Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
T he door of the forge opened without a sound. Only the burst of moonlight painting the room in bluish hues betrayed the fact that someone had slipped inside. Someone too small and dainty to make any noise on the packed earth floor. Someone who had not set foot in here for two days. In other words, an eternity.
Magnus didn’t move, and the door closed again, wrapping the room in shadows once more. To the left, the faint glow of the embers cut through the darkness, like the many eyes of a malevolent creature intent on witnessing the humiliation that was sure to come. What was Agnes doing here? Hadn’t she done enough?
After a moment, her voice reached him, oddly disembodied. “Magnus? I know you’re in here. Please, we need to talk. I owe you an explanation.”
An explanation! He was in no mood to hear why she thought Bjorn was better than him.
“You owe me nothing,” he growled.
Damnation, he had not meant to talk at all. Now not only Agnes would know for sure that he was here, but also where he was standing.
Having located him she started to walk up in his direction, stumbling a little. Her eyes would not have adjusted to the obscurity yet, unlike his. Magnus braced himself for the moment she would fall to her knees or flat on her face. Hadn’t she told him she was clumsy? Perhaps she’d been right to make the claim, because she appeared particularly unsteady. But she made it to him without any mishap, stopping close enough for him to see her eyes glitter like liquid gems.
“Please, you must?—”
“Why are you here?” he cut in, annoyed at her insistence, annoyed even more by his weakness. He should not want to lift her into his arms, he should not be hoping to hear that she had changed her mind, like Dunne had done about Bjorn’s offer. He should refuse to listen to her and storm out. “Have you come to beg me to have you now that the possibility of marrying the man you wanted is gone? How many times did you make him come like you did me since you arrived in the village? Well, whatever you did, it was all for nothing, for the only woman he wants is Dunne,”
It was a low blow, but he could not help himself. Her rejection had hurt too deeply for him to be reasonable. How had he not guessed that she had refused him because she was in love with another man, a man she could never have, because he would only ever have eyes for the woman he had married this afternoon? He should have relished her suffering, thinking it just retribution for the pain and humiliation she had inflicted on him, but, like the fool he was, he felt nothing but sympathy. He knew all too well how painful it was to be left behind by people you loved and he could not wish the agony on anyone, much less the woman standing in front of him.
“I’ve never made Bjorn or anyone else come, only you.” She sounded hurt rather than outraged at the suggestion, as if she had hoped better from him. For a long moment she stayed silent, then she straightened to her full height, as if she’d taken a decision. He tensed up in turn. Finally they would get to the heart of the matter. “I’m here to tell you that Ingrid is mistaken. I never wanted Bjorn. I want you. No one else.”
Everything within him surged.
I want you. No one else.
The very words he had never heard in his life, and always hankered after. Could he dare to hope she meant them, and everything would be all right? No. Not yet. Being too hasty had gotten him in all sorts of trouble. He needed to understand, ensure he was not making another mistake.
“You want me, yet you refused to marry me.” It made no sense. But hadn’t Dunne refused Bjorn’s offer of marriage a few days ago? And now they were husband and wife. Perhaps there was no accounting for what went on in a woman’s mind.
“Yes. I told you I could not marry you, not that I did not want to.”
Brow furrowed, he realized she was right. She had said “I can’t marry you” not “I don’t want to”. Why not? What was there to stop her? Was she already married? Was that why she had left her village at the first opportunity? To flee a husband she didn’t love? It was not impossible. Bjorn had told him she was fleeing something.
There was an ominous silence. Even as the thought crossed his mind, Magnus wondered how a silence could be ominous.
Like this , his fevered mind told him. Exactly like this .
Heart drumming in his chest, he waited.
When Agnes started talking, she did so in a flat voice that tugged at his heart. “My mother married a man she didn’t love at a young age and bore him ten children. She lost three of the babes, and almost died giving birth to the last one, when I was seven years old. She died earlier this year, still young. I have no doubt all the pregnancies brought her to an early grave.”
“I’m sorry,” Magnus said inadequately. This was awful but he couldn’t see what it had to do with her refusing his offer of marriage.
“When she lost the babes my father didn’t offer her a word of comfort. When she gave birth, he didn’t think to preserve her health by waiting until she’d recovered properly before resuming his visits to her bed. He only ever cared about his pleasure. He never cared about me, his only surviving daughter, either. In his mind, having strapping sons proved his virility as a lover but daughters, and women in general, are useless, only good to be bedded when men need relief.” She paused. “That’s why I must refuse your offer of marriage.”
Magnus blinked. Why would the fact that her father was a despicable individual not worthy of the name prevent her from marrying him? He’d never met the man, would most likely never meet him, so how could it be an issue?
“Forgive me, but I don’t understand. What does your parents’ sad story have to do with it all?”
Though it was dark, he thought he saw the glint of a tear fall on her cheek. He almost reached out to wipe it.
“I’m scared. I don’t want to spend my life like my mother, either with child, or nursing a babe. I don’t want to lie in bed for weeks recovering from a difficult birth and dreading the next time my husband comes to my bed to fill my belly with his child. I’m a delicate woman, much more than my mother was, and I don’t know how my body could bear it.” The sobs she had done her best to keep at bay finally broke through. “It killed her in the end, and I’m very afraid it might kill me too.”
The confession tore at Magnus’ heart. To think he had accused her of being in love with another man and pleasuring him to win his favor, when the reason for refusing his offer of marriage had been fear. What a boor he really was.
Her pain is my pain Bjorn had said about the woman he loved. Yes. And now Magnus felt that Agnes’ fears were his to soothe.
Without further ado, he swept her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. He couldn’t bear to see her cry, but she was right. She was so delicate it was hard to imagine her body going through the ordeal of giving birth time and time again. Her fears were legitimate. Hadn’t he thought himself the other day that giving birth was a time fraught with danger for women and that he would hate having to go through what Wolf had gone through with the birth of his second son?
“So you refused me because you don’t want to marry at all, not because you didn’t want me?” he asked once she had stopped crying.
It had not been personal, she simply thought that remaining an unmarried virgin was the only way not to endanger her health. The relief was overwhelming.
He felt her nod against his chest. “I told you, I want you. But I cannot become your wife, it wouldn’t be fair to you. If we marry, you will want children, as any man does, and deserves. Only I can’t be the woman giving them to you. So, I have no choice but to refuse your offer, as much as it kills me. ’Tis for the best. One day you will see it.” Her face hidden in the crook of his neck, she started sobbing again. “And maybe I will too.”
But Magnus knew he would never accept such a thing. If they never married, he would regret it all his life. And so would she. He could not let that happen. Somehow, he needed to find a way to make her see that he wanted her, nothing else. If they never had children, then so be it. He could make his peace with it, as long as she stayed with him to rearrange his tools in odd shapes and wash his back when he helped rescue little girls from burning huts.
He placed her back on the floor and brought his face close to her so she could look him in the eye.
“Sweet. Listen to me. Our marriage doesn’t have to be like your parents’ was. It will never be like that. We’ll make our own way. You’re not your mother, and I’m not your father.” He gritted his teeth. No, he wasn’t like that bastard who thought women were only here to see to his needs. “I don’t think women are a vessel for my seed, regardless of the consequences for their health and happiness. I don’t expect you to spend half your life carrying or nursing my babies. But there are ways to prevent that.”
She stilled. “There are?” She sounded dubious, as if she thought he was only trying to appease her but at least she wasn’t crying anymore.
Hate flooded him. Because of her selfish father’s behavior, she had no idea that men could be considerate enough to ensure the woman they bedded did not end up with child every time.
“Yes. There are herbs you can take, I believe. And I can withdraw when I reach my pleasure. I’ve been doing so all my life, as I didn’t want to get any of my lovers with child. You can trust me.” He placed his forehead against hers. He hated alluding to the other women he had bedded in this moment, but he needed to make her understand that he could control his body to protect hers. “You’ve seen my seed erupt in your hand. It should prove to you I don’t have to be inside you when it happens.”
“But… wouldn’t you be frustrated?”
Agnes sounded unsure but there was no doubt in his mind. He would not be frustrated. Hell, at the moment he was considering promising never to possess her, just to make her agree never to leave him.
“No. As long as I get to have you in my forge by day, and in my arms at night, I will be the happiest man in the world. I cannot think of any greater honor than calling you my wife and giving you pleasure. Mine doesn’t count. It can be achieved in other ways.”
She hesitated, as if not daring to admit to a guilty secret. He nodded encouragingly. “I do want children, you know. Just not one every year.”
Everything within him tightened, because he’d been prepared to have her as his wife, knowing they would never have any children. But now she was telling him they could be a family one day. His heart almost overflowed with joy.
“Then it means there will be times when is it safe for me to come inside you, while we try for a babe and while you’re already with child.” He stopped, not sure he should speak out. His body, not so easily cowed, was urging him on. “In any case, if you really were worried about me getting frustrated, know that your delectable little body can offer me other places to reach my release. I could show you some time, if you wanted.”
Heat flared in Agnes’s cheeks, because she knew what Magnus meant. “Do you mean my mouth?”
He appeared stunned at her question, as well he might. What had possessed her to mention this? Would he not be appalled at the extent of her knowledge on carnal matters?
“You know about that?” There was something like hope in his voice, when she had expected disgust. It gave her the courage to answer.
“Yes. I saw two people one night in my village, behind the church. The woman was on her knees in front of the man, pleasuring him in that way.”
The sight had puzzled her at first. What on earth were the two of them doing? Then the man had let out a moan filled with such lewdness that she had felt hot all the way from her scalp to her toes. She should have walked away at that point, but she had been unable to. Strangely fascinated, she had watched the two lovers until the man had given a grunt and gone stock still, his hands gripping his lover’s head with what looked like bruising strength. After a while the woman had stood up laughing, and told him she’d never had to swallow so much in one gulp.
Back home, as she lay on her pallet, Agnes had tried to puzzle out the words. Swallow what exactly? But despite this inexplicable declaration, the idea of taking a man’s member in her mouth had intrigued her. She had lacked the courage to do it in the cave when Magnus had agreed to be pleasured, not wanting to shock him in case he didn’t know about the practice and thought her depraved. After all, she had never heard it mentioned by anyone and when she had started to stroke him, he had begged her to use her hand, not her mouth. But since he was clearly aware of it, she could not resist asking the question.
“Is that what you meant? That you could reach your release in my mouth?” Now, of course, she knew what the woman had had to swallow. The seed she had seen shoot out of him, the seed that would make her with child if it was released inside her. He was right, this could well be a solution to their problem. Her heart surged in hope. Could a future together be possible?
“Yes.” Magnus cleared his throat. “Amongst other things.”
It was her turn to be stunned. Other things? What on earth could he mean? Clearly she’d been a fool for thinking herself more experienced than him. Not only did he know all about women taking men into their mouths, but he knew about other deeds she could not even start to suspect. “What do you?—”
“Hush, lovely. This is a discussion for another time. Right now, I’m waiting for an answer to my question. The question I asked you in the woods the other day.”
She bit the inside of her mouth. “Of course, I want to marry you. How can you doubt it?” Had he not seen by now that her refusal had nothing to do with him?
He hesitated. “Because I was never anyone’s first choice. I think I told you about it.”
“Yes. You told me your parents always preferred your brother. But surely that’s not the same...” Her voice died in her throat when she saw him grimace. This man, tall and confident, as awe-inspiring as a Norse deity, was unsure about his inability to attract a wife?
“It’s not all. A few years ago, I bedded a woman from the village called Edith. She was a young widow, and I thought we might come to an understanding. I started to think I should perhaps make her my wife. Then I discovered she was also sharing Sigurd’s bed.” He paused and swallowed, as if the memory of the discovery caused him pain. “I did not let it deter me. After all, she did not owe me anything at the time and we had never discussed the future. When Sigurd met Frigyth and it became obvious he would not see Edith anymore, I thought I had won and I asked for her hand. She hesitated at first. Then finally, a few weeks later, she said yes.”
Of course she had. A woman had to be mad to refuse such a man’s offer. Or mortally scared of the consequences and determined to remain a virgin, like her. Agnes couldn’t think of any other reason.
“What happened?”
“I found out that having accepted my offer had not put a stop to her ways. She carried on seducing all the men she thought worthy of interest, and there were many of them, by all accounts. One day, just before our wedding, a Dane called Rune visited the village. She threw herself at him.”
“And you saw them together?” She was aghast.
“No. But I heard her tell the woman who had borne Rune’s child that she was not sure she wanted to marry me after all. She only kept up the pretense because I was the richest man in the village and she wanted to make the most of that, but she had no intention of being tied down to one man, least of all one who...”
Everything tensed within Agnes. What was he about to reveal? That woman, Edith, sounded awful, but what if her refusal had been motivated by some flaw in Magnus that she, Agnes, had not seen yet? It was possible. Their acquaintance was short.
“One who...” she encouraged, not sure she was ready to hear what the issue might be. But if they really were to marry, she had to find out now, before it was too late.
“One who was adequate at best in bed.”
Adequate?
Everything within Agnes surged at this. She had never slept with Magnus, obviously, but the woman in her, the woman she had tried so hard to suppress over the years, just knew he would be more than adequate as a lover. He would be selfless, indefatigable, passionate.
How could anyone, himself included, doubt it?
“Oh, Magnus, I’m so sorry. It will have been awful for you to hear all this.”
He nodded. “It was. So when I heard that you had been supposed to marry Bjorn, I assumed this was why you had refused me. Because all the while you had been hankering after someone else and were waiting for a better offer, from someone you?—”
“No! Never!” she exploded. “I’m sorry for hurting you, it was never my intention. I should have told you why I was refusing you. But I thought you could not possibly be interested in me and had only proposed because you felt guilty about what had happened in the cave, and by the tub.”
“No, even if I do feel guilty for it.” He made a grimace then drew her close to him. “But I proposed because it did not take me long to understand that I cannot live without you. And what do you mean, I couldn’t possibly be interested in you?”
She lowered her gaze to the floor. “I’m shy.” Wouldn’t he prefer a more assertive woman for a wife, someone his own age?
“You’re not shy, really. Not with me, at least.” A glance at her hand made his meaning clear. She had not hesitated in pleasuring him when he’d asked. “And even if you were, why would it be a problem?”
She had no answer to that. It wasn’t a problem, exactly, and if he didn’t object, then why should she? “We are near strangers.”
“Strangers who have lived and slept together for days, who have shared intimacies usually reserved to lovers. Strangers who understand one another.”
“But I’m a Saxon. I don’t know anything about your culture.”
He gave a slanted smile. “No one knows this, but for years I’ve been envious of Wolf, Sigurd and Rune, and now Bjorn, for getting a Saxon wife. Now I won’t have to be. I will have my own beautiful Saxon at home.”
Everything inside her melted at the declaration. Then she forced herself to focus. “I’m so tiny compared to you.”
He growled. “Ah, now, this is actually one of my favorite things about you. Because it means I can do this.”
Before she could wonder what he meant, he lifted her into his arms, forcing her to wrap her legs around his waist. “If you weighed the same as me, you infuriating, shy Saxon woman, I could not pin you to the wall to take you like the wild Norseman I am, now could I? And it’s something I have been dreaming of doing ever since you arrived in the village.”
“You wanted to p-pin me to the wall?” She could barely breathe for the sheer intensity of the moment. Magnus felt so strong between her thighs, so warm, and so, well, wild .
“Yes.” With her still wrapped around him, he walked over to the window and trapped her between the wall and his hard body. “I wanted to slide into you until you couldn’t think of anything other than me, deep inside you, filling you to the hilt. I still do.”
Well, he had her pinned to the wall now, didn’t he? So what was he waiting for? They had just agreed to get married, and she knew he would give her time to prepare before he made her with child. It was safe. She could at last find out what men and women did together.
“Do it now. Take me,” she breathed, scarcely crediting her boldness. Perhaps he had a point. With him she wasn’t exactly shy.
He groaned but didn’t move. “No. Not like this. You’re a virgin, and I should?—”
“I won’t break, Magnus. Take me, here, now, like this, up against the wall, the way you wanted to, while you still want me.”
His nostrils flared. “I’ll always want you.”
“Then prove it.”
A heartbeat later she felt him shift and lift her skirts so he could rub his steel length against her soft folds. Oh Lord, he was so hard, so ready, and she so desperate that she could not help but grind her hips in search of the friction she needed.
“Look at me, my love,” he grunted, tightening his hold around her. “I’ll have you look at me when I make you mine.”
“I’m already yours.”
“And I yours. But I need to see I’m not hurting you. Well, not unbearably so, at least,” he amended in a bid at honesty. “I would give ten years of my life to be the one enduring the pain of our first joining.”
“And I would not have it for the world, for I mean to have you by my side for as long as possible.” She threw him what she hoped was a scorching look. Judging from the way his eyes caught ablaze, she had done a fair job of it. “Please, Magnus, take me.”
Finally, he relented. Holding her up with one arm, he quickly freed his erection and then positioned himself at her entrance. Suddenly she didn’t mind being tiny, since it meant he could use her in that delicious manner. It was unbearably arousing to be at the mercy of her fiery lover. She expected him to plunge inside in one thrust but he spoke instead.
“Bare your breasts to me. I need to suckle you, make you wet for me.”
“I... I already am.” Well, if felt more as if the place between her thighs had swollen to twice its size, but she imagined that was what he meant. It was certainly throbbing, calling out to him.
He ignored her answer. “Lower your bodice, Agnes, or there will not be anything left of your dress to salvage. This is for me was well as for you. I need to suckle your perfect breasts. The memory of them has been driving me mad for days.”
She did as she was ordered.
A heartbeat later, a warm mouth engulfed her nipple. She squirmed, not knowing if she wanted to escape the searing heat or force him to suckle her harder. He held her ruthlessly in place while he feasted on her. Just when she thought she could not take it any longer, he surged upward, breaching her entrance. Agnes cried out. She had no idea if he’d sheathed his whole length inside her but it certainly felt like it.
He paused and slid in a fraction more, answering her question, and then he stilled, giving her time to absorb the new sensations.
“All right?” he rasped.
“Yes. Are you all right?” It had to be killing him not to move.
He gave something like a chuckle. “I will be in a moment, when I feel you relax around me. Breathe, lovely.”
She did, and as he’d foreseen, her body relaxed, allowing him to slide in a bit further. Oh, so she’d been mistaken to think he’d buried himself to the hilt. How much more was there to take? She already felt impossibly stretched.
“So good,” he breathed. “So perfect for me.”
The words he said between his teeth next were probably the filthiest she had ever heard, and they only inflamed her further. “Yes,” she moaned, now knowing what she was agreeing to. It didn’t seem to matter.
“I will not stop until you’ve come,” he said, his voice as gruff as if he’d issued a warning, when it was the most wonderful promise she had ever heard.
Slowly, he began pounding in earnest, holding her against the wall, legs spread wide. In that position, she could do nothing but take what he wanted to give her, at the speed he wanted to give it. And soon she understood that it was exactly what she needed.
She cried out when heat flooded her, dissolving everything in its path.
“Oh, Magnus, you’ve stolen my bones!”
This had to be the most ridiculous thing she, or anyone, had ever said but he didn’t laugh. Instead, he buried his face into her neck and bit her. It was gentle, but it was unmistakably a bite. The spasms he’d created between her legs, which had started to ebb, started anew.
She barely registered when he walked over to the pallet in the other room with his shaft still embedded deep within her. “My turn,” he said darkly, sliding one hand under her left knee to open her wider for his possession.
“Yes.”
Agnes had meant to watch him take his pleasure, knowing she would enjoy the sight of him poised over but she had not counted on the fact that feeling him surging inside her again and again would stir her desire anew, and she was unable to hold on to her resolve to watch him. Her head rolled back and her eyes closed of their own accord.
She whimpered and all too soon the overwhelming sensations she’d felt earlier flooded her, starting at the place where they were joined and radiating all through her body.
“Yes,” Magnus growled. “You again. Now me. Please, sweetheart, steal my bones. They’re yours anyway, as is every part of me.”
True to his promise, at the last moment, he withdrew and fisted his shaft, which seemed to have grown to inhumane proportions while inside her. The guttural cry he gave when he spurted like he had that day in the cave caused her insides to convulse. White splashes fell onto her stomach, deliciously warm and sticky. It was the most beautiful thing Agnes had ever seen, because it was the proof of his understanding and readiness to offer her the life she had always thought would be denied to her. It was the proof that she could have the choice over what was done to her body and he would respect it, no matter how strong his need for release.
Lost to the joy of the moment, she had forgotten all about the risks linked to their lovemaking. He had not. He had honored his word, at the cost of a great personal sacrifice, and made sure she didn’t have to face the consequences of her decision to marry before she was ready to do so. It was the best proof of love she had ever have received. Magnus hadn’t lied.
He wanted her , not just the pleasure her body could offer him.
Slowly, her gaze locked with his, she trailed a finger in the pearly substance coating her skin and swallowed back tears of gratitude.
“I love you, Magnus. One day soon, I promise, I will bear your children, the children you deserve. In the meantime, I will give you everything I have.”
“Everything?” He sounded out of breath, which was little wonder, considering what he’d been doing. By rights he should be unable to move. “Love, I would be happy with only half that.”
Her lips wobbled. How could she not love that man? “Be sure to remember it when I rail at you in anger, or make you do something you don’t want to do.”
He placed his forehead against hers in a tender, loving gesture. “Mm. This is what marriage is all about, I believe. I can’t wait.”
They remained side by side a long moment. Then Magnus placed a kiss on her temple. The gesture was so tender that it brought a tear to her eyes. Where was the wild lover who had pinned her to the wall only moments ago?
“Do you know what this village has never seen?” She shook her head, too spent to answer. “Two weddings in two days. I think things are about to change.”
Her chest exploded. “You mean?—”
“I do. So get some sleep, sweetheart, for tomorrow, I wed you.”