Chapter 11
Adoor slammed in the distance, shattering the silence of the night.
Gytha sat up bolt upright in bed, her heart beating hard, her mind too fuzzy with sleep to leave room for anything but terror.
Oswald. The mysterious intruder had to be him.
Who else would come at this hour? Her father, even if he sometimes came back home in the middle of the night, never behaved so inconsiderately so as to wake everyone up when he entered the house.
Panicked, she shot out of bed, ran for the door—and slammed straight into a hard, male body.
“No!” she cried out, trying to wrench herself away from the man. She had been right, Oswald had come back for her, to exert his revenge for the humiliation inflicted upon him. But how? How had he gotten to her? She pushed at him with all her might. “No! Let me go!”
“Hush, Saxon. It’s all right. It’s only me.”
Saxon.
Gytha stilled. Only one person called her that. Relief flooded through her. The man holding her was not Oswald, it was Haakon. Of course. He’d stayed overnight, precisely to protect her. Her whole body went limp.
As long as he was here, everything would be all right.
“Sorry, I-I heard…”
“Yes. I did as well, which is why I came to reassure you.”
It was only then that she realized she was still cradled in his arms—and he was bare chested.
Even if she had not seen it in the blue moonlight, she would have felt it.
His skin was soft as buckskin against her cheek, covered with short, silky smooth hairs.
Irresistible. So irresistible that her hand started to move of its own accord.
Mm, yes. Her throat began to vibrate and what could only be described as a lust-filled moan built in her throat.
The muscles under her palm bunched when it finally passed her lips and a warm hand imprisoned her wrist, keeping it tight against him.
“Gytha. Please. Stop.”
If we don’t stop right now I’m going to rip your clothes off and impale you on my cock.
Did she want to stop? She wasn’t sure. Should she? Probably. Could she make the decision and push him away? It wasn’t—
Bang!
Another awful, bone-jarring noise cut through her thoughts.
“Fuck, what is this thing?” Haakon hissed between clenched teeth. He sounded just as aggravated as she felt, though she wasn’t sure it was due to worry or the fact that their embrace had been interrupted before they could see where it might lead. “Stay in your room, I’ll go and check.”
He let her go, and she felt the loss of his warmth deep in her bones. Doing as she had been instructed, she went back to her room, closed the door and waited, a blanket draped around her shoulders for heat.
It was not long before Haakon came back.
When he entered the room, Gytha forgot to breathe.
The gold light thrown by the dying flames of the brazier sculpted his chest in a way the glow of the moon had not.
The first had softened the edges, the second was bringing every muscle into sharp contrast. How could anyone look so strong, so perfect?
She was certain not a single muscle was showing in her own body, whereas his arms, his shoulders, his stomach, everything was delineated.
“What do you do all day?” she whispered in awe.
He frowned, clearly confused by the question. “All day? I was only gone a moment, to see what the noise was.”
Yes, of course, only she had meant, ‘what do you do all day to have acquired such a physique?’ She knew he was no raiding warrior honing his body by pillaging the land, thank God. So how did he—
“A shutter from the house next door.”
“Pardon me?” Her gaze fluttered back to his face. Had he been talking?
“A shutter from the house next door had become loose. And the wind has picked up. It was sending it crashing against the wall. That was what we heard, perhaps what Alfred heard last night as well. But I’ve secured it now.
” He looked at her strangely, as if fearing she was losing her mind. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right. Only, the moonlight did not show the same thing as the fire.”
He shook his head. Apparently this answer had mystified him. Which was a relief, because she hadn’t meant to say this out loud.
“Get back to bed, Gytha.”
Gytha. Not Saxon. She nodded.
The moment had well and truly passed.
Haakon was doing his best to be sensible and do what should be done but never had any man’s resolve been more sorely tested.
Gytha was standing in the middle of the room with her hair in disarray, her naked feet and calves exposed to his view, and a blanket draped around her delicate body.
That was bad enough. But the way she was looking at him with those big, green eyes was threatening to snap the last shred of his control.
Was she even fully awake? Her eyes were dazed, she was talking of moonlight and fire and was under the impression that he’d been gone all day.
He had heard of people who wandered about in their sleep, and had no recollection of what they had done in the morning.
Well, if she wasn’t thinking clearly, that was all the more reason for him to get the hell out of here before he made a mistake.
“I’ll go back to my furs,” he said curtly.
“Wait. At least come into the room,” she called out before he could pass through the door. “Lie here, next to the brazier. ’Tis too cold and draughty in the corridor.”
It had been draughty, he had to admit. Could he accept the offer? Would that not be playing with fire? Yes, probably. Yet he could not find the will to refuse.
“Thank you.”
With a nod, he went to retrieve his bedding. When he came back Gytha was still in the same place, and the look in her eyes had not changed. Except that this time he knew with terrible certainty that she was indeed awake and fully aware of his state of undress.
“Get into bed,” he told her, closing the door behind him. Before I tumble you into it.
He was already half-naked, harder than steel and ready to go. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge.
“Yes,” she said dreamily. “Bed.”
That did it.
With a muffled oath, Haakon threw the covers on the floor and collapsed on top of the pile, his back turned to the temptress who had just issued what sounded like the most scandalous invitation.
For a few tense heartbeats he waited, dreading to feel her sliding her delectable body next to his on the furs.
If she was half as aroused as he was now, she might not be able to resist the temptation.
A moment later he heard the ruffle of covers when Gytha finally, blessedly, climbed into her bed. Soon there was nothing to be heard but the wind blowing outside.
Haakon already knew he would never be able to get back to sleep now, not after having feared an attack on Gytha, not after having felt her hands on his bare chest, not after having fought a mighty battle with his desire.
It had been hard enough to settle down in the first place, he would not make it a second time.
Stiff as a lance, he lay on his back staring at the ceiling, waiting for a new day to dawn.
Gytha’s father came back mid-morning. He walked through the main door just as she was leaving her room and found Haakon sitting by the hearth.
It looked as if he had slept here, on the wooden chair, on high alert. Certainly no one could have suspected he had actually spent the best part of the night in her room. When had he left?
She had not been surprised to find the nest of furs empty upon waking up, but she had been surprised to fall back to sleep so quickly after the heated encounter of the night.
For a heady, blessed moment she had been nestled in his embrace, her hands had been on him, his scent had enveloped her.
It was odd she had managed to calm the roaring in her blood long enough to relax and fall into oblivion.
Less surprising was the fact that her dreams had been filled with images of a Norse god brandishing a moonbeam in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other.
His hair had been a cascade of gold flowing down to the small of his back and his eyes had been amber—but his features had been that of Haakon’s.
Did he ever wear his hair braided, she wondered, like Halfdan did? She would have to ask him sometime, because she was certain it would suit him as much as it suited Eadhild’s husband.
With some effort, she brought her mind back to the present and the two men talking.
“Thank you, Haakon,” her father was saying. “My business with Wilgard is finally concluded so I don’t need to bother you any longer.” He looked pleased with the results of the meeting with his friend. “You can get back home.”
Home. At the village where he belonged, rather than here in town, looking after a woman he barely knew.
She hated feeling like she was a burden for him.
Not once the previous evening or even during the night, when his sleep had been interrupted, had Haakon made her feel like an imposition, but her father’s unfortunate comment made her see that, perhaps, he would have rather been somewhere else last night.
After all, aside from the inexplicable, unfortunate heat between them, they had little in common. He was everything she was not.
Why would he want to be here?
Haakon winked when he saw her father was not looking at him, as if he had guessed what she was thinking and wanted to reassure her.
“It wasn’t a problem,” he said, his voice even. “I’m glad I could help.”
Warmth spread through her. He meant it, she could tell, it was not just a ploy destined to make her feel better.
“Did anything happen?”
“No. Nothing worth mentioning.”
Nothing except from what had transpired between them while they had played dice and then later on in the still of the night, when he had held her close against his naked chest. Nothing except what had started to bloom in her heart.
“Excellent. Well then, tell Wolf I will come visit in a few days’ time.”
“Of course.”
After one last bow, Haakon left. The door closed on him with the finality of a lid slamming on a coffin. Or perhaps this was her recent loss that put her in mind of such a gloomy image.
“Now, Gytha. Let me tell you what Wilgard told me last night. You are not going to believe it.”
Gytha forced a smile. Though, normally, she would have loved to hear the story—her father’s friend did have a knack for getting into all sorts of unlikely trouble—today she felt despondent. She sighed inwardly.
It would be a long day.