The Viking's Captive(20)

He clamped his thumb and finger around her left nipple and stretched it.

Her sharp intake of breath told him when to stop. Quickly he switched his attentions, pulling that stretched nipple into the warmth of his mouth.

I could stay here all day, feasting on her.

“Please, no more… Master.” She pushed at his head and pulled back.

There was something in her tone that touched a chord within him. It was time to stop. This was their first day together and he had promised not to force himself on her. If he kept going, if his cock became any more insistent, he might have to act on his urges.

He released her and she swayed as if about to keel over.

“Duna,” he said, clasping her face in his hands and steadying her. “Look at me.”

“Why… should I?”

“Because, my slave, you have weathered your first punishment and inspection well, and I believe you have learned an important lesson.”

She opened her eyes. “I will obey you, Master.”

“Good.” He pushed her hair from her face, the lank strands catching in his fingers. “I’m pleased.” He smiled, a little, enjoying studying the tilt of her nose, her perfect rosebud lips, and the deep chestnut color of her eyes.

“I will obey you, Master,” she repeated. She drew her eyebrows together, and a tiny muscle tugged the right-hand corner of her lip. “But I will always hate you.”

His jaw clenched. His palm itched to tip her over again, spank her until tiny red dots blemished her skin. How dare she? He’d vowed to care for her, protect her, yet she hated him.

He stood, allowing her to almost fall.

But she didn’t; she clutched the table and regained balance.

“You have no gratitude,” he said.

“Gratitude?” She was hunched over, as though she ached. “You’d have earned my gratitude if you’d left me with my father, if your devil friends hadn’t killed my neighbors and people I care about. If you hadn’t rowed your snake-headed longboat onto our shores, then I would be grateful… Master.”

“I cannot entertain you,” he said, striding to the barrel of ale he kept in the corner of the room.

“I don’t wish you to.” She stooped and reached for her dress. “I wish you to take me home.”

“That’s not going to happen.” He filled a cask with ale and drank deep. It was warm and malty, not the freshest but it wasn’t sour. “And do not forget to address me as Master, otherwise you will feel a switch on your rear, and I will not be as forgiving as I was this time.”

She opened her mouth then closed it again.

Perhaps she was wising up to her situation.

He dragged in a deep breath and looked around his longhouse. For many months he’d ached to be here. Fill his lungs with fresh air, and his belly with fresh food. He enjoyed the rewards of his travels—the coins in his pocket and the treasures he could barter for—but here, in the home he’d helped his father build when he had been less than a score of summers old, was where he could truly relax. Let his breath out, his guard down, and sleep without a dagger in his hand.

Except now he couldn’t.

The Celt heathen standing before him had disrupted all of that. She was a whirlwind of energy spinning around his home and his brain. His body… that was also a swirl of emotions, a bunch of reactions to her alluring femaleness that he was struggling to ignore.

She must feel something too, when we touch.

He slammed his cask down and stepped up to her.

“What… what are you doing?”

“This.” He stooped, slid his hand beneath her dress, and yanked it up so it bunched around his forearm. He had to show her he could play her body like a musical instrument. He was more than a skilled warrior and a competent farmer; he was a man who was able to please and satisfy a woman.

“No more!” She tried to step away. “My bottom hurts so much.”

“I’m not spanking you, wench,” he said, clamping his other hand at the base of her back and pulling her close. “I’m showing you that I understand you.”

Her undergarments were still halfway down her thighs so finding the patch of hair that grew at the juncture of her legs was easy. With the pad of his first two fingers he sought out her pleasure point, just into her curls, and rubbed.

“What are you doing… oh!” She gripped his tunic, her knees and spine seeming to weaken. Her eyes widened and she stared up at him, her cheeks flushing further.

“You cannot deny the needs in you,” he said, his voice hoarse as he upped the pressure on her nub. “Even if you hate me, your body reacts to mine.”

“It means nothing.”

He sped up his actions, working her in a way he knew would make her mindless with want. “So you do not deny the effect my fingers are having on you?”

“I do not know… what effect… it is?” There was confusion in her eyes, but still they flashed with desire.

“The effect is pleasure.” He’d spoken with his lips close to hers.

“It is… traitorous… my body.”

“Your body cannot lie.” He held her closer, inhaling the scent of her arousal. A sense of satisfaction gripped him. Duna hated him with her mind but her sweet body couldn’t resist him.