Page 7 of Kept By the Viking (Forgotten Sons #1)
Gold eyes shot daggers through black lashes. “I’d say you are touching me plenty.”
“As long as you understand.” She started to move, but his hands imprisoned her. “Tell me you understand.”
“You cannot mean it. For something as simple as getting off a horse?” Her musical voice pitched higher. “I must wait for you?”
“For something that simple. You’re a thrall. You serve me until I release you to your master.”
Safira’s mouth opened with a retort, but shut quickly as if she thought silence better.
Head angled lower, his mouth almost touched her ear. “Unless you want to tell me who you really are.”
Whispering to Safira was intimate, a mistake by the strong desire to nip her plump pink earlobe. He righted himself and fed on her glare. Lush lips pinched, and he saw it coming, defiance, a spate of haughtiness, challenging his word. She needed to grasp the natural order here—he led, she followed.
“You understand what I’m telling you?” he asked, rubbing her arms. “You obey me.”
Twilight split their camp with sun and shadows.
Normally, this was a peaceful hour of the day, a time to sate his hunger and collect his thoughts.
The thrall’s mere presence was a shift in the balance of nature.
All would have to adjust. Erik knelt beside the stone ring, the steady tap, tap, tap of stone strikes to his iron fire starter sounding while Gunnar and Bjorn dug through leather bags mere paces away.
All three men eavesdropped on the battle of words between him and the Paris maid.
Safira’s eyes widened and her voice was light. “So this is how it is.”
He balked. The she-cat was up to something. A wary, “What does that mean?” slipped out.
She set a hand on his chest, her smile close-lipped and crafty. “It means if you wanted me by your side for so much talk, Viking, why not say so? I thought you preferred quiet women. That is what you said at Sothram’s outpost.”
His vision narrowed on her. One foot shifted in the grass from the uncanny sense his world was about to go off-kilter. Because of this woman.
“I like conversation,” Safira chattered on, her accented voice breezy.
“A lot, really. I’d be pleased to bend your ear.
I have never seen your northlands, and you must have journeyed to many distant places.
Perhaps in our conversation, you can begin by telling me of all the kingdoms you have visited—” she patted his chest and leaned close “—and I do mean every place. When you are done, you can tell me of your childhood in Birka and the meaning of this wolf you wear on your leather vest. Why, there is much to discuss, no? With many Viking words you can teach me, the way you did this morning.” Her eyes lit with false innocence.
“Tomorrow we should ride side by side...all the better for us to talk.” Words slowing, her voice firmed. “And I do mean talk. All. Day.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He let go of her to chortles in the clearing.
Gunnar and Erik hid their faces, their shoulders rocking.
Bjorn didn’t bother to hide his mirth. “You said she rides with us, which makes her your problem.” Soap in hand, he grinned from ear to ear. “I’m going to the river to clean up.”
Tap. Tap Tap. Orange sparks sprayed off the fire starter. Tiny flames flickered in dry tinder. Erik glanced up, the corner of his mouth hitching with a humored I told you she was a bad idea message.
“How nice to find a man who wants to talk, a man to see to my every need. Are all Vikings this helpful to women?” Arms folded, Safira asked, “Or just you with me?”
Amber eyes glimmered with I know what you’re after .
The proud angle of her face reached inside him. Dirty in late-day sun, her hair a wild mass of black silk, Safira stunned him. She faced him unafraid. Fierce and clever. But it wouldn’t do for her to have the upper hand.
He grabbed her elbow and pulled her close. “Don’t bait me,” he said, low and quiet for her ears alone. “You won’t recover from my bite.”
The victorious light faded from her eyes, and regret was the heaviness sinking inside him. He’d squashed her will when he wanted it pliable to his. Truth be told, he reveled in Safira’s spirit. He liked her quick mind assembling his motives. It would make the journey...interesting.
She was interesting.
Frowning, he couldn’t decide to kiss the maid or shake her. A little yielding, a morsel of truth from her, and he’d count this conversation a victory. Yet from the moment he’d pulled her free of her horse, Safira had neatly turned this sparring match back on him.
She set a tentative hand on his arm. “Forgive my poor manners. I have forgotten that you agreed to take me on this journey at much inconvenience to you.” The tip of her tongue wet her lips. “My insolent mouth...sometimes it causes more trouble than good.”
Her lyrical accent washed over him. The camp faded, his men, the horses all dimming to nothing with the pressure of her simple touch. Safira’s dust-streaked hair spilled over his hand holding her elbow. He didn’t want to let go.
“Have a care,” he whispered. “Or I’ll find more useful talents for your mouth.”
Safira’s eyes darkened. At the base of her throat, her life vein ticked fast. This was like their tussle in the pelts.
..a veil of intimacy clouding them, vaporous and thin yet bewitching all the same.
His comment was supposed to scare her off.
Make sure she kept her distance from him.
He needed information, not a supple, sensual woman messing with his mind in the light of day.
Trouble was, to get information from the maid, he’d have to be close to her.
Wood crashed to the ground. Safira flinched and stepped away, breaking the spell.
“Rurik.” Thorvald dusted off his hands over a pile of broken branches. “Is she going to do anything to help? Or have we tossed out all our laws today?”
The braided giant turned on his heel, and Rurik kept his voice level. “Find a way to make yourself useful.”
She rubbed her lower back. Her limbs had to ache from the ride, and he was certain her skirts hid sores on the insides of her knees. He waited for complaints that never came.
“I will work.” She smiled softly, following Thorvald’s charge to the river. “To keep the peace, no?”
Her serenity poured over him, as unexpected as her cunning deflection of his brutishness moments ago.
“Gather wood and then you can rest,” he said, walking with her to the fire ring. “An armload should suffice.”
Erik fed dry leaves to the fire, his black eyes spearing Rurik. Thorvald had already dumped plenty of firewood.
Face set to the trees, Safira stuffed her hair into the back of her tunic, gracing Rurik with her profile.
With her arms upraised, grey wool hugged ample breasts.
The shapeless tunic couldn’t hide Safira’s curves or her natural dignity.
She’d once lived in higher places. He was sure of it.
Whenever she talked, her accent spun images of lavish courts and silk-swathed women.
..women who had wanted him to keep them safe.
Not a hero. A protector. It’s what the Paris maid had bargained for.
He picked up his leather bag and opened it, not seeing the contents he rummaged through.
“Safira.” He liked the way her name felt in his mouth.
“Yes?”
“Stay in my sight.”
She untied her cloak and let it drop to the grass. “Because you fear I will run away from your excellent care?”
“No, because if you go too deep into the woods, you’ll run into Thorvald naked in the river.”
“I’ll keep close.” Eyes rounding in horror, she checked the tree line where loud splashes sounded. “Very close.”
He chuckled and gave up digging through his things. “That’s what I thought.”
Safira set off for the trees, refinement in her walk.
Head shaking, he dropped the bag on the ground.
Not only did he explain his command—something he didn’t do—but the maid evaded him again.
Taking his knife from his boot, he knelt by the ermine bundles Gunnar had left in the camp.
He knew no more about her now than he did this morning.
Or did he?
Curious gold eyes, wide and dark in the middle, played in his head. From what he’d said about her mouth? That was an unexpected revelation. He cut long strips from wool covering the furs, the rending fabric a satisfying noise. Four long lengths of cloth dangled in his grip.
A man had many ways to get what he wanted from an unwilling woman.