Chapter 5 #2
He sounded as worried as if he’d actually seen an injury on her foot.
Eahlswith knew he was right, the leather was so damaged that it had holes in, but she couldn’t afford another pair of shoes at the moment, so there was nothing else to do than to endure it.
Still, she wished she hadn’t had her inadequacies exposed to him.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, hiding her hands behind her back before he could see that her gloves had holes in them as well.
“You will, once I have warmed your feet. Sit.”
Though she should probably have protested at his high-handedness, she sat.
The idea of having his hands wrapped around her frozen feet was far too irresistible.
She was suddenly reminded of when she had dropped the cask of ale on her foot the other day.
He had knelt at her feet and asked to see her foot.
He was going to ask the same thing now. It had been unthinkable to accept then, it was impossible to consider refusing now. How quickly things changed.
“Lift your foot for me,” Sven ordered, coming down on one knee in front of her. The voice was commanding, the look in his eyes fierce, but the position submissive, and he was waiting for her to agree.
Utterly under his spell, Eahlswith did as she was told and placed the tip of her foot on his muscular thigh.
How was it that seeing him look after her, worrying about her well-being, was doing more to entice her than anything else he might have done?
Not that she would have remained impassive if he had started to talk to her in that impossibly deep voice, and told her what he wanted to do to her, or kissed her with all the passion and skill she knew him capable of, but this…
She swallowed, watching as he untied her laces and removed her right shoe with careful gestures.
It was so wet she already knew it would not dry overnight, even if she left it next to the fire.
Then he reached under her skirt to find the ribbon holding her woolen stocking in place under the knee.
Sven made a face when he felt that the garment was just as soaked as the shoe, at least on the part covering her foot.
After sliding it off her leg, he placed it on top of her boot.
“Are you still pain?” he asked, taking her other foot into his hands. He’d remembered it was the bruised one. She was more touched than she could say. “Do I need to be extra careful?”
“No.” He was being extra careful anyway.
By the time he’d rolled the second stocking down her leg, Eahlswith was breathless.
Sven grunted when he saw the purple mark on the bridge of her foot but she was not worried about the bruise.
As she’d told him twice now, it was nothing to worry about.
Rather, she was waiting for the moment he would take her feet into his big, warm hands.
Would he place them on his lap? Would he give her a massage?
Instead of doing what she had imagined he would, he stood back up and walked over to the pallet to take one of the blankets.
Kneeling back in front of her, he wrapped her feet in the soft material and swiveled her so that her extended legs pointed toward the fire pit where the fire was still going, since she’d been careful to come back once in the morning to tend it.
She could not help a strangled noise from escaping her throat.
“What is it?” Sven asked, adding a few logs to the flames and stirring the fire back to a roaring furnace. He had already placed her stockings and boots next to it to dry, she noticed. So thoughtful… “Are you not comfortable like this?”
“I’m fine. Only I confess I thought you would take my feet into your h-hands to warm them,” she stammered, too overcome by gratitude and desire to even think of lying.
The look he threw her was enough to burn her all the way to her frozen toes. Oh, what beast had she unleashed?
“Alva, believe me, you do not want that,” he growled, coming closer to her, a predator on the prowl.
A wolf, she realized, feeling her heartbeat pick up in what felt almost like alarm.
“If I put my hands on you now it will not be to hold your feet. I will run my fingers all the way up your naked leg, and I will not stop until I have reached the sweet spot begging for my caresses. You will then have no choice but to open your legs wide and let me plunge my fingers inside you while I watch. And once you’ve drenched my hand with your release, it will be my turn.
I will stand over you and watch you suck my cock until I flood your mouth. ”
Oh.
Lord.
Why had she told him what was on her mind? How had she forgotten about his propensity to talk dirty?
Eahlswith stayed where she was, stunned into silence. The place between her legs, the “sweet spot begging for his caresses” had gone liquid. Or swollen. Or hot. She didn’t know which. Probably a combination of the three. And her mind was now the consistency of a puddle of melted snow.
“Are you still cold?” he asked, sounding just as affected as she was. Respectful of her wishes, he had not made a single move to take her into his arms, even if she could see from the look in his eyes and the bulge at the front of his braies that he was desperate to do what he’d just described.
“No, I’m not cold,” she rasped, averting her gaze. “But I’m hungry. Let’s make dinner.”
Sven nodded his agreement slowly. It was better they stopped talking about what he wanted to do while his cock was still pulsing and his control was hanging by a thread. What had possessed him to tell Eahlswith what he wanted to do? He should have known it would only send him into a flurry of need.
Yes. Better to start cooking.
Before she could stand up he stopped her with a raised hand.
“Have you got another pair of stockings?” Her shoes were soaked, so she couldn’t put them back on, but the floor would be cold on her bare feet. He couldn’t allow it.
“No.”
He’d suspected as much. Without a word, Sven sat on the stool and removed his own boots and socks. “Here, you can wear these until we go to bed,” he said, handing her his woolen socks. They would be enormous on her but it was better than nothing.
“Thank you,” she said, keeping her gaze averted.
While she put them on, he turned to the table and concentrated on breathing.
How was he going to survive another evening without touching her?
It would be bad enough until they went to bed but as soon as she lay down next to him he would be overcome by the need to plunge inside her soft heat. How would he control himself?
Eventually she joined him, looking rather flushed. He resisted looking at her feet, even if they were covered with her skirt. The idea that she was wearing something of his was very pleasing, intimate.
“Do you still have your nuts and dried meat?” she asked, finally looking at him.
“Yes.”
“We can perhaps start with those while I make the soup.”
He nodded, and extracted the small basket from his saddlebag. “Here. Help yourself. What can I do to help?” he asked, when she reached for the half cabbage lying in the middle of the table.
“Carpenter, washerwoman and now cook?” Her eyes glimmered at the pleasure of the jest they shared.
“You haven’t seen the extent of my skills,” he couldn’t help but reply. As he could have predicted, his cock lengthened at the comment. Damnation, what was wrong with him? He’d only just about managed to coax it down.
“You can start by chopping this cabbage into strips while I go get the rest of the salted pork from the storeroom.”
“How thin do you want the strips?”
She tilted her head, as if considering. It amused him to see her taking the question so seriously. “As thin as possible. Then we will see how talented you really are.”
If she thought she could issue a challenge and not see him rise to it, she could think again.
Having something to concentrate on would help keep his desire in check.
Once the cabbage had been reduced to strips barely thicker than horse hair, he watched Eahlswith assemble everything together in a big iron pot.
She had such assured gestures that he could have watched her cook all day.
She clearly was a talented cook because it took her no time to prepare another hearty soup flavored with the fat from the pork and the surprising addition of thick cream. A good idea he would replicate at home.
“That was delicious, thank you. Do you want a piece of cheese to finish?” he asked, reaching into his bag for the cheese he’d bought after leaving Osbert’s house.
“You bought food for us. That is conclusive proof that you intended to spend another night under my roof,” she said, shaking her head. “Not that I doubted it.”
“No. You remind me of my sister, you know,” he said, as he chewed the cheese.
Her surprise at the comment was evident. Nevertheless she tried to hide her pleasure with an offhand response. “Oh? You try everything you can to fuck your sister then?”
Sven almost choked on his mouthful of cheese, so shocked was he by her use of the crude word.
Really, the woman was fearless. And yet…
In the firelight he couldn’t be sure but he thought she’d gone the color of a newly unfurled wild dog rose.
That was intriguing. She had just asked him the most provocative question she could have asked, she had behaved with complete abandon in his bed and yet she was capable of blushing like a young maiden. Which made her look lovelier than ever.
Was it any wonder he was so enthralled? No.
“This is what I mean. Eyja is bold as you please. A veritable imp.” He had often wondered how his friend Moon could have married such a spirited woman, who was bound to turn his life inside out, but now he thought he had a fair idea.
When the woman in question was not a younger sister he’d spent all his life with, he could see the appeal.
Turning something inside out was not always bad, as it often offered a new perspective.
It was not until you looked inside a shell that you saw the marvellous colors swirling about in its depths.
“Do you have many brothers and sisters?” Eahlswith asked, cutting herself a slice of cheese. He could tell she was regretting her rash question and was trying to steer the conversation away from the type of women he liked to fuck.
“Eyja is my only sister. I have two brothers, both older. Steinar, who you know already, and Torsten, who’s just had a little girl.”
“Does he also look like you? I mean, Steinar could be your twin.”
He let out a snort, having heard that comment many times before. “Yes, I know he could. We both take after our Icelandic father, Ulf, who everyone calls Wolf. But Torsten looks like our Saxon mother, Merewen.”
Eahlswith was so taken aback by his declaration that she dropped the piece of cheese she’d just picked up.
“Surely you’re not half Saxon?”
“I am,” he confirmed, amused by her reaction. “I was even born here. How do you think I speak your language so well.?”
She eyed him dubiously. “But I… You look all Norse to me.”
“That’s because, as I said, I look like my father. But my mother has eyes as dark as yours. You will see when you meet her.”
It was as if he’d just issued a terrible threat. He watched as Eahlswith seemed to shrink to half her normal size.
“I have no intention of meeting any member of your family,” she said in a whisper. “What would be the point?”
“The point,” he said, doing his best to stay calm. Would it forever be one step forward, two steps back between them? Only a moment ago they had been sharing a moment and here she was, saying that she didn’t see any future for them. “The point is that I like you and I might want you to meet them.”
She didn’t answer, but he saw in her eyes that if she had her way, that would never happen. Was it because of this mysterious Edwin? He would have to ask her who he was one day, or he would go mad.
“I think we should go to bed,” she concluded, standing up.
Sven’s heart stilled in his chest. What might have sounded like an invitation to sin sounded like a condemnation to the worst kind of death.