“Whoa,” she said.
Was that a good “whoa” or a bad “whoa”?
But then she added, “So the booze turned you on, too?”
Definitely good. “No. You turned me on.”
“Oh.” She licked her lips as she watched him toe off his boots, then take his short sword from its sheath at his side and prop it against the chair. He undid the belt, dropping it to the floor, but still she said nothing in protest; so he lifted off his tunic and dropped it to the floor as well. He was left with stockinged feet and low-hung braies.
He raised a brow at her in question. When she just raised a brow back at him, he unlaced himself and stepped out of his pants. He was almost embarrassed by his size. He knew it was due to his long period of abstinence—of the two-person sort, that was—but what must she think?
“Why are you so suntanned?”
He glanced down at himself and realized she was right. He was bronzed all over, as if he’d been lying in a Caribbean sun, rather than out hunting, fully covered, in the frigid snow. “Vangel skin develops a healthy glow when we have either saved a dire sinner or vanquished a Lucipire.”
She arched her brows at that, still not wholly believing what he was, apparently.
“In any case, you’re beautiful,” she said.
Cascades of pleasure swept over him at her words like unfurling ribbons. It was New Years’ Eve and a Broadway tickertape parade combined. The only thing missing was the confetti. But wait, were those flakes of coconut and peppermint floating in the air? No, just a misty aura, cocooning them in the subtle, tempting scents that were their personal downfalls. Not that he’d known he had a weakness for coconut before.
He was getting fanciful, and Vikings did not get fanciful. They clouted their enemies on the head with battle-axes, they swived their women in the bed furs. Expert. Matter-of-fact. No thinking about the pros and cons. No fanciful analysis.
Cnut closed his eyes for a moment, finding it harder and harder to concentrate and make logical decisions. No longer could he hold a rein on his runaway passion.
“Are we going to make love?” she asked.
He didn’t know about love, but it appeared they were going to do something. “For a certainty,” he said.
The odd thing was, he didn’t feel guilty, now that the decision was made, the line crossed. Maybe this was how his brothers had felt when they met their lifemates. Resistance at first, then a resignation that what would be would be. Inevitable punishment be damned.
“If you are agreeable,” he added, and prayed that she was. He almost crossed his fingers behind in back in that foolish youthling gesture.
“I have no choice.” She yawned and stretched as she spoke, causing her small breasts to rise against the thin linen fabric, the nipples engorged.
His enthusiasm grew by leaps and bounds, lodging with a hot ache between his thighs. He tingled all over, for cloud’s sake! He even put a hand over himself in an attempt to press himself down. It didn’t work. “There is always a choice,” he rasped out.
“Pfff! Not when I’m under your spell.”
He was a drowning man. With each of her honestly spoken words, he sank deeper and deeper into the depths of his arousal. If he wasn’t careful, he would ejaculate prematurely like an untried youthling seeing his first naked woman. Maybe that would be for the best. Embarrassing, but an end to this madness. He stepped behind the chair and waited for that to happen. No such luck . . . or misfortune. “You’re no more under my spell than I’m under yours. Face it, we are both ensorcelled by . . . something.”
“Should we do something to stop it?”
Oh God, will she never stop chattering? I need silence to think, to concentrate. Still, he asked, “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Go outside and roll in the snow.”
Is she serious? “Brrr!”
“Or go jogging.”
Yeah, in the snow, in a pair of boots, or my wool socks, nude, that would do it! “I could barely climb the stairs tonight; my knees creaked so.”
“Something besides stare at each other like a warm apple pie after a week of fasting.”
“Or a coconut cream pie.” He could almost taste the sweet pastry.
“Or peppermint bark at Christmastime. Yum.”
Next she will be talking about licking my peppermint stick. Enough of this malingering banter! He made a motion with his hand and said, “Lose the shift, Andrea.”
She hesitated.
Smart girl!
It was a moment of truth for her, too. A line that, once crossed, couldn’t be reversed.
Then she undid the laces at her neckline and let the shift drift down over her body to puddle at her feet. She was slim, as he’d expected, and her breasts were small, but she was perfection. Her hips swelled out from a narrow waist. Her legs were long but with some muscular definition, as were her arms. She must jog, or do some exercise. And her breasts . . . they were like halved peaches with pale rose-colored nipples, a nice size for her slender frame. And her buttocks, what he could see from this angle, would be his undoing. High and round and sweetly enticing.