Evidence of shared misery. It had become tiresome, working hard at not kissing her. Crossing axes, tumbling in the grass, limbs tangling on a field shared with a hundred others.

On the field, she was fierce. Labored. Invigorating.

Sex would be the same .

He stiffened at images of Ilsa flooding his mind. Her body striving against his. Sweaty, naked, pliant. Her tender moans. Her hands seeking…

Yearning howled inside him, his lust sharply hot. He was curling her braid around his hand.

“That look on your face in the market—you had the same expression in Longsword’s map room.”

“I don’t have time for this,” she said.

Yet both hands gripped his mantle as if she’d never let go. His laugh was rough. Ilsa’s breasts pillowed his chest and her skirts draped his legs. Her mouth was beneath his, starlight touching her lower lip.

“How is it, the more dismissive you are with me, the more I crave you?” he asked, vexed.

“Perhaps you miss the taste of northern women?”

Her seductive purr reached under his clothes like a tender stroke. Heat flooded the flesh between his legs—her words, her stance challenging him. She searched his face, waiting. Goading. He drank in every detail like a parched man who’d wandered too long in the desert.

Could be he was desperate for a cool, northern woman after all.

He let go of her braid and lashed both arms around her waist. She hissed crossly as their bodies pressed together. Ilsa had to feel the hardness between his legs. When their eyes met, want and need clashed.

Her brows knit and her breasts lifted in agitation. Yet, her grip on him was desperate.

“You want me,” he said.

“This—this…it cannot happen.” Ilsa’s fingers dug into his mantle as if she’d never let go.

Fury lines were etched between her eyes. Lust came in different shades—angry and passionate, tender and sweet. He wanted to feel them all with her. To taste her. Ilsa’s warm pine-clean scent swamped him. He slipped his hand inside her mantle and found her hip.

He sucked in a ragged breath. Her curve fit his palm perfectly.

Her mouth brushed his. “Bjorn…”

A giant could be sitting on his chest. He couldn’t think. Ilsa stole his clarity. She ought to push him away. Instead, she rested her back against a tree and he moved with her. He bent his head to plunder the woman. To thoroughly claim her.

Their first kiss was explosive, a joining braided with heat and longing and terrible need. The world evaporated like fog under sun-drenched skies. The enemy could be watching, but he was useless to lift a finger. They’d know his weakness—Ilsa.

She was in his arms, kissing him back, yielding tenderly. Her body nestled into his.

Night was peaceful. He sowed her mouth with achingly soft kisses. She whispered his name and he heard promises, felt them, in her voice. Ilsa touched his jaw, her body arching into his as if she couldn’t get enough.

He shuddered when she buried her nose against his neck. Her mouth was hot on his skin and her hand was wandering lower, lower…lower.

White-hot need seared him. Her fingers were tantalizing close.

Why hadn’t they done this days ago?

Ilsa cupped throbbing flesh between his legs.

“Please stay,” she whispered. “Think of the good you can do.”

Cold shock splashed him. Lungs billowing, he jerked back as if a viper bit him. He nearly groaned when the tip of her pink tongue wetted her lips. Ilsa’s eyes were dark and liquid, the center of them a black pool. True sensual need. It burned in her, and it burned in him.

He swiped a hand over his face, the truth gutting him. Ilsa might want his body, but her heart and mind belonged to Vellefold.

The settlement came first for her.

Want me! rang in his head, but out came a gruff, “You wouldn’t like me as jarl.”

“I think I would.”

Ilsa was a temptress, her body arched invitingly to his. Passion lit her eyes and softened her mouth. She was an offering should he stay.

What a fool he’d been.

He took a menacing step closer. “If I did stay, I would ask you hard questions?—”

Words froze in his mouth. She was cupping his balls.

“All of you is hard,” she murmured seductively.

Lustful sparks flared like wildfire, up and down his body. Muscles knotted low in his belly. His body responded to Ilsa’s caress, the pleasure painful, sharp, and sweetly unexpected.

Gritting his teeth, he manacled her wrist.

Yet, he couldn’t pull her hand away. Her touch was…just right.

“Ilsa…” He barely recognized the hoarse voice as his own.

Shivers danced down his backside. Her fingertips were skimming flesh between his legs with the lightest pressure.

“What would you ask me?” She eyed him boldly. He was numb, fighting raging lust. “These questions of yours, what are they? The same as what you asked of me your first day in Vellefold?” She was purring now, rubbing him. “I was a fool not to say yes.”

He groaned. Ilsa was temptation on a cold winter’s night. She’d tempt him spring, summer, and harvest too. The woman knew just how to touch him. He wouldn’t question why she’d changed her mind, not with her provocative fingers stroking him.

If women knew the power of their touch, they could rule the world.

He wanted to push her up against the tree, lift her skirts, and take her with the snow falling around them.

She was clever, rubbing him between his legs.

The friction oh so sweet. He bit hard to hold back a groan and braced a hand on the tree, his fingertips pressing the bark.

Ilsa was stroking faster. All her attention focused there.

His knees buckled. He hissed between clenched teeth.

White, down-soft tufts fell from the skies, dancing and twirling. Base need was driving him. Weakening him.

“Ilsa…” He said her name again and his hand on her wrist tightened.

She slowed her clever strokes.

The giant on his chest was still there, but he tried to clear his head. Light flickering in the darkness helped. The night watch’s torch. He blinked twice, reason battling his lust.

Why did Ilsa suddenly change her mind about this? Moments ago, she was feisty. Defensive. Hostile.

Then, she’d plied him with alluring touches.

To divert him?

It took all his willpower, but he dragged her hand off of him. He drank in mind-clearing, cool air and kept a firm hold on her hand. There was a reason why he’d sought her, and that torch on a high cliff was the best reminder. His question came, cold and brutal.

“Who are you hiding on your farmstead?”

She jerked free of him. “Who says I’m hiding anyone?”

Her courage was noteworthy, but he saw the truth. Her life vein on her throat galloped fast. Lust would do that. Fear would too. Ilsa straightened, proud and fierce. The Valkyries would be pleased with her. Those she defended had won her whole heart, but he was undaunted.

“Erik and Gunnar found footprints on your land.”

“Probably mine. Or Ardith’s. Or Iduna’s.” Her mouth was tight.

“Who else, Ilsa?”

His pulse galloped less now. Icy calm was seeping in. He was twice the fool for giving in to lust for a woman he should keep at arm’s length.

She side-stepped him and changed her tactics. “I won’t argue the wrongness of your men on my land after I expressly forbade them from searching it.”

“Since Erik tracked at least ten footprints in mud by your stream, I’d say it was the right decision.”

“He can count that high?” She was backing away from him.

“Insults are beneath you.”

She flinched, and he was glad of it.

“What do you want? To search my longhouse?” she asked. “Only a fool would think I hide people there.”

He was unmoved by her irritation. Better to feed on it, otherwise he’d find a warm dry place and finish what they’d begun. Frustrated desire was a sharp edge between them, and he knew exactly how to squash it.

“We’ll check your longhouse, and we’ll search your land…” He studied her, watching her walk backwards inch by wary inch. “…including the cave.”

She flew at him. “Don’t you dare!”

“Stop.” He caught her wrists.

“Stay away!”

Ilsa bared her teeth like a cornered animal.

Snow dusted her cheeks and her anger-trembled hands shook in his grip.

They were nose to nose combatants. Tendons on her neck strained, and exhaustion shadowed her eyes.

Creatures of the forest defended their nests with the same ferocity—and that told him all he needed to know.

Out of respect, he released his hold.

“I didn’t tell my men about your cave,” he said. It was a peace offering.

Rubbing her wrist, Ilsa faced the lands behind Vellefold where the meadow rolled into pitch black night. She was battered by an unseen foe, but not crushed. When she spoke, her voice was low and full of grit.

“You’re not the first man to think he can force his will on me. By the gods, I swear you’ll be the last.” She swung around to face him. “You pretend to be a brave man. Yet, you don’t have the courage to speak to your own father.”

Words stuck to his tongue. Ilsa’s blow landed on raw, wounded places. If bitterness showed on his face, mild contempt smeared hers.

“Have I pushed back at the big, strong warrior?” She huffed a short, amazed laugh. “I believe I have.”

Anger stole his words, while Ilsa advanced on him, very clear with hers.

“In your heart, you know it’s best to leave me alone.” Her stare landed on him, steady and true. “Tell me, Bjorn of the Forgotten Sons, why didn’t you tell your men about my cave?”

He glared at her. Ilsa was testing his loyalty to the Sons against childhood friendship.

Howling winds blew through the chasm wedged between them.

Ilsa was ever so close, yet, far, far away.

His heart was twisting into a stony ball, protected from the one woman who could hurt him.

A man had his pride. He couldn’t forget that moments ago she’d handled him deftly, and he’d liked it.

Ilsa broke their silent staring contest. “Please, let the matter rest. I’m not hurting you or your men.”

“You’ve put me in a difficult position.”

She grasped her mantle high on her chest. Fur skimmed her cheeks and she was every bit the high-born woman. “It can’t be more difficult than preparing for an enemy who outnumbers you.” Her gaze searched him. “Isn’t it better to concentrate on that?”

“I know the odds we face… lady. ”

Snow flakes landing on her lashes, she implored him, “Do you really care who or what I hide in my cave?” A wolf bayed in the distance.

Gleeful voices carried faintly through the trees from people leaving the feast to seek their beds.

“Leave us alone, Bjorn,” she said. “Give your promised service and walk away. That is what you want to do.”

Those last words and her lifeless tone drove a knife into his heart.

She didn’t wait for him to respond. She turned and sped down a snow-white path. He watched Ilsa go, her blue mantle streaming until night devoured the widow.

He set his hand on the axe tied to his thigh.

An old habit for a man of violence. He was cold and alone.

Arousal’s warmth was gone from him. The only woman he cared about had walked away.

It was strange, counting a woman a friend but not entirely trusting her.

Ilsa was likely hurrying to warn those she harbored on her land. He had a good idea who she harbored.

Facing Jarl Egil’s feast hall, he didn’t know why.

One tight-lipped man inside the hall probably had the answer.