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“When I have returned you to Malek and Ingunn to my father’s farmstead, I will take my men and sail to the Danelaw.”
She said nothing for several moments. She was still propped up on her elbow, over him, and she lea
ned down again and kissed him once more. He came up to kiss her back this time, but she pressed him down. “I am trying to think,” she said. “You mustn’t distract me.”
“That is nice for a man to hear. You are certain that now I could distract you?”
She looked worried and he felt a leap of anger at her. She had come running to him the evening before, hurling herself upon him, trusting him completely. But now she was behind that wall of hers, that cursed barrier that he had sworn to breach. But he held his tongue. She had bathed with him, seeming to enjoy it, but had fallen asleep before he could show her how much he had missed her. And now she had kissed him, willingly, so many times he couldn’t believe it, and she was lying easily against him. He saw her look over to where Ingunn lay wrapped in a blanket, sleeping soundly, her white-blond hair spread about her head.
“Ingunn saved me, she truly did.”
“I don’t wish to speak of my sister. How is your throat?”
“Do I still sound like a frog?”
“You sound like a wet cloth slapping at an open wound.”
“That is a disgusting image, Magnus. Was your first wife silly?”
“Silly? Dalla?” He looked at her, his eyebrow cocked upward.
“Your parents arranged for you to wed with her? Was she silly?”
He shook his head. “Orm told you these things?”
“Aye.”
“The truth was that Orm wanted her himself, but her parents believed me to be the better man for her.”
“Was she silly?”
He laughed then and pulled her down against him, squeezing her. “Aye, she was silly and she laughed as openly and freely as a child and she loved to dance in the moonlight, even when the ground was covered knee-deep with snow.”
She was silent, trying to picture such a creature. She said on a sigh, “I do not remember the last time I laughed openly.”
He couldn’t either.
“I have never danced in the snow.”
“Mayhap you could also be silly every now and then—occasionally giggle and poke your fingers in my ribs.”
“Aye, mayhap.”
“Either kiss me again or let me sleep, Zarabeth.”
“If I kiss you, will you force me?”
Anger roiled inside him. “You have already kissed me more times than I can count. But they weren’t really a woman’s deep kisses. Kiss me again, as a woman ought, and you will see.”
She leaned down and pressed her mouth lightly to his. Her lips were dry and firm. He lay very quietly, not returning her kiss, letting her take what she wanted, letting her invade him, then withdraw, only to return again when she found no aggression in him. His sex swelled and throbbed but he didn’t move. When would she realize that she belonged with him? When would she stop fighting herself and him?
She raised her head and stared down at him. Her look was brooding. Finally she said slowly, “I had forgotten the taste of you.” He thought he would spill his seed at her words, just simple words, yet they shook him to his very core. She kissed him again, then shimmied down to press against his side and lay her cheek back on his shoulder.
“The next time you kiss me, Zarabeth, I will kiss you back and I will caress you and come inside you.”
He felt her tremble at his words. “Mayhap in the future you will feel silly and laugh when we are making love. It doesn’t have to be such a devoutly serious business.”
She didn’t know, and such a notion seemed strange to her. It seemed a very serious business.
