She had to think about that one for a while.
Cnut got up several times to put more logs on the fire to maintain some heat in the room. For a man who claimed to feel his phantom fat, he seemed at ease with his nude body, and she enjoyed watching him move. The supple pull of long muscles in his thighs and the tightness of his butt as he bent to lift more wood. The breadth of his shoulders and the strong tendons in his neck as he stretched. His narrow waist and hips. The human body—his human body—was a work of art.
At one point, they talked, in bed, while she combed and rebraided his hair. “Will you shave the sides again?” she asked.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Not while I’m here, anyway. Too much trouble.”
“And how long do you think we’ll be here?”
He sighed. “I know you want precise answers from me, but I just don’t have them. Mike is being ominously silent. I can’t reach my brothers. That’s deliberate, of course. I’m expected to figure out the mission on my own.”
“Like you being given a second chance to help your people in the famine?”
“Probably.”
“You sound doubtful.”
“Our missions are never that simple.”
“Something related to the demon vampires, as well?”
“Possibly. I may know more after tomorrow if I run into any more Lucies, especially if I can keep one alive long enough to answer some questions. In particular, why are they showing up in this time period suddenly? It’s not like the famine would affect them, unless people become more sinful during harsh times.”
“I still don’t understand why I’m involved.”
He remained silent.
“That lifemate nonsense?”
“I can’t discount it, especially after the kind of sex we just engaged in, which was beyond a physical act, you must agree.”
Must she? She didn’t want to admit to that, just yet.
“Or maybe you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Cnut went on, stretching forward so she continued the braid down his neck. “An accident.”
Andrea shook her head. The things that were happening—the emotions swirling between her and Cnut—they were no accident. No way!
“Tell me about your life before. Why do you think you became a . . . a . . .”
“Glutton?”
“No! I meant to say vangel, but I find it hard to refer to you that way, to think you are anything but a human being.”
“Well, the two are probably tied together, and I don’t have a clear answer for either one. Hoggstead was my mother’s home, and my maternal grandsire’s before that, but I grew up at the Sigurdsson estate with my half brothers. I was sickly as a child—probably some kind of respiratory ailment that I eventually outgrew—but while a youthling my mother coddled me, overfed me, would not let me run and play like the others, that kind of thing. She died suddenly when I was about ten, and I became lost in the immense household. My father had many wives and concubines and children, both legitimate and not. I was a needy child, craving attention, and when I didn’t get it, I filled the hole with food, and later drink and sex and other excesses. Not a new story. I understand that now, but back then I just became selfish and self-centered in my gluttony.
“Later, when I became jarl of Hoggstead, as long as I had food and drink, I ignored what was happening to my people. Even now, we here in the keep are fed sufficiently while others starve.”
“So, you were a glutton, but how did you become a vangel?”
“Make no mistake, Andrea, I am still a glutton. Why else would I be swiving you ’til I wear my cock down to a nub, uncaring of whether you are sore or tired or generally uninterested.”
She laughed and smacked him on the shoulder. “Idiot!” she said, but not with her usual disdain. “Do I seem uninterested? If I were tired, I would be asleep. Instead, I feel as if I’ve inhaled the same energy drink you have.”
He turned and smiled at her. “Pleased I am to have pleased you.”
More of the Viking talk! “You are so full of it. Pleased you are to have gotten your rocks off, multiple times,” she accused him.
“Guilty as charged. Can we do it again?” He repeated her words back at her, then took the comb from her hand, tossed it to the floor, and rolled over on top of her. “Have I told you about the famous Viking S-spot?”
He hadn’t, but he did now. And whoo boy, the Vikings could make a fortune by writing a book about that particular talent, hitting all the talk show circuits, becoming celebrity sex experts. On the other hand, they were probably better off keeping it a secret.
If that wasn’t enough—and, believe me, it was more than enough!—toward dawn Cnut showed her he was a modern Viking, as well. He’d read somewhere—probably Cosmo, though he denied it—about something called a Blended-O, and wondered if she’d like to try it.