Page 83 of Lord of Fire and Ice

Katla couldn’t bear the smoky reek of her underdress for another heartbeat. She wiggled out of it and leaned over the side of the boat to dunk her long hair into the water.

***

Brandr’s breath hissed over his teeth.

There was his wife, bare arse to the sky, breasts falling forward. She grasped the gunwale with one hand and rinsed her hair out with the other, setting the boat rocking. He was treated to quick peeks of her pink slit that appeared and disappeared as the angle of the deck changed.

Either she had no idea how erotically alluring that position was, or she was trying to kill him.

Then she washed off her sooty face and rose up, tossing her head, her long hair slapping her back wetly. “Oh, that’s cold!”

Nipples perked, gooseflesh rippling, she settled on the trunk. Muscles shivered under her smooth skin.

Brandr dipped a leather bucket into the waves and set it down by her feet. “Mayhap that’ll be easier than leaning over the side.”

It’d be easier on him. He was trying control himself after the horrific things she’d been through in the night. It wasn’t every day a woman who was so used to being in control was abducted and powerless. But when she presented herself to him like that, glistening and vulnerable, it was all he could do not to grasp her hips and rut her blind.

After the night she’s had, the last thing she needs is a hard swive.

Her gaze darted sharply to him, pinning him with a direct stare. Then she reached down and dipped a square of clean cloth that was left over from his bandage and began rubbing her skin with it, starting with an upraised arm. Water trickled down in rivulets, past her armpit and down her side.

When Katla swirled the cloth around each breast, he stifled a groan. He longed to lick the droplets of water from her pert nipples.

She washed her belly and down her legs to her curled toes. Then she spread her knees, parted her intimate folds and squeezed the cloth so water ran down her inner thighs.

He gritted his teeth so hard, he half expected one to crack.

Every fiber of his being longed to take her, to mount her like a ram mounts a ewe, to drive into her with abandon, his balls slapping against her thighs.

“Has it ever occurred to you, husband,” she said with a feline smile, “that sometimes a good, hard swive is exactly what a woman needs?”

She stood up and gave him her back. Then she bent over and splayed her hands on the deck.

A growl escaped his throat, because no coherent words would form in his mind. He was on her in a heartbeat, grasping her hips and sliding his full length home.

His whole world went suddenly warm and deliciously wet. Her tight inner walls snugged around him. She was more than ready. She wanted this with the same ferocity he did.

There was no finesse. No lover’s skill on display. He gave himself up to the animal joy of rutting.

Rough. Fast. Deep.

They fell into rhythm with the steady rocking of the coracle, one with the cadence of the waves.

Then just when he thought it couldn’t be better, he heard Katla urging him on in panting tones.

“Harder.”

Odin on Yggdrasil, I love you, woman.

***

He loves me.

More intimate than his cock penetrating deep inside her, Brandr’s words curled around her mind. The sound reverberated to her core. His voice caressed her soul.

It must be inn matki munr.

The link was potent but one-sided. He still couldn’t seem to hear her. She’d tried to send him any number of intimate messages, but he gave no sign he received them.