Page 33 of The Viking Blues

“I know.”

“After we made love, it changed everything. What I thought, how I felt. I didn’t know what I wanted. I questioned everything. I felt like I was letting everyone down.”

“You always did put too much pressure on yourself,” he scolded lightly. “I just wish you’d talked to me about it, because then I could have told you what I told Louisa. I’m a blacksmith, born and bred. I can do my job anywhere. And I’ve spent the last eighteen years proving that all I need is an anvil, my tool kit and a fire and I’m good to go.

“Mia, I would have followed you anywhere. Because all I wanted, all I have ever truly desired was to be with you. To be by your side.” He pushed her hair away from her face, made sure she could see the sincerity in his eyes, hear it in his words. “Mia, I was in love with you.” Then taking a deep breath he admitted what he’d known from the instant she’d shown up in his life again. “And sweetling, I still am.”

Eyes wide and mouth hanging open, Mia just stared at him as though he’d grown a second head. But before he could even think about damage control, she blurted out, “I still love you too.”

Wait. “What?”

A small laugh bubbled out of her, one that grew and grew until she was almost doubled over in riotous laughter.

Ollie wasn’t sure if he should laugh too, or be offended. “What’s so funny?”

“Me. You. Us. All of it. Oh my God, Ollie, we were so fucking clueless.” Her shoulders continued to bounce as her laughter died down to a chuckle, and she wiped the wetness from her eyes. “Eighteen years later and not much has changed. You’re still the sensitive, beautiful boy I fell for the moment we met on that stupid bus, and I’m still the same non-communicative moron I’ve always been.”

“Moron is a bit harsh,” Ollie said, grinning at Mia’s outburst.

“Harsh but fair,” she replied. “All my life I trained to be an officer, to make my parents proud of me. But a life in the army was never what I wanted. Not really. If I wasn’t such a moron I would have told her that. Honestly, why the fuck did you ever put up with me? I had to have been the most boring kid in school. Always making sure I said the right things and did the right things and got the best grades. Always, always towing the line and never really living for myself.”

“Not always. There was that one time you almost got expelled for beating the shit out three guys.”

“They deserved it,” she spat, her expression fierce. “They were hurting you.”

“Until you rescued me.” He stroked her cheek. “Always my protector.”

“And you were always mine.” She leaned into his touch, turned her head to press a kiss to his palm, then whispered, “This is crazy though, right?”

Staring up at him again, her expression was part manic, part awe, as though she wasn’t really sure what they were doing or how they got there.

He knew the feeling.

“We’re crazy,” she said, continuing her train of thought. “How can we possibly feel this way? We haven’t seen in each other in a lifetime. How do we know what we’re feeling isn’t just, I don’t know, nostalgia?”

Ollie stared at her lips once more, ached for another taste. “We don’t,” he said, grinning again. “And we won’t until we try.” He traced his fingertips along the neckline of her dress, savoured the heat of her skin, the soft curve of her breast. “You do want to try, don’t you, sweetling?”

As Mia nodded, her expression smoothed out, grew less confused and more carnal. Sliding her hands over his chest again, she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yes, I want that very much.”

“Good.”

Before she could change her mind, Oliver swept Mia into his arms and crashed his lips against hers. It was the work of a moment to strip her out of her dress and bra and wrap her legs around his waist.

“Ollie,” she moaned against his mouth, raking her nails down his biceps, leaving a stinging trail in her wake.

He loved it.

He craved it.

Wanted more of it.

“Mia, tell me what you want. Tell me what you need.”

Her hooded gaze met his and his cock hammered at his zipper, desperate for release. Mia was born to command him. “I want you on your knees and your tongue in my cunt,” she growled, then licked a path up the length of his neck until she reached his ear and bit down hard. “I want to come all over your face,” she purred, “and then all over your cock.”

She pulled back and stared at him and Ollie almost swallowed his own damn tongue at the look on her face. He’d seen that look before, a long time ago.

Major Mia had come out to play.

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