Page 80 of The Viking’s Captive

Tyra was at last speechless. He had been right. It was a scandalous fantasy.

He reached over and took her hand in his. “I am half teasing you, Tyra. Not that all these things can’t be done, or that we won’t do them, if you want.”

“I do,” she put in quickly.

He laughed. “Keep surprising me like that and you will land in the bed furs afore you can blink. Just know this: If Bolthor or Tykir or Alinor tell you I was wild at one time, they would be telling the truth. I used to be a connoisseur of all things dangerous or sexual or adventuresome. But now I have come to believe that the best sexplay comes from the simple acts of two people involved, not in practiced arts.”

A wanton thought came to her unbidden. “I just thought of another kind of pleasuring. I overheard Lady Alinor mention it to the cook.”

“Well?” he prodded when she just smiled secretly at him. He raised a goblet of ale to his lips, waiting.

“Feather-pleasuring,” she announced gleefully.

For several long moments, he choked on his ale … till she slapped him on the back, so hard he began choking all over again.

“I went too far, didn’t I? Men like to lead, whether it be in battle or loveplay. I was too aggressive.”

When his choking fit was over, he let his gaze travel over her, intimately, and he told her, “Too aggressive? There is no such thing in loveplay.”

“Then you are not upset with me?”

“My warrior princess, I think I have died and gone to Viking heaven.”

Tyra exulted that she could affect a man so … nay, that she could affect this man so. She felt as if she’d crossed some important line in her life, and not only because of the incredible pleasure she’d just experienced at Adam’s wicked fingers. She fought through the fuzziness in her brain to understand just what it was.

Pact or no pact, I am going to make love with this man.

He still held her hand and stared at her, as if understanding her inner turmoil. Perhaps it was an important step for him, too.

As the effects of the ale began to wear off, she hitched her bodice up till she was decent. She prayed that sanity would return … not so that she could change her mind … just long enough for her to understand the implications of this momentous decision.

“Tyra?” Adam inquired.

“If I do this thing …”

“If …?”

She smiled at the distress in his voice. “After the taste of loveplay you have given me, I would be a fool not to want to sample the full meal. But I am not an impetuous person. I need to think things out. To study—”

“Oh, nay, nay, nay! The worst thing you can do when in a lustsome mood is to think. Thinking is a sure lust killer.”

She smiled at him. “Are you saying I am lustsome?”

“Hah! If you or I were any more lustsome, we would be drooling.”

“What I’m trying to say is you have convinced me to make love with you, but there still must be some rules.”

“Rules?” He groaned.

“Just because I choose to couple with you does not mean I consent to marriage.”

Adam turned three shades of purple before he said, very carefully, “I do not recall bringing up marriage. Not even once. And, really, Tyra, men are the ones who are supposed to fear that dreaded word, not women.”

“I am not like other women. You already know that.”

“So, aside from scratching your crotch and spitting, you have other masculine traits … such as aversion to marriage?”

She could tell he was trying to make light of what she considered a very serious subject. “You already know that I am being pushed from all directions to wed. Well, you will be subject to the same pressures if anyone suspects our naked bodies have touched.”