The Pirate Bride Read online

  He laughed. “Aren’t you going to call me a loathsome lout?”

  “Not if I have to bite my tongue bloody!”

  He moved around her body, studying her, head to toe, then a return journey. He didn’t touch her at all. Just gazed with appreciation at all her “delights.” To his amazement, she did in fact have scars across her back. From her brothers’ lashes? He couldn’t dwell on that now, but, for a certainty, there were three Viking cowards who would sample the flavor of his wrath when he caught up with them.

  For now, he moved his scrutiny of Medana lower, and, blessed Valkyries, even the backs of her knees were pretty. And the dimples on each side of her buttocks? Oh, he intended to kiss each of them. As soon as possible.

  “What are you doing back there?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Admiring your arse.”

  “You never were!” She swiveled around and was about to pummel his chest at what she thought was mockery.

  “I was, I was,” he said, grabbing her by the waist, then lifting her higher by putting his hands under both buttocks.

  Instinctively, she raised her knees and wrapped her legs about his hips.

  Gods bless instincts! He swung her around in a circle several times, joyfully. Then he lowered himself down to the blanket, resting on his knees, taking her with him, under him. Thanks be for strong knees! When she lay back, glaring up at him, her legs were splayed on either side of his knees, which he widened even more.

  “Ah, Medana, I am going to enjoy playing with your body.”

  “My goal in life: to be a man’s play toy.”

  He chucked her lightly under the chin for her sarcasm. “And my goal today will be to bring you joy in the love play, too.”

  “Why would you care one way or the other?”

  “You are so green in many ways. Do you not know that a woman’s joy is a man’s pleasure?”

  “You made that up just now,” she accused him.

  He shook his head. “Nay, ’tis a well-known fact.”

  “Well, ’tis one many men have not yet learned if what my women relate is true.”

  “That I concede. But you are not to fear. I am an expert in these matters.”

  “Praise be to Asgard!”

  “Be careful, m’lady, or I may have to punish you for your continuing sarcasm.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it firmly, deciding for once that silence might be the better path to follow. Wise woman!

  He sat back on his knees and studied what he could see of her body. “I did not give your breasts near enough attention last night. Methinks that would be a good place to start.”

  “To st-start?” she sputtered.

  “Some men have a preference for big breasts, but—”

  “Mine are certainly not udders.”

  He smiled. “Is it not fortunate that I am not an udder man?”

  Whatever she was about to reply to that got frozen on her tongue as he began to fondle her breasts. Lifting them. Massaging them with wide circles of his palms. Tweaking the nipples ’til their hue changed from dusky rose to pale red. “Do you like this kind of love play?” he asked her.

  She refused to answer.

  So he leaned down and began to suckle one nipple, while flicking the other with a middle finger.

  A little yelp of surprise escaped her lips, and she stiffened as if bracing against the passions he was clearly igniting in her. When he changed breasts and had both nipples equally stiff and her back was arched up for more, he asked again, “Do you like this kind of love play?”

  “Yea, I do, damn your hide. If you stop, I might have to scratch out your pretty eyes.”

  “You like my eyes?” he murmured just before taking almost all of one breast into his mouth, then drawing back slowly until he released the nipple with a wet pop.

  “Of course I like your eyes. Every woman who sees you does, and you know it, too.”

  He did know that women liked his eyes, but for some reason her liking his eyes pleased him immensely. “What other body parts of mine do you like?”

  “As if I would tell you! Your conceit needs no more puffing up. Yikes! Now what are you doing?”

  “Licking your belly.”

  “Why?”

  “Why, why, why? Have I mentioned my Aunt Eadyth’s irksome parrot? Reminds me of you. Does there have to be a reason for everything? Just lie back and enjoy.”

  “I hardly think that I would enjoy—”

  “Shhh! Oh, look what I found here. A thatch of spun gold. I wonder what secrets I will find underneath.” He inserted a finger between her folds and stroked until she dewed against him. “Just as I thought. Honey.”

  She whimpered. “Would it do any good to tell you what a perverted man you are?”

  “Only if you mean it in a good way.” He continued stroking her and told her, “You are wet for me, sweetling.”

  “It’s probably all the wine you forced on me, leaking out.”

  He choked back a laugh. “Nay, ’tis not wine, though I warrant your woman-dew is just as sweet.”

  Her eyes, which she’d had scrunched tightly closed, shot open. “You would not dare to taste me there.”

  “Actually, I would dare, but not just yet. I do not want to shock you too much too soon. But if you keep on questioning every little thing I do, I might need to do something drastic to still your flapping tongue.”

  She muttered something about his being the flapping tongue, but then she closed her mouth and eyes. You’d think she was going to the gallows.

  Using his knees, he spread her wider and gazed down at that mysterious place women held so private. Lovely, it was, in an earthy sort of way. Like the petals of a flower carrying the glisten of raindrops. When he studied her enough with his eyes, he studied her with his fingertips. Stroking. Flicking. Inserting. Always avoiding the one spot that would surely bring her to the brink of peaking. As the bud unfurled, her thighs tightened and several times she bucked up reflexively before she caught herself. She was biting her bottom lip to keep from crying out.

  “If you could see yourself here the way I do, Medana,” he said in a voice raw with his own arousal, “you would know what power women hold over men.”

  She made a gurgling sound of protest.

  “I wonder, Medana, if I could turn that little whimper you just made into a scream. Of sex joy.” He used his elongated cock then to touch the nubbin of pleasure at the top of her cleft.

  She flinched and tried to escape him by shuffling her bottom upward on the blanket.

  But he would have none of that. Placing one hand firmly on her belly, he gripped his cock with the other and used it to strum the unfurling bud like a musician plucking a stringed instrument.

  Involuntary tremors shook her body, and disjointed words pleaded for relief. She did scream then, a long wail of intense pleasure, as her hips rose, wanting more and more of what he was giving her.

  Her peaking died down, and his senses became heightened as desire licked through his body to the point of pain. He could not hold himself off anymore. Caught in the throes of a driving need, he thrust himself inside her tight sheath. Then, bracing himself on his straightened arms, he waited for her to realize what he had done. And tried to curtail his own fast-approaching peak, especially when her molten folds shifted to accommodate his size.

  When she came back to her senses, he asked, “Are you all right? Am I hurting you?” Remarkable that I can put two words together!

  She only then appeared to realize that he had impaled her and was seated inside her body almost to her womb. “Oh. Oh!” She wriggled a little from side to side, then told him, “Nay, it does not hurt. Precisely. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “There is a lot of you.”

  “Thank you.” Now, wiggle your arse again, sweetling. Yea, juuust like that.

  “I did not mean it as a compliment,” she gasped out.

  “Believe me, that was a compliment.”

 
; “Whew! How did you squeeze it all in without me noticing?”

  Holy Thor! I’ve got a talker here. Some women moan excessively during sex, some even scream. Medana is clearly a nervous talker. Ah well, she is new to bedsport. I should be patient. “The slickness of your excitement eased the way. Woman-dew, it is called.”

  “You mean, the honey business.”

  He laughed. Chatter, chatter, chatter.

  “Do that again.”

  “What?”

  “Laugh. When you laugh, your dangly part shakes inside me.”

  On the other hand, there is much to be said about a talkative woman. “Uh, just so you know, my dangly part is no longer dangly.”

  “I know. Dost consider me a total lackbrain?”

  Is that a serious question? “Can I move now?”

  “What? I thought we were done.”

  Did someone mention lackbrain? “My dear naïve pirate miss. We have just begun.” He withdrew almost totally, then slammed back in to the hilt so that his nether hairs blended with her nether hairs. Looking down, he fancied it resembled woven threads of two shades of gold. In fact, he moved slightly from side to side to blend the threads more.

  She jerked. Apparently, that movement must have brushed her sweet bud. And then she screamed.

  And it was a good scream, too.

  There was no time to ponder any more as he began the serious business of swiving, and, yea, he took his swiving seriously. What Viking man worth his reputation did not?

  He rocked her gently at first with long slow strokes ’til she made small mewling sounds of pleasure, but then not so gently and not so slow. Her mewls became cries. Sometimes when he was buried in her hot depths, he gripped the cheeks of her arse and rotated his hips so that the bone above his cock ground against the pearl of her arousal. That trick caused her inner muscles to ripple around his staff.

  The sound of wetness, moist flesh smacking against moist flesh, was carnal music to his ears. Thork’s blood thickened with enthusiasm, and his heart hammered against his rib cage. He was catapulting fast toward his own peaking, but he wanted her to come to a second bliss, if possible.

  By the time her stretched inner muscles began to clutch and unclutch his now massive cock, his nerves were inflamed with the need to let loose his self-control. He glanced down at her and saw her eyes dilated to a full dark violet color. Something intense flared between them then, especially when she reached up and fingered the edges of his jaw and parted lips. How could she be gentle when he felt so fierce?

  “I. Cannot. Wait,” he roared out as he withdrew and spilled his seed upon the blanket between her thighs.

  Afterward, he lay atop her, trying to calm his panting breaths.

  To his surprise, Medana was caressing his back and shoulders and upper arms. When he raised himself on levered arms to stare down at her, he saw the glow of wonder on her face. “That was amazing. Can all men do that?”

  He wasn’t exactly sure what she meant. Probably the bringing of a woman to peak in the bedplay. He did not like her inferring that she might test his skills by bedding other men. With a surge of possessiveness he would no doubt regret later, he replied. “Only me.”

  Standing, he took her hand and yanked her to her feet. “I need to flip this blanket lest we end up lying on the damp spot.”

  Color heightened her cheeks when she realized what he referred to. Still, she managed to overcome her shyness enough to ask, “Do you get . . . uh, satisfied by doing it that way?”

  “Satisfied, yea, I do, but would it be better if I stayed the course, inside? Of course it would.”

  “Well, I appreciate your not planting your seed in me.”

  She was pulling the chemise over her neck and shoulder. He could have told her that he would be removing it again shortly but decided that some words were best unspoken.

  “Don’t you want children, ever, Medana?”

  “I gave up those kinds of dreams a long time ago. Yea, I know that I could do it like some of the other women have, alone, but I would prefer, if I ever bear babies, to have them in a home with a husband.”

  “A rather traditional view from a nontraditional female pirate,” he remarked.

  “Can I not be both?”

  “Apparently you are.”

  “You were a pirate at one time, too. ’Tis hardly fair of you to criticize me for doing the same.”

  “There is a difference. You are a woman and I am a man.” He paused to let her know he was well aware of the difference after their recent activity.

  “Men have been using that excuse for centuries. And women have been proving them wrong for centuries.”

  He wasn’t precisely sure what ways women had outdone men, but she was probably correct. All the women in his family were independent and capable of caring for themselves . . . his mother, his aunt Eadyth, his cousins. “I was a pirate for a good cause. To undermine that evil King Edred.”

  “And we are pirates to survive.”

  “Must you always be at cross-wills with me?” When she just shrugged, he added, “Besides, I never criticized you for being a pirate. Just for being a pirate who captured me.”

  She shrugged again. He was coming to mislike her shrugs, not that his view would stop her.

  “If you were pirating for a good cause, why is your father so upset with you?”

  He could feel his face heat with color. “That was not the only bad thing I have ever done.”

  She made a muffled sound of suppressed laughter.

  “Beware, M’Lady Pirate. Now that I no longer have to be good to please my father, I may try my bad on you.”

  “I thought you already had.”

  “Not even a bit.”

  Enough of this line of conversation afore he tossed her to the ground and tried her charms, again. He walked away from her and glanced around their surroundings and out to sea. All was calm. The two dots that were Sigrun and Salvana moved about Small Island, working industriously on some chore that involved dragging a long piece of driftwood, probably intended for firewood. The big dog was tugging one way while they tugged the other. “Too bad the pond is so far away. I could use a good wash after all that exercise.” Medana had come up to stand beside him. He waggled his eyebrows to indicate what exercise he meant. When he was a younger, less experienced male, he used to practice waggling his eyebrows in front of his mother’s polished brass. In time, he’d perfected the art. There were so many types of waggles for so many occasions, most of them sexual in tone.

  She ignored the waggle and said, “There is no pond up here, of course, but there are headwaters for the mountain stream. A small waterfall and an equally small pool.”

  “Lead on, my winsome leader,” he said.

  She mumbled something about “winsome indeed!” but she didn’t protest when he laced his fingers with hers while they walked a distance from the clearing along a well-trod path that she explained without his asking. “The guardswomen up here use the headwaters for drinking water. And bathing.”

  It was indeed a small waterfall and the spillover pool no more than thigh-high and two arm’s lengths across. It was not a true headwater, either, since it merely led to a tiny stream trickling down into the valley. An unreliable source of water for the women.

  But the water here was cool and clean. After sluicing himself with handfuls of water, he gave in and just lay down under the water. When he came back up, Medana had removed her chemise and was sitting in the deepest part, her breasts demurely covered. Not that he couldn’t see through the clear water, but he decided not to inform her of that fact.

  It always amazed Thork how women could perform the most wanton acts during the night and then turn blushing virgin on the morn. Not that they’d coupled in the dark or that Medana had been all that wanton. But it was early hours yet. He could only hope.

  Thork’s stomach growled then, and he realized he was ravenously hungry. “Is there any food left?” he asked Medana.

  “I was thinking the
same thing. Yea, there’s plenty.”

  On the way back to the clearing, Thork glanced at Medana and winked. “Have you ever heard of the Viking S-spot?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alas, paradise can last only so long. Thus, Paradise Lost . . .

  Medana soon came to the conclusion that Thork was insatiable. And to her shame, she was proving insatiable, too.

  What if she developed a craving for sex? What if she had a dormant harlot inside her that Thork had managed to tap to life? What if she liked it so much that she became like some of her more wanton women, those who could not wait ’til they went to market towns so they could be tupped by men? And not just for babies, either. Would she be encouraging the pirate women to capture more men in the future, just so they had sex partners for a time before discarding them like used goods? Like men did to women?

  When they’d returned to the clearing, Thork’s hunger had dissipated, or rather was replaced with a different kind of hunger, and he’d coaxed her into removing her chemise so he could examine her for ticks. He’d sworn he saw some in the woods. And, damn her foolish heart, but she’d let herself be coaxed. And checked him for ticks, too.

  Then he’d proceeded to show her the Viking S-spot. With his tongue! On her body! Or in her body, to be more precise. Praise be Valkyries! She blushed even recalling what he had done. What she had allowed him to do.

  Afterward, they’d devoured the rest of the food and wine, and now the insatiable rogue was giving her that look again.

  “What?” she asked, a dimwitted thing to say in the circumstances.

  “Do you not think it is time for you to reciprocate?”

  “Reciprocate what?” Another dimwitted question.

  “Making love.”

  “I would not know where to start.” Which was the wrong thing to say because he lay himself down on the blanket. Still naked. Folded his hands behind his head and looked up at her with the innocence of a shark.

  “Just do whatever you want. You could start by touching me.”

  She just barely stopped herself from asking where. He would probably point to his staff that was already beginning to rise. Again.

  Unfortunately, he seemed to be reading her mind. “Not there! Leastways, not yet.”