Sirens - The Gripping Beast Part 9

"No," her earnest, literal Viking was happy to inform her. "Even were you not a slave and therefore without rights, the Rule of Law is held once a year. You would have to make your protest then."

"Rule of Law. What about the Bill of Rights?" She glared at him and went on, "All men are created equal and endowed with certain rights. And those rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's the American way. We're all equal, and we're all free."

"We also are all equal and free," Erik said. "But you are not a Dane, and you are my slave."

She closed her eyes and smacked her forehead with one palm. "How did I miss that little fact?"

"I find it strange myself. You belong to me, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will come to enjoy it."

Lorelei leaned back and eyed him seriously. "Erik, do you really believe I'll just accept it?"

He smiled broadly. "No." He caressed her cheek with one open hand. "I look forward to persuading you." The kiss that followed was pure persuasion. Soft and full of subtle seduction, his lips teased hers until they parted and clung to his. With a low sound of encouragement, he cupped the back of her head with one hand and held her for his ravishment. His tongue tasted and withdrew, returned and twined with hers in a deep, wild mating that gradually awakened and fed an answering hunger.

She shivered and moaned softly, the sound lost in his kiss, as he cupped and gently squeezed one bare breast. His rough palm teased her nipple into tautness for his thumb to rub, back and forth, until she was quivering from the sensation.

When he lifted his head, she opened dazed eyes to meet his.

"Wow," she whispered, shaken.

He nodded. "For once, I think I understand your meaning." They fell silent and he hugged her close, turning her so that she sat with her back against his chest. When he took advantage of the position to stroke his hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she couldn't find it in herself to protest. The touch felt too good. Too comfortingly warm and human. Too sensually stirring. His hands on her body felt oddly right in a way that no other man's ever had. The wrongness had always jarred her and brought things to a halt before they really even got started. For once, she was responding to a man like a red-blooded woman, and the relief that she wasn't frigid after all kept her from arguing even when he slid one hand between her legs and cupped her where no man had gone before.

The Star Trek a.n.a.logy made her smile. Then his thumb rubbing across the sensitive nub of her c.l.i.toris the same way he'd manipulated her nipple made her gasp.

He chuckled, a deep, satisfied sound that vibrated against her back. "I find persuading you most enjoyable. I hope you require much more persuasion."

She made a noncommittal sound. The twin sensations of one hand toying with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, teasing her into a state of ever more heightened sensitivity, coupled with his hand between her thighs working her until she grew slick and wet with arousal were enough to drive her out of her mind.

Back and forth his fingers slid, teasing her with her own wetness, circling her sensitized c.l.i.t, thrusting downward to part her l.a.b.i.a and slip just barely inside and then withdrawing again. Her breath came more and more quickly and she let out a moan of pleasure.

"Now you are as ready as I am," he muttered thickly. She didn't argue. Erik shifted and drew her down, placed her on her back, then spread her thighs wide and settled himself over her. His hard shaft probed at her entry, now swollen and slick in readiness for his invading c.o.c.k.

Our mission, to explore strange new worlds, Lorelei thought. Then he drove into her with one powerful thrust and she immediately found the Star Trek manifesto terribly inadequate.

"Erik," she gasped, her eyes going wide with shock, "I think you just killed me."

"No, you are killing me," he gritted out. "You are too tight."

"I'm too tight? You're too big. You're going to split me in half."

He growled and thrust deeper and she gasped. "Stop that. I'm dying."

"If you were dying, you would be silent," he pointed out. She saw a fine sheen of sweat on his brow as he struggled for control. "It has been too long for me. I would say it has also been too long for you."

"This is no time to argue." Lorelei moaned.

"For once, we are agreed." To her relief, he withdrew. The relief was short-lived, however. He surged forward again, breaking through the barrier she wasn't even sure was there as he filled her completely. She closed her eyes and braced herself, but he remained still. After a moment, she realized it didn't hurt, exactly. In fact, as she relaxed, it felt wonderful. She smiled and arched under his weight in an instinctive movement, seeking more contact, more depth, more...something. "Erik," she whispered. She opened her eyes to see him frowning down at her. "Now what?"

"How can you be virgin?" the barbarian wanted to know. He didn't look happy, either, now that she thought about it.

"By not doing this before," she answered, stating the obvious. "Can we please discuss it later? I think I like it. Why don't we keep going, and I'll let you know afterwards." As she made the suggestion, she moved sinuously underneath him and hugged his hips with her thighs.

"You cannot be a virgin," he muttered, still looking unhappy.

"Technically, I don't think I qualify now, so don't let that stop you," Lorelei suggested helpfully.

"A virgin wanton." He looked confounded.

"Ex-virgin wanton. Thanks to you. Erik, please, I want more."

He groaned and sank deeper. If she'd thought he was already buried in her to the hilt, she was wrong. She could feel him all the way to the entrance of her womb.

"Wow," she repeated softly.

"Indeed." Erik's mouth closed over hers again, and then he was driving into her with all the pent-up fury of a storm at sea. An answering storm rose inside of her, years of need and denial buried and waiting for this moment, this man. The storm built with each thrust, two beings striving to give and take and become one in increasing urgency. Lorelei found herself gasping with effort as she strained for something nearly attainable. Almost, almost...then the storm broke over her in wave after wave of pleasure that swept her out into depths she'd never imagined. Until, at last, she came to rest intimately joined with the man who had claimed her in some primal, primitive way.

Incredible. So this was what she'd been missing. All this time, she'd seen only the tip of the iceberg called desire, and who knew what other discoveries lay hidden? Suddenly, Lorelei saw a whole new dimension in her music that she hadn't fully understood at the time she'd written it. She'd just followed the pattern it demanded without really knowing why, trusting her instincts to know that when it felt right, it was, whether it made sense or not.

No wonder she'd been so restless, so discontented. She had known on some level that she hadn't been complete. She'd needed this. Pa.s.sion. A true connection with a man. The man. Her man.

Just as she'd known on that same instinctual level that now was the right time. That Erik was the right man, whether it made sense or not. And by any logical view, it didn't.

Lost in thought and flooded with lethargy, the last thing Lorelei expected was to find herself suddenly bereft of the communion she'd so recently discovered with Erik as he levered himself away to place his hand at her throat and his sword-point at her heart.

"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice fierce and taut with determination.

She blinked in puzzlement. "Who am I? Who are you? What happened to the man I just made love with?"

The hand gripping her throat flexed and subtly decreased her air supply. "Answer the question." The menace in that near-whisper chilled her as effectively as the cold metal on her bare skin.

Wrong, she thought, this is all wrong. A moment before, she would have sworn she knew this man and that he would never knowingly hurt her. Now death was in his touch and in the coldness of his gaze. It gave a sense of warped unreality to the scene, as if it were something happening to someone else.

"Erik," she said quietly, closing her eyes against the sight, "I don't understand the question. I told you my name already."

The sharpened point pressed downward slightly. Her eyes flew wide in shock, and when she looked down, she saw a drop of blood forming against the tip. He wasn't hurting her. But the threat was clear. "What are you doing?"

His hand tightened further, cutting off her voice. "You will speak only to answer. Nod if you understand."

She nodded. The grip loosened, and she sucked in air gratefully.

"Who are you?"

Maybe it was the thought that he could threaten to hurt her. Maybe it was the way he could go from lover to executioner in a moment. Maybe it was just plain wounded ego that what had been an epic event in her life obviously meant nothing to him. But Lorelei was suddenly blazingly angry. Her eyes fairly shot sparks and she was so furious that it made her tremble.

"Someone who doesn't want to play," she snarled. She wasn't going to say another word, either. She'd wear polyester and spend the rest of her life as an Elvis impersonator before she'd tell him anything.

"You will answer the question."

"No."

Erik realized her defiance should not have come as a surprise. When did she ever comply? It was one reason he could not trust her sudden surrender in his arms. There was also the fact that she knew more of shipbuilding than she should. The fact that she knew their language, although she did speak it badly and with a strange accent. The fact that she held a fatal fascination for a man that drove him to forget his duties and could, in time, make him forsake all honor.

She was no simple slave and he could not believe her presence in Hedeby, coinciding with his own, to be mere chance. Neither did he think her mad. Nay, she had cunning beyond anything he had suspected, and she represented an unknown enemy. He would find out the truth of the matter.

"You will tell me who you are, and who you spy for," Erik stated softly.

That surprised her. "Spy? Like James Bond?"

"Now we progress. Tell me of this James Bond."

"What? Well, he's English. Her Majesty's secret service, you know?"

"English." He frowned at the term.

"Oh. What you call Saxons, maybe?"

The absurdity of the conversation struck her, and suddenly it was hard not to laugh. A spy. He thought she was some kind of Mata Hari. Well, she'd feed him a load of misinformation, and it was exactly what he deserved. As quickly as it had ebbed, her wrath returned. He'd ruined a beautiful experience. No, worse, he'd made it into something ugly and made her wish it had never happened. She could hate him for that.

Pure vindictiveness led her to continue. "Yes, Saxons. They have a ring of secret agents who infiltrate every country in the world and report back information about weapons, armies and who has what and how much of it, and where." If nothing else, she'd do her best to make him paranoid, she decided. She went on, "Every agent is known by a number as a protection against having their ident.i.ty uncovered."

"And who is this James Bond?"

She smiled. "My lover." In her dreams, she added silently.

"You lie."

Oh. Right. He knew better. "James and I have an understanding."

"If he comes for you, I will kill him," he informed her harshly. "And you will watch."

Lorelei gave him a poisonous smile. "Better men than you have tried."

He scowled, breaking the emotionless mask of indifference. "So you still prefer your Saxon who had not the wit nor the desire to make you his. He must be a boy and not a man. Or a eunuch and no man at all."

She scowled back. "Make me his? How primitive."

"Primitive, yes." With a lightning movement, Erik flipped his sword to the side and jerked her beneath him. "Basic. Elemental. You will forget this man and you will forget this foolish loyalty to him. I did what he failed to do. I made you mine. You belong to me."

She was suddenly tired of fighting. Tired of the internal war of anger and hurt. It colored her smoky voice with a finality. "You didn't make me yours. You made me nothing."

His eyes narrowed, piercing her with their intensity. "You will admit you belong to me."

She feigned a yawn. "Will I?" She let her lashes drift down to shield her eyes in apparent indifference, but in reality out of sheer stubbornness and pride. She didn't want him to see her hurt. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Trying for another dig, she added, "Are you going to 'make me yours' again? Wake me up when you're finished. Although it's likely to be over before I really get to sleep."

For a minute, she thought he just might. Then he stood and growled, "Freya, you are colder than the north sea. No wonder your lover sent you to spy for him. Perhaps he hoped to freeze us all in our beds. Or it may be that he hoped enough men would make you grateful for his limited attentions."

She heard him dress in short, sharp movements, heard the ring of steel as he retrieved his sword, and finally, the welcome sound of the door closing behind him.

Alone, she lay still for a moment. Then an almost compulsive need to wash his touch away coupled with a frenzied desire to escape the scene of her humiliation drove her to her feet.

She threw on her only clothing once more, making a face of distaste at the state her dress was in. Well, the sea would take care of it, and of her, too. In another minute, she was out the door and balanced on the ship's ledge. Then she was diving cleanly into the water below.

Cold. The water really was cold. As cold as Erik had accused her of being. She grimaced, thinking of Erik's parting shot. Nice to know her worst fears were true, after all. The one man she slept with compared the experience to flirting with hypothermia.

And this was really stupid. She surfaced and gasped with the shock of the cold that was going all the way through to her bones. Big mistake. The next time she got mad at Mr. Lord and Master Viking, she was throwing him overboard instead.

She heard the shouts immediately, once she came up and started to tread water. They were impossible to miss, actually, since they were directly overhead and amplified by the presence of water.

"Keep looking! How can you miss a woman in the middle of the sea?"

"I tell you, I can see nothing." That was Barney, she thought. Sounding aggrieved.

"You will keep looking until she is found," another voice roared. "You let her go overboard."

Erik's voice. And he sounded furious.

"She will be drowned by now," another man pointed out.

"Then you will help find the body." Erik again, in an icy rage. "We stay here until we find her."

"You are the one who made her jump." That sounded like Harold, Lorelei thought. "The finest skald I have ever heard, and what do you do? Abuse her until she flings herself into the sea. I should never have left her to you."

It was entertaining to listen to them, but she was far too cold. Lorelei rose up in the water as high as she could and shouted, "Harold! Toss me a rope, and I'll sing for you again!"

There was a moment of silence. Then a row of heads appeared, outlined by the sun. "Lorelei?"

"Were you expecting the Avon lady? It's cold in here. Toss me a rope, please." She smiled back at her audience, squinting against the sun that blinded her to individual faces.

The rope splashed just in front of her a second later. "Thanks!" She latched onto it and clung, shivering, as she let herself be hauled up. "That water is really c-c-cold," she chattered, as she went. "I'm frozen."

A now-familiar hand closed over hers as it neared the top and pulled her the rest of the way.

"If you were frozen," Erik informed her ominously, "You would make less noise."

Chapter Eight.

He wasn't in a good mood, Lorelei decided. Erik dragged her back to the cabin, pausing only to yank his shirt off and haul it over her head, whether to keep her from freezing or to keep anyone from ogling the curves sharply outlined by the wet fabric of her dress, she couldn't say.

Once they were alone, or as alone as they could be on a crowded boat, he stripped it off her again. Her dress followed, cut down the center by his ornamental dagger.

"Great," Lorelei muttered through blue lips. "You're hard on my wardrobe, do you know that?"

"Be silent." His voice was nearly a deafening shout.