Chapter 20
Bliss
That night, after they had shared a warm meal and bathed in scented water, Torstein knew it was time to make Samira his wife in every sense of the word.
Samira was just as willing. Weeks at sea, getting to know one another and curling up to sleep at each other's side, had only sharpened their desire. She had to admit her husband was beautiful. She wanted to know what it was for a woman to lie with a man, and she wanted to explore every inch of him.
Torstein, for his part, was so eager he feared their first time would end far too quickly. For months the wanting had been a torment. His self-control had been sorely tested, but after years of longing, she was finally in his arms.
He walked out from behind the partition wearing nothing but a loincloth. His chest was bare, the muscles of his arms and thighs on display, his hair loose about his shoulders. The cloth tented sharply over the thick length of him.
He lay back on the bed, propped on his elbows, and watched the partition.
Samira stepped out in a silk kaftan so sheer it hid almost nothing, and she wore nothing beneath it.
Her hair was unbound. The sight of her full, high breasts made his mouth water, the dark peaks standing out against the thin fabric, and he nearly spent himself just watching her.
His breathing turned ragged and she had not yet come near him.
She walked toward him slowly, her hips swaying, and she looked to him like a goddess, or a siren from some temple of the old gods.
She stopped at the foot of the bed as though presenting herself as an offering. The scent of jasmine oil on her skin went straight to his head.
"Gods' blood, you have bewitched me, Samira," he rasped. He could not move.
She gave him a coy smile, but not before her eyes had lingered over every part of him. Hunger filled her face as she took him in. He wore only a leather cord at his throat with an amber stone knotted to it. His arms were bare and his skin was marked with tattoos in several places.
Samira licked her lips as she took her fill of her husband.
Then she reached down, gathered the hem of her kaftan, and drew it up and over her head until she stood before him as naked as the day she was born. A low growl rose from Torstein's chest.
He sat up abruptly and stripped away the loincloth so she could see all of him.
Samira gasped at the sheer size of him. She made to take a step back, but it was too late. Torstein lunged forward and hauled her into his arms, in a hungry kiss, and he took her down onto the mattress.
She lay atop him, skin to skin, and returned the kiss with equal fervor. Their breaths mingled as their bodies began to move together.
"That's it, my love. Feel me."
"Yes," Samira moaned as his hands roamed over her.
"Can you feel how much I want you, wife?" he growled against her lips.
She could only nod. His hard length slid against her folds, and each time he moved, the tip of him brushed the sensitive bud at her center and sent shudders through her.
"Take your pleasure, my love. Do not be afraid. 'Tis just us now."
Their bodies were pressed tight together, moving in unison, the friction building toward a crescendo.
Samira yelped as he flipped her onto her back and rose over her. His gaze fixed on her breasts. His hand found the heat between her thighs, his thumb circling her there, and he lowered his head and drew a nipple into his mouth.
She nearly came off the bed. The pleasure was devastating. She moaned aloud as his tongue circled the peak again and again and the pressure of his hand increased. She let her legs fall wide to give him easier access, and he groaned his approval.
He turned his mouth to her other breast and suckled hard as one thick finger slid slowly inside her. He stroked her from within and gave her no quarter.
Both of them were breathing fast.
Then he released her breast and moved lower, kissing a path down her body to the juncture of her thighs.
He shouldered her legs wider, parted her with his thumbs, and without warning his mouth closed over her.
He feasted on her like a starving man. His tongue teased and stroked her most sensitive flesh while his fingers worked inside her, and with his free hand he reached up and pinched her nipple hard.
The combined onslaught was too much. It sent her over the edge.
Samira threw her head back and screamed as wave after wave of pleasure broke through her, her fists clenched in the furs beneath her.
He did not stop until she was a whimpering, trembling mess.
Before she could recover he was above her again, braced on his forearms so as not to crush her with his weight. His mouth glistened with her and every muscle in his body stood taut. He looked every inch a conquering Viking warlord.
"Look at me, wife," he growled. The look in his eyes was scorching, possessive, feral.
Samira stared up into their dark blue depths and wound her arms around his waist.
"I am going to claim you now. As mine. Only mine. No other man touches you, from now until eternity. Look down and watch me take what's mine."
Samira glanced down between their bodies and tried not to faint with fear. Surely he would not fit. But she dared not tempt fate by saying so. Torstein took himself in hand and stroked the head of his length along her slick folds until it glistened. Then he held her gaze.
"This may hurt at first," he said. "But afterward, you will feel only pleasure."
He kissed her as he positioned himself and began to push inside.
Samira felt the burning stretch as he slowly filled her. She gripped his forearms hard, yet despite the size of him, her body grew wetter still to welcome him. Poised above her, his eyes burning into hers, Torstein thrust once, hard, broke through the barrier, and seated himself to the hilt.
Samira whimpered in pain, and he went still. He gently kissed her. The tight grip of her around him was almost enough to finish him, but he held himself in check and gave her time to adjust.
At last her body eased around him. He felt the moment she wanted more, a flutter deep inside her that gripped him.
"Are you all right?"
When she nodded, he let out a ragged breath. "Thank the gods."
Then he began to move. He drove deep, withdrew, and drove deep again.
Samira caught his rhythm quickly and soon she was meeting him thrust for thrust, the two of them moving together in a dance as old as time. His heart hammered so hard he thought it would burst. With every stroke he felt himself edging closer to release.
Nothing in his life had ever come close to this. He knew, with a certainty that went bone deep, that this was exactly where he was meant to be.
He gazed down at her with love as he took his fill, savoring every moment.
He could not believe she was here at last, in his bed.
His eyes dropped to her belly and he wondered if she might conceive this very night.
He wanted it. He wanted his seed to take root deep inside her.
He wanted the sons and daughters he had been promised with her.
He wanted all of it. His hand slid down and caressed her belly, and he imagined a child growing there, nurtured within her.
He cupped her breast and imagined their babe at it.
Torstein shook his head. Surely he was going mad with pleasure. Never once had he thought of making a child while in the act. Yet the thought only drove him harder.
His thrusts grew deeper and faster, his breath ragged. Samira's moans rose to meet them, and he could feel she was close again.
He reached down between them and stroked her swollen bud as he drove into her, then bent his head and drew her nipple into his mouth.
That was all it took. His beautiful wife came apart a second time with an even louder cry, her body clenching around him so fiercely that a few thrusts later he followed her over the edge.
He roared her name with abandon as he emptied himself deep inside her.
She held him tight through every pulse of it, and he felt each shudder and contraction that racked her body until at last he withdrew and collapsed onto the bed beside her.
He was spent, sated, and satisfied as never before. He gathered her against his chest and kissed her gently, and she kissed him back.
After a time he rose and returned with a warm, wet cloth and a towel. He tenderly cleaned away the evidence of their coupling, exchanged the fur for a clean, dry one, and climbed back into bed beside her.
Samira was exhausted. Her eyes were drifting shut, but a small smile lingered at the corners of her mouth. They fell into a deep sleep, naked and entwined and warm beneath his furs.
With Samira in his arms, Torstein knew he was finally home.
***
Morning at Hrafnaklett
SAMIRA WOKE TO GRAY light falling through the smoke hole and the weight of Torstein's arm across her waist.
He was already awake. He was lying on his side, watching her.
"You are staring," she said in Arabic.
"Aye," he replied.
She reached up and touched the amber stone at his throat. It was warm from his skin. "You wear this always."
"My mother gave it to me after the fever." He caught her hand and held it against his chest. "I was twelve winters old and near dead. The Valkyries came for me. I saw them plain as I see you."
She waited.
"My mother sent for an old healer. Brynhild.
My father hated the old ways, but he let her in.
She sat by my bed and told me I could not die, because the other half of my soul was waiting for me.
In a land of sand, beside the great waters.
A lass born under different stars." He gave a short laugh.
"I told myself for years it was the fever talking. "
Samira had gone very still.
"Then last winter, in Glenorchy, a seer named Morag told me the same thing.
She had never heard of Brynhild. She said I would know my wife by her eyes.
Dark, and older than her years." He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone, then touched the rose ring on her finger.
"The same seer who gave me these. She said we would have four sons and two daughters. "
"Six children?"
"Six. But only if I was willing to endure what comes before."
"And what comes before?"
"She did not say." His mouth twisted. "Seers never do."
Samira was quiet for a long moment. Then she told him.
"I dreamed of you. For more than a year before you came to Fez. A man rising out of the dunes with eyes of the darkest blue. He spoke to me, but the wind always took his words." She looked at him. "There were ships. Fields of ice. And blood. A great deal of blood."
"Blood."
"I did not know if you were sent as a warning or a blessing. When I saw you in the alley, I said it is you before I could stop myself."
"I heard you." His voice had gone rough. "I did not know what you meant. I only knew I would follow you anywhere after it."
"I still do not know which you are," she said softly. "But I have learned in the desert that a blessing and a reckoning can wear the same face."
Torstein drew her closer until her head lay against his chest.
"You gave your word to my faith in Fez. Yet you still call on Odin, and you wed me again beneath a cross."
"I meant the words I spoke to your qadi. I hold my old gods loosely now, and yours I will not mock. If both watch over you, so much the better. Then I will try to be more of a blessing," he said.
Samira smiled against his skin and did not answer.
***