Lord of Fire and Ice Read online

  Damn the man for making her need him so.

  The heaviness in her groin weighed her down. She thrashed on her pillow. Incoherent sounds escaped her lips.

  Her mind wandered between the worlds. She was the earth, a cavern, a secret, deep place only the bravest ever dare.

  Then when she thought she could sink no lower, the tight heaviness inside her burst forth into vibrant light. Her body shuddered with the force of her release.

  Before the last spasm faded, Brandr had moved up and filled her so she convulsed around his thick length. Once she finished pulsing, he began to move. He reached down and hitched her legs up over his shoulders, so he could plunge into her without the least gentleness.

  Good. She couldn’t bear gentleness from him now. Gentleness might give her space to think.

  She needed him hard and male and demanding. She needed the slap of his balls against her. She needed his hoarse cry of triumph when he emptied himself into her, his body strained and as taut as a bowstring while his seed pulsed hotly.

  The ache was stilled. The emptiness fled away. For a moment, the cares of the steading, the coldness of the cradle in the corner, the fact that her new husband wasn’t really the sort of man she should have chosen at all—none of those concerns signified a thing.

  All that mattered was the thud of Brandr’s heart on her chest and his breath on her neck.

  He slid her legs off his shoulders and settled down on her, his breath coming in short gasps. When Brandr looked down at her and smiled, her chest flooded with warmth.

  She still had no idea if she and Brandr could make a marriage. But by the gods, they could make love.

  ***

  “Brandr, whether you will it or no, you and I must talk. Now,” she said another coupling later.

  “Katla, I—” He meant to plead exhaustion, but his throat closed up. She’d let the sheet drop, and her nipples peeped through the open slit in her night shift. He could still taste them, sweet and responsive in his mouth. His cock rallied for a third time.

  Her lips were moving. She was undoubtedly saying something, but all the blood in his brain seemed to have fled, taking his understanding with it. He was fully engorged.

  “Don’t stand there gaping at me like a codfish.” Her tone turned strident, demanding his attention. “I asked you a question.”

  Had she asked something? He hadn’t caught a word. All he could do was grit his teeth as his erection grew so intense the aching pleasure was a knife’s edge from pain.

  “Aren’t you going to answer me?”

  “Ja,” he stammered, shaken by the lust that lanced him. The punishing pace she’d set for him had kept desire at bay of late. Now, even though he’d already slaked his need not once but twice this night, it rushed back into him with the force of a cataract plummeting into a fjord.

  “Give me a moment,” he said as he plumped up his pillows and laced his fingers behind his head beside her, hoping she’d repeat her question without his having to admit he hadn’t been listening when she asked the first time.

  By the time he’d decided it was safe to look on her again, her wide eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  “So you care for me not at all, then,” she said in a small voice. The hurt, the desolation he felt emanating from her slight form squeezed his heart.

  “Not care for you?” Where had that come from?

  Love talk had never passed her lips before this night. He hadn’t imagined her capable of it, let alone craving it. He expected a ripe and randy bedding, not talk of something as murky and changeable as a person’s feelings.

  His chest ached at the hurt on her face, and this time he recognized the cause. It made no logical sense. It simply was.

  Not care for her? He’d sooner not breathe.

  “How can you say that?” he asked, mystified. He leaned toward her, stopping with his lips mere finger widths from hers, fighting to bridle himself. If his cock had any say in the matter, he’d be on her like a stag in rut yet again. He wanted so much more for her this time.

  For both of them.

  A tear trembled on her lower lid then tumbled to slide down her cheek. He lifted a hand to caress it away from her pale skin.

  “Katla, how can you say I don’t care for you?” Brandr said softly.

  Her night shift neckline fell forward, revealing the shadowed hollow between her breasts. He forced himself to meet and hold her gaze.

  “I wouldn’t blame you. After all, I enthralled you,” she said.

  “I might have done the same if our situations were reversed.” In the interests of peace, he decided it might be wise to appease her a bit by being agreeable.

  “I know I’m not the most amiable person.”

  He chuckled. “No, you’re not.”

  She shot a wounded glare at him. Obviously, he wasn’t supposed to agree with her all the time.

  “I don’t know why it should be so. Maybe why isn’t important, but there’s something about you that fits me.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind the pink shell of her ear. “We may not always have smooth sailing weather, but I’d rather fight with you than live in quiet, stagnant peace with anyone else.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  “How can I believe that?” Her chin quivered, and her night shift slid off one shoulder to bare a breast completely. “You’ve not said more than a handful of words to me for days. You didn’t seem to even see me anymore.”

  Loki’s Hairy Backside, he was certainly seeing her now. He ran a hand over her head, willing himself to focus on just her emerald eyes.

  “I see you. And I see what you want.” Brandr inhaled her scent. She smelled as fresh as new-cut grass. “Every soul longs for love, for inn matki munr.” Her long hair curled around his fingers as he stroked it, running his hand over its silken length. “’Tis the stuff of maidensongs and skald’s tales, not at all the kind of life a man clapped into thralldom can aspire to.”

  “And you don’t want to settle for less now. I understand,” she finished for him. “Don’t let me trouble you a moment longer. My body is telling you to go.”

  She threw back the covers and would have bolted, but he grasped her arm and held her fast.

  He lifted her chin with his other hand and forced her to meet his gaze.

  “I don’t pretend to understand the mighty passion, but I know love is not something that comes in half measures. Either it is or it isn’t,” he said, refusing to release his hold on her even though she attempted to wrest herself from him. “For me, it is. I do care for you, Katla.”

  She ceased struggling. “How can you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve puzzled over it for weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense. All I know is while I draw breath, all I am is yours.”

  She froze, as still as a carved rune stone, just looking at him with those enormous green eyes of hers. She was clearly weighing his declaration for truth.

  It seemed strange, even to him, who felt it firsthand, but there was such a lump of caring in his chest for this woman, he thought he might choke on it, gods help him.

  “If that’s the way of it, then, I take you at your word,” she said with a trembling smile. “And just so you know, I care for you too.”

  He placed a hand around her waist and drew her close. Then he caught one of her hands and pressed it against his chest, letting her feel the pounding of his heart.

  “You consume me, Katla, and I don’t care a whit. Let the fire burn.”

  Brandr had meant to hold back, to wait for her to respond, but something primal surged in his blood, singing the chaos of lust. He had to obey the savage call or burst out of his own skin.

  He plundered her mouth, nearly overcome by her sweetn
ess. Her scent surrounded him, intoxicating him, his senses dazed and reeling. When she answered his kiss and leaned toward him, brushing her taut nipples against his chest, blood pounded so loudly in his ears he thought she must be able to hear it.

  Then the drumbeat moved much lower, to his swollen cock, throbbing with the rhythm of his life’s blood in ever-quickening pulses.

  Brandr pressed her body against his, knowing he should be more gentle with her. She was so small, so fragile seeming, he was afraid if he didn’t hold back, she might shatter to pieces in his arms.

  Katla didn’t seem to think she was that breakable, though. When he started to release her, she pulled his head down with a soft groan, urging him to stay.

  They took each other’s mouths, vying for supremacy with their entwined tongues. Katla nipped at his lower lip in a tiny love bite, and it made his groin ache all the more. The desperate little noises she made at the back of her throat nearly drove him mad.

  His hands roamed over her, finding and exploring each dip and valley, the exquisite curve of her back, the plump lushness of her bottom. He worked her night shift up, hearing the seam part at her hip, but unable to stop till he dragged the flimsy garment over her head.

  When Katla lay back on the sheets, he paused for a moment, drinking in the sight of her. Her pale skin was gilded with light from the guttering lamp, setting her aglow like some ethereal being.

  That’s it. She was an elf-maiden who’d strayed far from the delights of Aelfham, the elfin home world. She graced his life with beauty beyond a mortal’s capacity to comprehend.

  “You’re not stopping?” she asked, her voice dusky.

  “Not for all the nine worlds,” he promised. “Guess you don’t want me to leave, after all.”

  She shook her head, and her breasts shuddered with a sigh. “Now what?”

  “Now, princess, I show you what caring feels like.”

  Chapter 22

  Slowly, he reached out a hand. Starting at the base of her throat where her pulse fluttered, he began tracing a lover’s journey over her flawless skin.

  Oh, the feel of her, all warm and soft and willing!

  He paused to dally in every crevice, the crease beneath her slender arm, the delicate skin at the bend of her elbow. He passed over the hot, erotic places he’d normally have focused on to find something as simple and uniquely Katla as the dimple on her knee. Defying the urgency of his rioting cock, he took his time, learning her by heart.

  All of her.

  He ran his fingertip around the outline of her hands, to the deep base of each finger, and threading his way around her knuckles. He taunted the hidden crease beneath each breast. He drew circles around the shallow indentation of her navel.

  His touch dropped lower, and he teased her legs apart. His fingers launched a gentle invasion. All the while, his gaze never left her face.

  Brandr delighted in watching as pleasure and need parted her lips and made her eyes go languid.

  When she reached out to touch him, he stopped her. “Not yet, princess. You first.”

  “No.” She pressed her fingertips against his lips. “Most of the time with Osvald, only one of us took pleasure, and it brought no ease to either of us. You and I will go into this madness together or not at all.”

  Then to his joy, she feathered her fingertips over his chest. A slight breeze found its way through the overhead smoke hole, cooling the fever heating his skin.

  “This caring you speak of,” she said, her voice sultry, “surely it must go both ways. If one is not pleased, how can the other take pleasure?”

  He dared not even draw breath as her clever hands danced over him, tickling along his ribs, teasing his nipples into hard knots. Then she reached down and cupped his ballocks, her gentle massage only sending his groin into a deeper ache. She explored his thighs, scooting close enough to reach around and run a thumb along the crevice of his buttocks.

  His breath hissed over his teeth. “You little minx.”

  She laughed, deep and throaty. Her breasts teased him with glancing brushes as she moved closer.

  But she carefully avoided the throbbing shaft that yearned for her touch more than any other finger width of his skin.

  Instead, she raked his ribs with her nails and splayed her hands across his flat belly. When she finally grasped him, the pressure inside him had risen, so it was all he could do not to come in her hands.

  “Katla, I can’t—”

  She surprised him into silence by wrapping her hands behind his neck and hooking a leg over his hip.

  “Can’t what?” she asked with feigned innocence as she pressed herself against him, her hot moistness tormenting the tip of his cock.

  “Can’t stand not swiving you for one more beat of my heart.” He covered her mouth with his. All his longing and hope poured into her. Lust and caring surged through him, twin cascades plunging into a rain-swollen river.

  He loved her, he realized with a jolt.

  Katla, his one-time mistress and owner. From the dark crown of her head to the soles of her delicately arched feet, he loved her.

  And the greatest wonder of all was his ice princess seemed to care for him a bit too.

  But if he didn’t take her right now, he’d die on the spot.

  He rolled to pull her on top of him and pushed her hips down, gently impaling her on his rock-hard erection. He groaned, awash in the pleasure of her slick, hot flesh.

  She cried out, but not with pain. The gasp that tore from her throat was the feral sound of feminine triumph as she engulfed him completely.

  He moved inside her, reveling in her softness. Heart on heart, their bodies joined in perfect concert, seeking the deepest bonding possible.

  Before, they’d strained against each other. Now they moved as one. Their hands, mouths, bodies, and hearts clasped tightly, and when they interrupted their kiss, it was only to tumble into each other’s eyes.

  There is surrender in bliss. It’s a kind of dying the body welcomes, not unlike the wounded warrior who longs for the Valkyries to bear him to Valhalla. Brandr and Katla teetered for just a moment on the brink of that death then plummeted over the edge together. He felt her contract around him in spasms of joy as his seed pulsed into her.

  Unwilling to part from her, he wrapped his arms around her. Gradually, the fever of lust subsided. When their bodies separated, she shifted to settle by his side. He looked up into the thatch overhead, utterly spent. A single star winked in the center of the smoke hole.

  There was no need for words. Their bodies had said it all. A mantle of caring enveloped them, sending delayed shivers over their skin. Love sparked and crackled in the very air they breathed.

  Their other couplings had been feral and hot, like a pair of wild creatures mating. But this joining had touched a part of him he hadn’t even been aware was there.

  They were well and truly bonded.

  She kissed his neck and snuggled close, relaxing against his body with the same lethargy that was stealing over him. In a few moments, her even breathing told him she’d escaped into the land of dreams and shadows.

  Just before he followed her in sleep, Brandr decided he’d never ask the gods for another thing for the rest of his life. After this night, he’d already received more than the full measure of happiness usually meted out to mortals. Another drop of joy might tempt Loki beyond bearing, and everything Brandr cared for might be snatched from him by that envious trickster godling.

  No, better to be safe than sorry.

  Katla was his. It was more than he had a right to ask. More than he’d likely ever see again, especially once the morrow came and he put his plans in motion.

  The ones he was sure Katla wouldn’t like one bit.

  ***

  A shaft of sunlight broke through the smoke hole and
stabbed Katla in the eye. It was rare that she slept past the cockcrow or missed hearing the clank of the bell around the ram’s neck as her flocks were being driven into the high pasture.

  But this day she’d slept till midmorning, judging from the position of the sun. Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Katla extended her arms over her head in a leisurely stretch.

  Then she jerked upright in a sudden motion.

  Brandr wasn’t beside her.

  She ran a palm over the linens. The indentation in the tick where he’d been was still warm. His scent lingered in the bedclothes. He hadn’t been gone long.

  Katla rose and dressed quickly. She usually stirred at the slightest sound. She must have been sleeping like the dead for him to sneak out of bed, dress, and leave the chamber without her knowledge.

  That’s what comes of being loved to exhaustion, she thought as she tugged on her stockings and wrapped the binding strips of cloth about her calves.

  Loved.

  They hadn’t used the word, but she felt it. In the deep relaxation of her long sleep, in every loose-jointed limb, she reveled in the afterglow of well-being that follows a bone-jarring coupling.

  Each time. Her mind was a little fuzzy. She’d actually lost count.

  Inga was working at the central meal fire when Katla emerged from her chamber.

  “Pack a pot of meat and bread for us, would you please, Inga?” Katla said as she moved toward the open door.

  Sunlight caught the bright red fabric on one of the looms propped in the entry, making the color even more vibrant. Or mayhap it only seemed so. The breeze blowing through the longhouse was fresher, the scent of sausages frying more spicy and pungent. Even the soft drape of her underdress swishing against her skin as she moved was tinged with pleasure. Katla could find no cause for complaint about anything this fine day.

  “My husband and I will go for a long walk and break our fast in the woods.”

  Inga’s face crumpled in confusion. “But Br—your…husband already broke his fast and ordered food packed for the journey. A keg of water also to be brought to the wharf, which Finn said he’d see about. I still need to—”