Page 20 of To Find a Viking Treasure (Norse #2)

She pushed up on tip-toe, her hands exploring his chest where his heart beat hard against her palm. Ticklish whiskers scraped the high curve of her breast, and she laughed with delight frothy as sea foam. Brandr’s warm mouth traveled higher, his breath hot on her flesh.

Her hands slid into his wet hair, discovering those soft curls at his nape. She sighed sweetly and cupped the back of his head, drawing him closer. Brandr nibbled the corner of her mouth and she shuddered all the way to her toes.

“Ohhh.” Her knees buckled, but he caught her by the waist.

The surly Viking tasted her as if she were a sweet morsel.

Safe in his arms, her head tipped back and her body yielded to his strength.

Dark light flashed in his eyes. If Brandr was a beast of the forest, he’d drag her to his lair and never let her go.

This must be a glimpse of the warrior who spent much time alone in wild lands.

“Please,” she whispered, rubbing her mons over his erection. “Kiss me on the mouth.”

His lips molded to hers for one long, deep kiss, soft yet hard like the man. Her heart soared. Legs tangling, her body rocked against his. If the beach was beneath her feet, she couldn’t feel sand anymore.

She was free.

Strong hands gripped her shoulders and pushed her away. Brandr said a foreign word under his breath, a curse word by the way he nearly spat it and let her go. Her sluggish eyelids opened halfway. His hair, shiny and black, fell around his jaw.

Iron-colored eyes burned. “No. We can’t.”

“No, we can’t what? Kiss? Lay naked together in your sleeping fur?”

What was behind his need to deny fleshly pleasures?

As if he read the question in her eyes, his mouth flattened grimly. “Remember why we’re here.”

Eyes narrowing, she couldn’t shake his vague answer. A few stolen kisses couldn’t hurt. Yet…the damaged boat. The dead men from the clearing. The treasure and the people of Uppsala.

“You’re concerned about the other warrior,” she said, willing her heart to slow down. “The one you think will come back.”

“He will come back. Rats always do.” He lifted his tunic off the rock. “I won’t be caught with my trousers down. We need to get moving.”

“To Lord Hakan’s farm and give him the news.” But her lethargic limbs refused to cooperate.

Metal clanked as he strapped on Jormungand . “You’ll want to put your clothes on.”

Stomach rumbling, she shook out her tunic. Bright saffron and blue threads fluttered, the embroidery torn when Brandr saved her from the cliff. Every moment with him thrilled her, challenged her ordinary life of servitude. So many possibilities with him…

This couldn’t be the end?

She smiled and raised her tunic over her head. “You make me feel safe,” she said quietly. “I forget there’s trouble on the other shore.”

Questions tumbled through her mind. What did the foreign words he whispered last night mean?

Why kiss her passionately and push her away as if she was poison?

He was right. They needed to get off the island.

Niggling doubts hung over her head, but a new plume of black smoke rose in the distance.

Her questions could wait until he was a captive listener on their boat.

The tunic dropped over her face, the russet wool veiling her eyes and sliding over her nose. When she tugged it all the way down, Brandr waited in front of her, a long knife balanced in one hand.

“I’ll need to cut off your hem.”

“My hem? Why?”

“To repair the boat.” He eyed her skirt as if deciding how much to cut. “Wool strips soaked with resin seal the planks.”

Glossy saffron and blue embroidery shined on the dark wool. The threads, she suspected, were silk. No thrall wore silken threads, but it was hers to keep. With careful tending, the mud stains could be cleaned and the rips repaired with artful stitching.

“Couldn’t you cut my linen underskirt instead?” Her heels inched backward. “I’ve never had clothes this fine.”

He stopped surveilling her hem to look in her eyes. The corners of his mouth softened. “Wool holds resin better.”

Her shoulders sunk. What else would the island demand she give?

She took stock in the healer’s forest across the water, a stiff breeze blowing curls loose from her sleep-mussed braid.

Hadn’t she sacrificed enough? The treasure was lost. She was hungry, and more men like the one who held the knife to her throat were coming.

Brandr was only thinking of their survival. It’s how he lived.

He flipped his blade around in his hand and went down on one knee. Without a word, he began to untie his boot’s leather cross garter.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

The leather garter dropped in the sand and Brandr, head bent to his task, pushed down his boot. “Preparing to cut my trouser leg off.”

“What? No! Stop.” She skidded on her knees and grabbed his hand with the knife poised to cut.

The depth in his grey eyes took her breath away. Wind teased Brandr’s ragged overlong curl at the side of his neck and she wanted to melt. Firm male lips curled in the kindest of smiles, erasing harsh lines that framed his mouth.

“You would go with one leg clothed just to save my hem?”

She could barely swallow. No man had ever smiled at her like this…as if her whim was his command.

Brandr hooked a finger under her chin. “I would do much more to see you happy.”

It would be easy to fall in love with him.

To love his square, stubborn jaw and proud nose with its bump in the middle.

He’d likely broken it once and reset it himself.

Brandr, she discovered was as ruggedly beautiful on the outside as he was remote and beautiful inside.

The woman who cracked open his private heart would find a treasure worth hoarding.

“No. You can’t,” she whispered, her mouth dry.

“Can’t what? See you have some happiness?”

His graveled voice caressed the deepest places inside. Tears threatened to come at the man she wanted but couldn’t have. She belonged to someone else, and Brandr couldn’t afford to buy her.

She pushed his knife aside and retied his boot. The small act lightened her. “I thank you for your concern, but my hem is a small price to pay.”

His brows pinched at the words price to pay .

“You’re certain?”

She stood up, steeling herself for the first rip. “Cut away.”

Brandr’s knife jabbed a hole in the hem, and her body turned in a slow circle to the music of rending fabric.

One rotation complete, and the bottom section of her tunic was gone.

Walking to the pine tree, Brandr notched the wool with his knife and shred it into smaller strips.

He stretched the cloth over the tree’s oozing lines and pressed.

When he removed his hand, resin darkened the cloth.

Daylight poured over the tree’s scored lines. “With full sun here, we won’t have long to wait.” He glanced up at her. “Heat makes the tree bleed faster.”

She turned to the sun, its warmth blasting her face. Last night, he’d cut in the exact spot where morning light would shine the longest. He read the elements, sun and sky, moon and stars, water and land.

“You’ve done this many times, haven’t you?” she murmured, lost in the quiet.

Wind rippled tiny waves across the channel. Pine needles crunched behind her. Brandr stood close enough the heat of his body touched her.

“A few. You’re the brave one here, a giving woman.”

“I’m not so sure. We’re returning empty-handed.”

The ebb and flow of his steady breath was as intimate as last night’s sex.

This newness was to be savored. True comfort with a man who made her body burn and her soul sing.

How long would it last? Her gaze slid to the ripped wool bathed in sunlight.

For as long as it took the tree to yield enough of its blood.

Everything paid a price. The boat would get them off the island, but it would also take Brandr away.

He stroked her braid as his lips moved over her ear. “If you could choose freedom today, would you take it?”

She whipped around. “Are you asking me to run away with you?”