Page 4 of Hungry Like a Wolf
She gave him a sultry smile and licked her lips. And then her hands were on him, stroking him just the way he liked, firm and slow with her thumb smoothing around his tip.
He sighed and rested his head back, closing his eyes.
After a flick of her tongue, warm heat enveloped his shaft and he slipped his fingers into her silky hair.
Quickly, he reached full hardness and his balls tingled. She was good at this, her lips taut and her fingers busy, even though there was no emotion there, the act verging on hollow because he knew he’d never love her truly and deeply.
He groaned as his belly tightened. But he was in no rush. The dark night was long and his own thoughts monotonous.
“Ja, like that,” he said on an exhalation. “Keep going.”
She didn’t answer, just kept adoring him with her mouth, unhurriedly pushing him toward a climax that he knew would be intense and fulfilling in a physical sense, if not an emotional one.
And then…then he would start planning his travels west.
Chapter Two
Carmel frowned atthe Viking carefully stacking logs onto the fire in the center of his small, round dwelling. He was tall and his limbs rangy. His hair was long and wavy and tucked behind his ears. His angular face was streaked with the black kohl he’d swiped thickly beneath his eyes and he wore a necklace with a steel pendant shaped into what appeared to be a hammer.
“Do not fear. You will not be cold.” He twitched his eyebrows and grinned. “I like to keep a fire burning, even here in Lothlend, where the earth is not so frozen as it is in my northern lands.”
She didn’t answer, just glared down at the chain between her ankles. He’d fastened the metal cuffs to her lower legs and a short length of chain between them meant she could only take half a step with each pace. Walking was awkward. Running impossible.
Which of course was his intention.
He wanted her to stay at his side… as his slave.
“I would rather freeze to death,” she said, wrinkling her nose, “than have to see out the winter here with a heathen like you.”
He chuckled. “I would not let you go to your heaven, Princess, because then who would wash my clothes, cook my food, and rub my back when it aches from chopping wood?”
“Exactly. I am a princess. You should treat me with respect and let me go home to my people.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” He shook his head. “I will not let you go. And do not think you can escape, either.” With a stick, he pokedat the glowing embers around the new logs. “You are staying here as my thrall.” He pressed his free hand to his chest. “As my slave, you should be honored. I am Orm, the brother of the king.”
“Ha, he is not a true king.” Disgust twisted her mouth. “He is a Norseman who has no right to be here, no right to this land, no right to a crown or the attention of God.”
“That is what you believe.” Orm pointed at her with the stick he’d been poking the fire with. “But not what everyone else in Tillicoulty believes.”
“If they consider themselves to be God-fearing Christians, then they would denounce him.”
“Ah, but King Haakonisa Christian. He was baptized, you know.”
Carmel was quiet for a moment, then, “I don’t believe you.” She folded her arms. “He wouldn’t forsake his own gods.”
“I speak the truth. His wife, Queen Kenna, insisted on it before they were wed. The priest Olaf performed the ceremony himself. I was a witness to the event.”
Her scowl deepened. “That one act does not make him Christian. He must follow Jesus and have God in his heart. He must learn the scriptures of the Holy Bible and renounce all sins, act only with love and compassion.”
“The way your father did when he collected taxes from these people, who already had so little?”
“The taxes were just and due.” She bristled. Somewhere deep inside, she knew there was some truth to Orm’s words.
“‘Just’?” Orm laughed. “‘Due’?”
His cackle grated on her. It was high-pitched and somewhat manic.
“Aye, they were just taxes for hunting and fishing on my father’s land.”
