Page 68 of The Last Viking

“So, Mr. I’ve-Got-It-All-Planned, you intend to marry me, bebop off through time to your home, divorce me, then—”

“Oh, nay, I ne’er said I’d be divorcing you, sweetling. I have no intent of doing that. I’ll not wed again, that I vow. I but wish for your freedom.”

This was the most ridiculous conversation. “Will…will you come back?”

“I could try, but, nay, my guess is ’twould be impossible.”

“And how about your mistress, that sweet Alyce from Hedeby tart?”

He shrugged. “I cannot promise celibacy for life. Nor would I expect it of you.”

Meredith felt as if she’d been dealt a sucker punch to the stomach. “You are so incredible. You tell me you love me in one instant and that you’re leaving me in the next. Well, I won’t stand for it.”

“You have no choice, dearling.”

“Oh, I have a choice all right. I may not be able to stop loving you, but I can refuse to make love with you. And I sure as heck am not going to marry a guy who intends to desert me a few weeks later.”

“They can be the best weeks of both our lives,” he pleaded.

She surged upward with anger and desolation. When he tried to push her back down this time, she bit the heel of his hand.

“Ouch!” he griped, but didn’t give way, even when she drew blood.

She sank back down and closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to see even that tiny wound on his hand and know that she’d caused him pain, however small. “I won’t marry you,” she repeated in a dull monotone, with her eyes still closed.

“Yea, you will.”

“And I won’t make love with you now.” Making love with Rolf, and then giving him up would hurt more than never having him at all. “And none of your sweet talking will move me, either.”

He laughed with supreme self-confidence. “’Tis said that a Norseman, when his sap runs high, could move the earth.”

“Go away, Rolf. I want to go to sleep now.” She needed time alone to ponder all that had happened tonight and to brace herself for the days ahead. Days when she would have to fight her feelings for Rolf. Then those days when he would no longer be here.

“I’ll stay with you till you fall asleep.” He got up off his knees and nudged her hips over so he could sit on the edge of the sofa. She scrunched her eyes tighter. “Mayhap I could tell you a bedtime saga. Nay, I know; I’ll regale you with little hints of the ways in which Viking men make love to their brides.”

Oh, no!

“You do know about the famous Viking S-spot, of course.”

A snicker was her only reply.

“You doubt my word? Ah, you will pay for that, wench, in good time. But, truly, Norsemen have long been known for their prowess in the bedsport, and—”

She snickered again, continuing to keep her eyes closed. She wouldn’t give him the benefit of seeing the hurt in her eyes.

He tapped her chin in reprimand. “Part of our prowess is due to our fit bodies, no doubt—”

“No doubt.”

“Sarcasm ill-suits you, my love,” he remarked, “but there are some who attribute our prowess to the…ah, secrets.”

Secrets? What secrets? When he didn’t carry on, she cracked one eye only a teensy bit, but he noticed. It was the cue he’d been waiting for. The rat!

Chuckling, he clarified his outrageous assertion with great gusto. “Being adventurers, we Norsemen travel far and wide—”

“And along the way, rape and pillage every female in sight.”

“This raping and pillaging accusation has become tiresome. What I was about to say is that, in our vast travels, we have learned many secrets of lovemaking. Secrets we pass down in our families. Secrets that draw women to our beds like honeybees.”