He savoured every gasp and cry as he sucked her lightly. Only when she fell back, her hips bucking a bit with the rhythm he set, did he let a finger slip inside her. She clamped around him and he pulled it almost all the way free, only to gently work a second one into her. He loved having her under his power like this, his name falling from her lips as he controlled her pleasure. In some small and dark corner of his mind, he gloried in the fact that this at least was new to her. No one had ever given her pleasure like this.
It made him feel more powerful than he had any right to feel, like a god come to earth to pleasure this woman who was his. And he did pleasure her with a single-minded purpose that felt as irresistible as the potion she had laced into his ale on that first night in the tavern.
‘Rurik!’ she cried out and grabbed his hair in a twist that might have been painful were he not beyond all thought except for bringing her to completion. He wanted to hear her cry out as she came for him and then he wanted to fill her and take her until she cried out beneath him again.
In the next moment her body trembled and her cry filled the air. She clenched around his fingers as he tasted her release on his tongue. Only when she began to come down did he move over her. Her eyes were dazed and unfocused, but her arms went around his shoulders as he fell over her, taking her mouth in a deep kiss. He found a nipple with his fingers and plucked it gently but insistently. She groaned against his lips and raised her hips, grinding against him.
‘Do you want me inside you?’ he whispered between kisses.
‘Hurry,’ she said on a breathless gasp.
It was all the encouragement he needed. Lining himself up with her, he pushed inside in one deep stroke that had them both crying out. The way he fit her felt so right, as if he had been made for her. He tried to keep his thrusts slow and measured, wanting to prolong the pleasure for both of them. But having her beneath him like this was too much and, when she wrapped her legs around his hips, opening herself up to him even more, he was lost. It wasn’t long before he was taking her with hard, deep thrusts of his hips while sweat rolled down his temple. Having this woman spread out beneath him, begging him for more, was too much. The very moment she began to shake beneath him, her body clenching tight around him, he came with a roar pulled from deep in his chest.
‘Annis,’ he whispered her name over and over into her hair as he fell over her, his lips finding her neck. Her arms held him tight as if unwilling to let him go, so he collapsed on to her, still buried deep inside her. He had never felt this almost complete obsession with a woman before. His hands still fisted in her hair as he spread kisses over her neck and cheek on his way to her mouth. There was no getting enough of her.
When strength came back to him, he raised up on his forearms just enough to look down at her. She smiled up a him, a small tentative smile that reflected his own bewildered wonder. How was it possible that he had travelled all this way with vengeance spurring him on, only to find this woman who was dangerously close to stealing his heart? Had the gods brought him to her?
Her fingers caressed his cheek, so he turned his head to place a kiss in her palm. ‘I never thought I would find anyone like you,’ he whispered.
She let out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a sob, but she pulled him down for a kiss before he could comment. One kiss led to another and he was lost for the rest of the night.
Annis’s heart gave a small but pleasant start the next morning when Rurik took her hand. Tiny feathers of awareness tickled up from her hand to her wrist as he tightened his fingers around hers. He did not smile at her, but his eyes seemed to say so much more than words ever could as they made their way outside.
He had brought her to pleasure twice more last night and once again this morning before they left their bed. He had been slow and lazy—thorough was the only way she could think to describe how he had taken his time in waking her up. It had not mattered that a servant had knocked, or discreetly left a meal for them inside the door. He had not stopped until they were both limp and satiated. Then he had helped her dress, an endeavour that promised far more pleasure to be had later in the day.
Iron clanged outside as they made their way from their home, evidence that Jarl Eirik was already awake and running his men through their paces. No doubt he was impatient for them, but Rurik did not hurry his pace. As two of her men swung open the doors to the courtyard for them, he only gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze and held them. She liked that they had progressed from a supporting hand on her lower back. How quickly they could progress to so much more if they only had the chance.
She pushed back the weight of guilt that threatened to rise within her at the thought. She would tell Rurik everything very soon, as soon as the Jarl left them in peace. He would be hurt—she despised that his pain was necessary—but she hoped with time he could forgive her for the part she had played in Maerr. She did not fool herself that it would be an easy thing
