Page 18 of To Find a Viking Treasure (Norse #2)

Pine needles crackled in the silence as she turned.

Chin up, she faced him, one arm crossed over her breasts, the other shielding her most vulnerable feminine flesh.

The saucy mouth he craved was set, a thin line of damning silence, but Sestra’s turbulent eyes pierced his heart sharper than any knife.

Years of having no say over herself reflected back to him.

Her brown eyes seared him. He had to look away. “I won’t…use you.”

Naked in the forest tired yet wanting, his body desired Sestra.

His lusty cock bounced stiffly at the sight of her.

For all his harsh history, he wanted this woman of all women to have a little faith in him; he was no rutting animal.

He’d gone too far in pushing her away and now there was little he could do but live with the damage done.

Body wracked with tension, he stretched the long fur bag inside the shelter. He pulled open the flap and slipped inside the hudfat on his back, but he made the mistake of raising his head to call Sestra.

Head up, his tongue refused to work. Faint light touched the fiery tuft of hair between her legs. She stood in profile at the shelter’s entrance, her body visible from the waist down.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

He fixed on the patch of red hair. “Yes.” The word strangled his throat.

Sestra dropped to the ground and crept toward him on hands and knees, white hips undulating, ripe breasts swaying creamy and large. He ogled her, devouring every inch of freckled skin. Her nipples peaked with tender points barely visible in the shadows. Imagination filled in what he couldn’t see.

Head flopping down, his erection tented the fur. Hot rigid need was taking over. How badly he craved easing the ache between her legs. A few strokes of her hand in the right place and he’d spend his seed. The image of Sestra’s alluring body burned itself on his ragged brain and wouldn’t let go.

Staring at rough wood overhead, he dredged up quelling memories.

Swimming in icy water. Hunting muskox. Fish guts. Falling in a swine’s pen. Rotten hen’s eggs.

Sestra tucked herself into the hudfat, her bare legs slipping along his. He froze, sucking in a sharp breath and shut his eyes. A foot lay flush to his calf. Sestra squirmed alongside him, and the curls between her legs skimmed his hip. The sweet fiery tuft of feminine hair…

Eyes shut didn’t help. His mind worked harder, picturing what he couldn’t see.

Palms driving into the ground, he exhaled raggedly and squinted at the shelter’s handiwork. Sestra nestled against him, adjusting the hudfat. She dragged the fur this way and that over his pulsing erection, the coarse fur giving bittersweet friction on sensitive places.

“Stop moving,” he ground out. Breasts squished him, the softest pillows on his chest and ribs.

“I’m getting comfortable. Trying to,” she mumbled, her breath fanning his nipple. “Your sleeping fur is too small.”

His nipple puckered. “Because it’s made for one.” The ragged words coming out his mouth hardly sounded like him.

Night wind roused the island’s trees. Stars winked at him between cracks where the branches leaned together. Surely Freyja watched from above, finding great delight in the Frankish thrall sprawling naked across his body. Denial already turned his balls into painful stones.

The need to feel, to give in to his body’s demands consumed him.

Swimming in icy water. Hunting muskox. Fish guts. Falling in a swine’s pen. Rotten hen’s eggs. Rancid milk. Putrid meat.

Sestra wriggled her cold body on his. “You never finished telling me what men do when they cheat death.”

“What?” His head lifted off the ground. “You know the answer.”

Her dark eyes sparkled with mischief. The little shrug she gave was torture, rubbing her heavy breast along his rib. “I do, but I’d feel better if you talked to me.”

Her voice was intimate on his skin. He swallowed hard and willed his mind not to think about lush curves pressed close or fiery red feminine curls snug against his hip. Or the sweet freckle at the side of her mouth.

“Go to sleep.”

Wiggling, she made her little humming noise. “This won’t work. The opening here, it’s cold on my back.” Her leg swung across his thighs. “I want to sleep on the other side.”

He groaned and shut his eyes. “Just get comfortable.”

Darkness magnified every wriggle, smell, and sound.

Sestra’s knees buffeted his thighs as she straddled his waist, the whisper of her skin caressing his new torture.

The tendrils of her woman’s hair brushed him intimately.

Was it possible he felt each strand feathering his aching cock?

Cool, clean air carried scents of pine and pitch, filling his nose and biting his nipples.

Two hands rested on his chest. “Is this how you like sex when you cheat death?”

His eyes shot open. Sestra straddled him. The center of her palms pressed his nipples. Feminine legs folded against his hips and thighs. His hands curled easily around firm calves and wouldn’t let go.

Her hand trailed down his body’s midline, sending waves of bliss across his skin. “Never mind,” she said archly. “I decided this is how I like sex after I’ve cheated death.”

Sestra’s hand moved to the dark spot between her legs and his. She teased the black hair between his legs before her fingernails delicately scratching his abdomen and going lower. Shivers danced across his thighs. A drop of his seed glistened on the tip of his cock.

Air hissed past his teeth. “Sestra…”

“Today was a first for me.” Her fingers found his dampness and swirled it over the crest of his manhood. “I learned a lot hanging onto that root.” She paused to squeeze his rigid length, her feminine laugh throaty.

His heels dug into the fur. Her hand was exquisite.

She started stroking him again. “It changed me.”

“You don’t…have to do this.” Hips jerking into her, his body sung a different tune.

“Oh, but I want to,” she purred.

He wanted badly to be gentle with her, but it wasn’t his nature. He liked sex the way he lived, fast and rough with no time for a lover’s gentle words. If Sestra only knew the beast caged within, she’d not want this. If she yielded to him, he’d ride her hard and slake this animal thirst.

Fingers gripping her calves dug deeper. She’d have bruises tomorrow because of him, marks on her soul because of what he’d said and marks on her body because of what he’d do. His heart twisted in his chest. She deserved better than this.

“If you don’t stop now, I can’t stop…” The words burst out of him with a curse when she seated herself on his cock’s rounded head.

“I don’t want to stop.”

Pleasure-pain centered on her hot, wet skin kissing the crown of his erection.

Sestra sat tall over him as if he was conquered and she the victor.

With the tiniest shift, she gave needful friction.

Her legs were firmly muscled under his hands, the skin soft as silk.

She drove him out of his mind, rolling her hips in slow, sensuous circles.

Slick flesh teased no more than a single inch of him.

All sensations centered on the tip of his cock.

“Sestra,” he growled.

Eyes innocent, her hips swirled wide. He almost slipped out. His head jerked up. Stomach muscles knotted. Sinews strained.

He had to stay inside her.

“You’ve never touched me,” she whispered, one hand on his chest, pushing him down. “Never even tried to.”

His body shook from fighting unquenched need with all his might. He. Had. To. Push.

“Gaahhhh.” The roar ripped from him.

He grabbed her hips. Her thighs were the best of strong and soft in his hands. Grinding with all his might, he thrust into her like the beast he was. Her breasts jostled. Air skipped sharp and fast from her mouth. The artful hip circles stopped.

Flesh slapped flesh.

Quick. Desperate. Pressure built in him with each cry slipping from her lips.

“Ohhhh,” she cried long, her head lolling sideways.

He grabbed her breasts. She whimpered, arching her back. Erect nipples the size of rose hips squashed against his palms. He grunted and squeezed the supple breasts filling his hands, the down-soft skin pale against his claiming grasp. He wasn’t gentle.

“Brandr.” His name was an exhale on her lips.

This was animal need. A hot race.

Sestra shifted slick intimate flesh against his.

The angle pressed him high inside her and she cried out, a high, keening pitch.

He slammed his hips into Sestra, her feminine wetness making snicking sounds the faster and harder he pushed.

Her slender, sinuous neck stretched long.

Starlight framed the riot of curls fallen free.

Sif … fertile, beautiful, life giving.

Sestra’s beauty overwhelmed him, matched only by the storm of want from pushing into her. She set her hands over his on her hips and moaned her pleasure.

Each primal sound she made captured his heart.

“ Shirin-am . ” His throat hoarse, the foreign words wrenched free. “ Eshgh-am.”

His muscles tensed from head to toe. Head and shoulders lifted off the fur. He’d bite her if he could. Craving roiled in a hot ball, shooting through him. He rammed into her. Hard. Fast.

One…more…thrust…

A roar ripped from his throat.

His cock pulsated inside Sestra. He grabbed her braid and she fell onto him, the tight sheath of her body milking him, an intimate kiss from her most secret place. He shuddered once. Shuddered again.

Fulfilled. Sated. Wide open to Sestra.

His hands roamed her back, her hips, the side curves of her breasts. Soothing hands calmed her and the beast inside him. Eyes closed, whispered words spilled from him. He was half-aware, floating in between this world and his pleasured state.

Sestra unseated herself and slumped over to the enclosed side of the hudfat. Nestled against him, her breath tickled his chest. She stroked his breast bone and rested her hand there, his amulet of Tyr under her palm.

A slice of cold air touched the other side of his body.

He smiled, a sated wild creature, glad to bear the open side of the sleeping fur for Sestra.

Her rose hip nipple pressed his rib while the other poked out from the fur.

Sestra’s big breasts drove him out of his mind.

Smiling with utter contentment, he pulled the fur up, hiding the pink-red fruit.

He could never let Sestra know how much he loved her breasts and her big brown eyes.

Or her tantalizing freckles. It’d be too much power.

The saucy redhead would easily lead him by the nose.

Tender lips pressed his jaw with a gentle kiss. “My thanks. For today. I’ll never regret this time on the island with you.”

His heart turned to a lump of clay. He’d guess she didn’t want their togetherness to end. Neither did he.

“You’re welcome.”

She settled her head under his chin. “You saved my life, and you’ve been mostly nice.”

Nice? He mouthed the word in the dark. The trait wasn’t natural or unnatural, simply unknown. He lived a brutal life. Sestra’s voice, honest and humored, chipped away at deep walled-up places.

He knew Sestra, the thrall who served ale. Sestra, the flame-haired tease warriors sought for a tussle. Tart-tongued Sestra who met him in a battle of words, but what else did he know?

Flesh against flesh, she molded her body to his. “You’re right. Two bodies together heat up fast.”

Quiet laughter gathered in his chest. “After what we did, yes.” He kissed the top of her head, finding comfort in their tangled limbs.

He’d never lain this way with a woman, two naked bodies twined together for the night.

Stroking her spine, bone-deep contentment covered him, swept from chest to limbs, spreading like a potion.

Staring at the wood poles slanted imperfectly together, knowledge hit him hard.

One day alone with Sestra was all it took. He knew.

He loved her.

All summer he’d fought the saucy redhead’s unexplainable draw. Curt jabs and a surly tone were useless weapons against her appeal.

“You’re a good man,” she sighed nearly surrendered to sleep. “You deserve good fortune building your ships on Gotland.”

Gotland.

He flinched. Sestra had stood before him bare-skinned and fearless tonight.

She gave him her trust, the one thing he didn’t deserve.

Outside the shelter, he’d swear two ravens perched on the log facing the shelter’s opening.

Wind stirred the leaves, whispering Odin’s truth: There are few tokens of ill than a man not knowing how to accept the good.

Of his choices, did he know which one was for the good?

Eyes growing heavy, his fingertips drew meandering circles on her back. He slowed on the crest of her bottom and settled his hand on a curve he’d swear was formed for him. He knew how to fight, how to scout, and how to build boats. He knew what to do with a woman’s body.

What was he going to do with Sestra’s trust?