Chapter Thirty-Five
The rain picked up as they climbed the rise of land and headed away from the sea. Hulda felt glad of it, for it provided some cover from those who followed. Certain ones of her men would follow. This she knew as she knew her own name.
They would do so in order to protect her, so they would say. But she and Quarrie would have to lose them, if what she needed so desperately were to take place. If it did not take place, she would surely burn up to ash.
As it was, she dared not touch Quarrie along the way. Even a simple clasping of hands would tell too much, if her men were watching.
She asked him, “Where are we bound?”
“There are two places.”
“The nearest,” she chose promptly.
“The nearest may no’ be the best.”
She had to swallow back her words in an attempt to control her emotions. She did not know herself. Calm, she usually was, controlled, and not prey to this kind of madness.
“By Freya’s heart,” she whispered, “we had better get there soon.”
Did he laugh? A flash of white teeth said so, but she could not hear him over the rain.
Wherever they were bound, she trusted him to lead her. That might be the worst sort of folly, for he could lead her off and leave her dead where none of her men might find her.
She trusted him.
He looked back several times as if determining whether they were followed, but in the end it rained so hard a silver curtain shrouded them from sight.
They came to a half-ruined structure. Stone sides it had, tumbled at one end.
“This place used to be for hunting parties,” he told her as they ducked inside. “Shelter from bad weather long ago. So ye see, ye will no’ be lying to yer men.”
The place lay empty, the end still boasting a roof mostly dry. It smelled of ancient thatch and vermin.
Quarrie looked at her doubtfully. “If this is no’ good enough, we can continue on—”
“It is good enough.” She turned to face him. “Touch me.”
He lit a rushlight that he had brought, keeping it dry somehow beneath his cloak. The poor light barely illuminated the place. He laid his hands upon her, big hands that were nevertheless gentle, and the sensation went through her like pain. She closed her eyes.
“Hulda.” He dropped kisses on both her eyelids and something inside her melted. Her desire became no less fierce, yet it blended with softer feeling.
“Let us get out of this wet clothing.”
“I am soaked to the skin,” he agreed.
“I want to lick the moisture from you. All over.”
Desire leaped in his eyes. “Do ye, then?”
“Ah, ja. Then I want to do all those things I have been imagining for the past three days.”
“I should no’ wish to hamper ye.” He helped her off with her cloak.
She took it from him and spread it on the dirty floor. Removed her boots, one of which held the knife. Laid aside her other weapons that she’d donned before they left. “Help me off with this.”
Her tunic proved difficult to remove, it being wet, as did her leggings, the strips of leather that bound them tightened by the wet. He stood and watched as her body came to his view, and she could not tell what he thought.
Matter-of-factly, she said, “I am not a—a buxom kind of woman. I have no spare flesh. I work too hard for it. And I have no hips to speak of.” Her breasts, now peaking in the cool air, were firm and high. “Whatever I am, Quarrie MacMurtray, I am yours for this night.” Forever.
“Ye be perfect.” His gaze alone touched her, from the tumbled hair on her head to that below, and on down her legs. “Never doubt it.”
“Good. That is good.”
He shed his own cloak and, just as she had, the clothing beneath it. His body, long and lean, showed corded with muscle and rough with hair darker than that on his head.
When he caught her watching him, he slanted an amused look at her. “I am what I am, also.”
“Do you hear me complaining?”
A smile curved his lips. “I would no’ want ye to be disappointed after three days’ wondering.”
For answer, she moved into his arms. Placed her mouth against his wet shoulder and sucked off the rain. He drew in a breath, and just like that, desire came alive in the lowly place. No need at all for frivolous questions, or further wondering.
“Come,” he whispered. “Lie wi’ me.”
They had done this before, Hulda thought dreamily as he stretched out upon her cloak and drew her down atop him, pulling his cloak over them both, as she—keeping her promise—moved her mouth over him from the hollow of his throat, over the rippled muscles of his chest and stomach.
The taste of him was familiar. More than that, it was just as she’d imagined it to be.
The scent of him, as she moved ever lower, brought back memories. Memories.
She kept her eyes shut against the intense pleasure of it, and feeling him, he might have been another man. One with a mane of dark-blond hair and sea-blue-green eyes. A name appeared unbidden in her mind. Deathan.
Whatever his name, he was the man she adored above all others.
An interesting dilemma, but as she traversed his body and made her way to something far more distracting, all other thoughts fled. He stood proud for her, did this man she desired.
Only for her. For her, always.
Unabashedly, as if she had done so a hundred times, she took him in her mouth.
He began to speak, what sounded like praying. Music to her ears. His hands closed around her head, fingers entwined in her hair, and he drew her from him.
“No’ yet. No’ yet.”
He pulled her up his body and she kissed his mouth. Her blood began to hum. A perfect state of being, this was. His mouth joined to hers. His flesh at her fingertips. She could ask no more because there was naught more to be had.
His fingers, rough with calluses, yet still incredibly gentle, found her breasts. Men were seldom gentle with her, she who lived and worked with them as an equal. It undid her, that he should touch her so.
She broke the kiss only to guide his mouth to her breast, a gesture of silent supplication.
No man owned Hulda Elvarsdottir, but she gave herself completely to this one.
And who could have convinced her, ever, that such sharp and beautiful bliss existed? That every part of her—blood, sinew, muscle—would want so intensely to be part of him that she could lose every restriction, could very nearly lose her words?
Because it happened that she could only manage to say, “Inside me. Now.” She had forgotten all other means of speaking in her tongue or his.
They moved together like one person, a beautiful being, a song. Sweet and effortless. Blinding. When at the last instant he would have withdrawn from her, she locked her heels at his back and held him fast.
I want all of you. She did not say it aloud, not in any language. Did not have to.
He gave to her. All of him.
After, she lay with his weight clutched to her, eyes tight shut. She could hear the rain striking the floor at the other end of the hut, but it might have been happening anywhere, and any-when. She did not know who he was, or who she was. Only that they were together.
Love. She spoke in his ear. She had to struggle for it in his language. “I have forgotten how to speak to you.”
“No need to speak.” He lay sprawled atop her, his hips cradled between her thighs. Now he rose to his elbows and peered into her eyes. “Are ye weepin’?”
Was she? It could not still be rain that wet her cheeks.
“Ja.”
“The grand warrior-maiden, Hulda Elvarsdottir, shedding tears?” A smile warmed his voice. Hearing it gave her such pleasure, it curled her toes.
In ordinary life, she might seek to command her feelings, to hide her emotions, to appear harder than she was. With him, there could be only honesty. “It was so beautiful.”
“It was,” he agreed. “But I would no’ ha’ ye weep.”
“Good tears. Lie here. Hold me. Talk to me, Quarrie MacMurtray. I love the sound of your voice.”
“Do ye?”
“It is like music. Like singing.”
He murmured softly, his lips a mere breath from her ear, and told her of his childhood and his life here. What came through was his deep attachment to this place, belonging that stretched back many generations in blood, his value for his ancestors. His love.
He loved hard and completely, did this man of hers.
That he was her man, she had no doubt. She did not quite understand how, out of a world of men, she had found him. Yet she had, and she did not intend to leave go of him, not ever again.