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“Keep your voice down, lest one of your guards hear. See this knife in my belt sheath. It is sharp enough to split the hairs on a witch’s whisker. I would hate to kill one of my countrymen on his first night in the Golden City.”
“You would not!” It was hard to speak when she was trying to keep her body stiff and unmoving down below.
“I would. And it would be your fault for having a running tongue.”
Whff, whff, whff, she huffed inwardly, fighting the rising arousal that just his body pressure was causing. If it were lighter in the room—there was only the moonlight seeping through the latticework—he would see that the skin on her face and other places was flushed. “Can I ask a question?”
“Just one.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can.”
She frowned with confusion. “One more question. Are you trying to seduce me into marriage again?”
“Are you being seduced?” He studied her closer and ran the knuckles of one hand over her breast, causing the nipple to peak.
The ripples turned into waves. Erotic waves.
“Marriage is no longer an option after your crimes,” Sidroc continued.
His insult stopped her pleasure waves like a dam rising abruptly in a fjord. Fortunately. Then another thought came to her unbidden. “Are you already married?”
“Nay.”
Yet another thought occurred to her as she puzzled his odd demeanor. Crimes? More than one? Oh nay! Surely he does not know about Runa? “Do you intend to wed, ever? Do you not want children?”
“Why are you speaking?” He ground himself against her. Once. Twice. Thrice.
She closed her eyes for a moment and almost wept at the joyful torture.
“If I do wed and, gods willing, if I fill my longhouse with babes, ’twill not be with the likes of a bloodthirsty wench such as you. I would sooner have a wolf than you to mother my sons and daughters.”
That was cruel and unwarranted, and what did it say about Runa and what he would do if he discovered his daughter was alive and that she wanted—nay, intended—to keep the child in her care? Would he consider her an unfit mother, rather, caretaker?
She had to tell him.
Just not yet.
“But that does not mean I will not rut with you. By now you have surely lost your maidenhead.”
“And if I have?”
“It matters not a whit to me. Your experience in the bed arts will be more appreciated than a fumbling virgin’s lack of skill.”
Just then there was a tap on the door, and Ivar said, “Princess Drifa, are you all right? I heard voices.”
Quickly, before she could say him nay, Sidroc rolled over to his back and tucked her in at his side, her head on his shoulder. A sharp knife was pressed at her breast on the other side. “Enter,” he said.
Ivar opened the door hesitantly. “Princess?” Then noticing Sidroc, he drew his sword. “Guntersson! How did you get in here?”
“Princess Drifa let me in, did you not, sweetling?”
She nodded, feeling the sharp point of his knife cut through the cloth of her sleep rail. Turning her face away from him, she tried to gather her thoughts.
“My heartling is just shy,” he told Ivar, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Are you not, my little sweet cake?”
Sweet cake? Her head swiveled so that she could glare directly at him.
