Chapter Fourteen
Gemma let Arne pull her tight against him, feeling his strength, and clung to his promise of protection.
His kiss made her yearn for pleasures she shouldn’t want from him, but wasn’t going to reject.
She didn’t return his kiss out of gratitude, nor out of fear.
She sensed that if she pushed him away, he would let her go and likely never touch her again.
Besides, she didn’t want to push him away. Whatever he wanted from her now, she wouldn’t refuse him. She was tired—tired of always having to think, always having to plan and being expected to make the right decisions. And look where those had got her. She smiled, and he pulled back.
“What?”
She shook her head and pressed her mouth to his once more.
But he only touched her lips for a moment before he began feathering kisses along her jawline, then moved lower.
She lifted her head, and he brushed his lips along her throat before repeating the actions on the other side of her face.
He cupped her buttocks and lifted her easily onto the bed.
She hadn’t lain with a man since her husband had died and she worried she wouldn’t be able to please him. She slid her hand between them and felt him respond to her touch, but he took her wrist and moved it away.
“Don’t,” he whispered. For a moment he held onto her, then let go.
His face was blank of expression as he ran his fingers through his hair and linked them together behind his neck. Then he turned away from her and paced back to the table.
“What is it? Did I do something wrong?” Her fragile confidence was starting to shatter at his refusal of her touch.
“No.”
“Then—”
He leaned over the back of a chair. She could see he was still hard, so why did he not let her touch him?
She shouldn’t want to. In her past life she would have been horrified at the thought of taking a Norseman to her bed.
Somehow, here, now, her life seemed so unreal that she felt she had been given a chance to do whatever she wanted with no repercussions.
There might be repercussions, though. If they lay together, they would need to make sure there was no child. But it was possible for her to do this for him, with little danger of a child tonight. Caelin was asleep. There was no one here to know.
“Arne?”
He turned his head to face her, but she noted the way his knuckles tightened around the chair.
“Please come here. I would like to—”
“No woman wants to—” He kicked at the chair and the wood squealed over the floor.
“Shh, you’ll wake Caelin.”
“Maybe I should wake him. Maybe that would stop his mother from doing something she will regret.”
She waited for him to look at her, but he kept his eyes averted.
“Arne.” She got up and moved behind him, wrapped her arms around him. She laid her head against his back and they simply stood together. “I will not regret it.”
She breathed in his smell, the lingering scent of leather and, under that, the soap he used so regularly. She smiled when she noticed her breathing had fallen into the same pattern as his. Or had he followed her? Did it matter?
With a heavy sigh, he grasped her hands and encouraged her to release her grip, then turned around and looked down at her.
“No one need ever know what happens here between us,” she said.
“We will know. And… and what if I—” He looked away from her again.
She kissed the edge of his jaw, the scarred skin rough under her lips but so warm and so alive. “What if you what?”
“I haven’t…”
She tilted her head to one side. “Since you were scarred, you have never been with a woman?”
“No.”
“How… how long?”
“As long as Einar has been alive.”
“Oh, Arne.”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“Can you… by yourself?”
“Yes,” he bit out through clenched teeth. He lowered his gaze to the ground. “But, you will not want to—”
“I have seen you already. Your body works as it should, Arne. There is nothing to stop us.”
“But you are a princess and—”
She put her finger over his lips. “Here and now, that doesn’t matter. I have spent my whole life being kept safe, kept away from people, handed over from my father to my husband, and only when he died did I find any kind of freedom. And men still try to take that from me.”
“Including me.”
“No.” She laughed. “The only thing you ever seem to have wanted is for me to leave. Please, lie with me. Let us pretend we are simple people with no one to account to but ourselves. I want to feel pleasure again. People keep their distance from me, others rarely even touch me.”
“No woman until you has wanted to touch me in years.”
“Did they tell you that?” She ran her free hand around his face and kissed him sweetly on the lips. “Because you are still a handsome man despite the scars.”
She waited, but he didn’t move, not even a muscle.
She stepped back, continued until she reached the bed again, then reached for her brooches and unfastened first one, then the other.
She let her apron fall at her feet, then stepped out of it before placing it and the brooches beside the bed.
Then she took off her dress, leaving herself clad only in her sark.
She shivered in the air, still chilly despite the fire.
He was watching her now, his gaze fixed on her body as she reached down for the hem of her sark and drew it up and over her head, then let it fall.
For a long moment, they both remained where they were.
Then, just as she thought she had made a terrible mistake, Arne crossed the space between them, unfastening his kirtle as he moved.
He pulled it off and dropped it behind him, then gathered her in his arms and took her mouth.
His hands roved over her bare skin, and he pulled her against him.
She unfastened his breeks and pushed them down.
“Sit,” he ordered. When she obeyed, he knelt in front of her, placed a hand on each thigh and pushed them apart.
She gasped at the first touch of his tongue on her most intimate area and leaned back on her elbows, craning her neck to watch him.
She bit down on her bottom lip to stop the sounds bubbling up from inside her as he licked and sucked at her, but she couldn’t stop the groan as he slid a finger inside her.
When that was followed by a second and he began to rub a spot deep inside her as his tongue continued to play it was too much.
She let her head fall onto the blankets and her back arched as an orgasm ripped through her.
As she lay panting, she tried to reach for him but only succeeded in whispering, “Please.”
“Are you sure you want this?”
“Yes, I’m so very sure, Arne. Please.” She paused. “Your shirt.”
“No.”
“Then let me…”
When he didn’t refuse, she sat up and slid her hand under the soft material until she found his hard length and took hold of it.
“No.”
He gripped her wrist tightly until she let go, then backed away from her. She retrieved a blanket and wrapped it around herself, then sat on the edge of the bed.
“Let me touch you. Let us try,” she begged.
“What if… what if I can’t?”
“What if you can?” She stood up and pressed her body against his.
Then she did what she had intended since she had realised the reason for his reluctance and sank to her knees.
She looked up at him as she took hold of the edge of his shirt, but he didn’t try to stop her, just placed a hand on the top of her head.
“Gemma, you don’t have to…” But he trailed off when she ran her tongue along his length then back to the tip. His fingers tightened in her hair and she closed her mouth around him.
A sense of helpless rage engulfed her when she realised he was scarred here, too.
What agonies he must have suffered. And to have stayed away from women for all these years because he feared they saw him as a monster, or that his body was too broken to function.
As soon as her hand closed around him, he hissed in a breath, and she froze.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, no… that’s not what…” He looked down at her and her breath caught.
In that moment something passed between them.
It was as if without saying the words, they’d agreed to put everything they were aside and come together free from all other worries.
Two lovers meeting in a world all their own.
He closed his hand over hers and began to show her what he liked, how much pressure to use.
When he tensed and nudged her hand away, she let him.
Instead of reaching for him, she stood then lay back on the bed.
She held out her arms, pleased when, after only the briefest hesitation, he joined her.
She spread her legs, and he settled on the bed between them.
She gasped when his fingers touched her carefully.
When she felt him press against her opening she tried to relax, and when she shifted her hips upwards, he slid in a little further.
Flattening her hand on the smooth skin of his back under his shirt, she urged him on.
“I want you naked.”
His slight frown marred his features. “Why?”
“Because I want to feel you, for us to be skin to skin.”
He didn’t move. She was afraid she’d asked too much of him and he was going to stop and, more than anything, she didn’t want him to. Nor did she want to talk him into something he was truly uncomfortable with.
“This is what I would want from any man, Arne. Your scars do not make you so different.”
“They do.”
“Not to me. Please.” After a short pause, he took off his shirt, but pulled the blankets over them.
She was happy to settle for this. His body did feel rougher against hers than she remembered her husband’s being, but this was not about comparisons, only about what they were sharing now.
Pausing for only the briefest of moments more, he closed his eyes and entered her fully.
She closed her eyes, tensing more than she’d expected.
It had been more than two years since her husband had died and Arne was not a small man, but soon her body softened and she shifted her hips, pleased when Arne began to echo her movements in response.
Soon they found a rhythm, gentle but persistent.
As his thrusts urged her to a pinnacle of pleasure, her eyes filled with tears.
She had not known such tenderness for a long time, perhaps ever.
He leaned in and captured her lips. How strange for such tenderness to come from a man her people regarded as a barbarian.
She watched him as his hips flexed and he ran his hand over the smooth, unblemished skin of her stomach and thighs. He gazed down at her in a sort of wonder as he touched her, his fingers teasing her most sensitive places until she found bliss.
She nearly protested as he withdrew from her, but it was for the best. His eyes closed and he threw his head back as he used his hand to tip himself over the edge and shuddered his way through his own climax.
After he opened them, he rolled to his side, keeping close to her, but didn’t break their eye contact.
He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.
Then he smiled and touched her lips with trembling fingers before kissing her, a smile teasing at his mouth.
For a long time, they lay side by side, trying to catch their breath and understand exactly what had passed between them.
“So, you can still make love to a woman,” she whispered. She immediately regretted her word choice as their gazes met. He was serious. She’d never seen him look so serious.
Arne shifted and ran a hand over his face. “We should not have done this,” he said and got out of the bed. She sat up, shivering in the chilly night air, and pulled the blanket around her. She should have expected this reaction.
“Why not?”
“Because I am not worthy of you,” he said after a long pause. “A woman as beautiful as you deserves more than a man who looks like me.”
“Arne…” She wasn’t sure what to say. While she appreciated him thinking she was beautiful, it saddened her that his implication was his scars made him unattractive.
He strode to the table, and she admired the lines of his body, the strength and shape of his muscles and she saw the smoothness of his unmarred back.
She felt a pang of sadness for what he must have been like before and shook it away.
She had never known that man and the man he was now was changed, but she loved him anyway.
She blinked. What? She didn’t love him. Couldn’t. They were not even friends.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, and swallowed. To admit she found him attractive was one thing. To realise she loved him was something else. “Come back to bed.”
“No.”
“Let us have one night together without thinking of anything else at all. Pretend we are different people.”
“We cannot pretend I do not look as I do.”
She stared directly into his eyes, barely noticing the scarred skin of his body. “Come back to bed. I’m cold.”
He placed another log on the fire. She smiled when he turned and walked slowly towards her.
“Even if it is only for a night?”
“Even then.” She lifted the blanket and he sat down, then rolled onto his side. They both shivered as he covered himself with the blanket and settled her against his chest.
“This changes nothing,” he murmured.
“I know.” She ran her fingers down his chest and then lower.
“You will need to give me more time than that to recover,” he said, laughter in his voice.
She sighed and turned around so that he was pressed against her back and closed her eyes, but he moved her hair aside and began to kiss her neck. He cupped first one breast then the other, toyed with her nipples, then spread his palm wide over her hip.
“It feels like you have recovered fully now.”
“You’re quite encouraging.”
“Mmm,” she murmured as he traced a pattern on the back of her neck with his tongue.
“I want you again.”
“Then take me.” She rolled to face him and kissed him.
She closed her eyes as he slid inside her once more, and held him close as she angled her hips to meet his thrusts.
Soon both of them were sweat slicked and she could tell he was waiting for her to reach her peak, see it in the tenseness of his jaw as he moved within her. Then she forgot everything.
Afterwards, they lay side by side, their hands clasped.
Gemma listened to the sound of his breathing as it gradually slowed into sleep.
She had no idea what would happen now, but if staying here, just the three of them and forgetting about the rest of the world was an option, it was one she would seriously consider.