The entire day—and this was what caused her tension and abetted her exhaustion—attraction sizzled between the two of them. And it went both ways, she knew it did.
He would glance her way as they cantered side by side, and her nipples would harden.
She glanced his way and saw the bulge betwixt his thighs, which seemed to be always present.
When she bent over to get a drink, she noticed his eyes riveted on her bottom.
When he bent over to get a drink, her eyes latched on to his bottom.
He licked the excess water from his lips, and she imagined those lips in other places.
When she put her hand to the small of her back and stretched her aching muscles, he watched her with what could only be described as hunger.
She would be hair-tearing barmy by nightfall if she didn’t do something. So, as they rode side by side through the mountain path, she tried to divert herself with conversation. “Tell me about your plans,” she urged. “Oh, not what you intend for Runa. What were your plans when you decided to leave the Varangian Guard, before you knew about your daughter?”
“Finn and I had both grown tired of Byzantium. The endless fighting in a war that was not our own. The climate. Yea, we actually yearned for deep snow and blistering cold on occasion. And it was too soft a life for a Norseman.”
“And what did you decide was preferable?”
“Well, when I came to you for marriage, I was without home or coin, my home and belongings having burned to the ground the season before that. My situation is different now. I plan to settle in my own home.”
“In the Orkneys? Is that not the site you mentioned one time?”
“Nay. I had considered the Orkneys, and whilst many Norsemen live there, I prefer the Norselands. Nowhere near my father, but still in my homeland. And that is all I will say on the subject. So do not consider asking how my daughter fits into that picture.” She could tell that his inadvertent use of the word picture brought forth thoughts of those other “mind pictures” they had discussed yestereve. Thus he asked his own questions, to divert their already aroused attentions. “Why have you ne’er married?”
She shrugged. “I always intended to, but every time a man offered for me, I found some reason to decline. And they were not all bad, either, though some of the specimens my father paraded before me would make the most desperate maiden cringe.”
“And you were not desperate.”
As you were when you proposed to me? “Not even when you offered for me.”
“Why did you accept me, then?”
How much of the truth can I tell him? How much of my emotions can I spill like fallen blood? She hesitated. They were entering dangerous territory. Dangerous for her, leastways. “I thought you were a man I could love.”
“And you thought I loved you?” The tone of his voice was incredulous and, yea, insulting. But honest, she had to give him that.
“I assumed you had a warm regard for me and hoped that it could perchance grow into love, over time. Foolish of me, wasn’t it?” Do not laugh. Oh please, do not laugh.
After a long pause, he said, “Not so foolish. My time constraint for regaining my daughter was too desperate for me to think of much else, but methinks my attraction to you, even then, could have grown into something more.” He shrugged. “Who knows?”
Drifa didn’t know whether to be dismayed or hopeful.
He grinned at her then. “You said something else when I rescued you. Not just about hennaed flower buds. You mentioned marble phalluses. Like the ones in the marketplace?”
“Just like,” she said with an air of disgust.
“What did you do with them?”
“Not a thing, but I would have been forced to if I’d remained there much longer. Mainly they were used for teaching tools.”
“Phalluses for teaching tools? Now I am really intrigued.”
“Don’t be. ’Tis not what you are thinking.”
“How do you know what I am thinking?”
“Hah! I’ve known what you were thinking, all day long. It does not take an experienced harem houri to know what has been on your mind.”