The need to take her...own her...possess her tore through him with a savageness that left room for nothing else. He needed her once more. She was his mate and he’d not touched her for days and days. The want was primitive and tinged with a deep-seated urge to make her come apart in his arms. He wanted to feel her trembling beneath him with want and hunger, knowing that he was the only one who could assuage her desire.
The soft heat of her mouth pulled at him as he kissed her. She opened beneath him and invited him inside. He wanted her hard and fast and panting with desire. Pulling away from the touch of her eager tongue, he caught a glimpse of her heavy-lidded gaze as he tore at her nightdress. The linen came apart with a loud rending sound that seemed to echo in the small house. She gasped and that sound only spurred him onwards.
Turning her so that her breasts pressed to the wall, he tore the back to match the front until the linen fell from her shoulders. The smooth skin of her back called to him and he couldn’t resist touching it in a slow caress as he pushed the dress to a puddle at her feet. She arched into his touch and he couldn’t bring himself to stop until he reached her bottom and filled both of his palms with her. She moaned deep in her throat when he squeezed and kneaded, shifting and pushing back against him in a silent plea for more.
Possession was what he wanted. Simple and crude. He wanted to bury himself deep between her thighs and own her as she writhed, begging him. The image of that made him swell to aching.
Elswyth turned abruptly against the wall to face him. She was nude, her beautiful body flushed with pleasure and desire as she pulled him against her, her mouth seeking his as she fitted herself against him. Her leg came up to hook around his thigh and he couldn’t resist taking her mouth savagely and pressing her back to the wall. His arm went under her knee, opening her to him so that he could grind his hardness against her willing body. She gasped into his mouth and writhed. His fingers found her slick with arousal and he was surprised to find her as ready as he was.
Abruptly he pushed away from her, letting her settle against the wall as he backed away. ‘Get on the bed,’ he growled out in response to the question on her face, his hands going to his trousers.
Her gaze fastened on that movement as she hurried around him to comply, rushing to the straw-filled mattress near the fire. Almost immediately, his hands were on her waist, shifting her around so that her hips pressed back against him. The absolute need to dominate and reclaim her coursed through him. They belonged to each other no matter what might happen and always would. She complied so sweetly, as if she needed the reaffirmation, eager and ready to be his again.
His. The mere thought made blood surge into his groin, pounding through him as it urged him to take her.
He nudged her thigh and she opened to him, spreading herself so that he could settle on his knees between them. His trousers around his knees, he guided his manhood to her. There was something wild and primitive about having her nude before him, ready to receive him while he was clothed. It made him mad with excitement. As he pushed the swollen head of his manhood into her, she made a low sound of pleasure in the back of her throat and pressed back, seeking more of him. A rush of triumph burst through his chest.
Aye, beg me.
Gritting his teeth, he was determined to fight the surge of need that bid him to simply take her. So he played with her to draw out her pleasure, withdrawing, moving in a maddening rhythm along her crease, only giving her a taste of what she wanted. He paused at the drenched entrance to her body again, teasing her with his plump head, when she suddenly lurched back in an attempt to fill herself with him. A hoarse groan escaped him and he was helpless to do anything except jolt forward, joining their bodies in a hard thrust that rooted him deep within her. Spots of white light played behind his eyelids as he fell over her, keeping the bulk of his weight off of her on a straight arm while his other wrapped around her hips, holding her tight against him.
‘Please, Rolfe.’ Her voice was barely coherent, but the desperate rhythm of her hips was unmistakable as she moved beneath him, begging for more.
There was only her beloved softness beneath him, squeezing him in her tight grip as he moved. She sighed in a sound of unmistakable appreciation as he pulled out nearly all the way and slid hard back into her. She angled her body so that he could sink even deeper and he was lost. His hips began a hard tempo, pumping in and out of her in a desperate rhythm of possession. No longer able to keep himself away, he buried his face in the back of her neck so that her scent filled him. His name fell like a mantra from her lips as she clawed at him, her hand coming around to hold his thigh as if she was afraid he might leave her.
Soon she cried out in a hoarse sound as her sweet body clenched at him, convulsing around his shaft in delicious shock waves that drained him of his release. But even then he couldn’t stop. He kept pumping until every last bit of his seed had been wrung from him and his tremors had subsided. He fell against her heavily, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest as he struggled to catch his breath.
He couldn’t believe how consumed he’d been by her. For those few brief moments nothing else in the world had existed. Only her. Tenderness for her welled in his chest and his hands clenched at her, already wanting her again and afraid that something might take her from him. For a man who considered himself to be strong, she made him weak. He could never trust his judgement of her.
With a soft cry that he couldn’t contain, he pulled himself from her body and struggled back into his trousers. A contented smile curved her lips as she turned over on to her back to look at him, but alarm quickly set in when she saw that he was getting to his feet.
‘Don’t go.’
He shook his head and she made to rise, but he held out his hand to ward her off and said, ‘Nay!’
His voice was harsh to his own ears and it startled her, but it only made her pause briefly before getting to her knees to beseech him again. ‘Rolfe, let us talk. I don’t want you to go—’
The door closed behind him as he made his way out into the frigid night air. The woman consumed him without even trying. He had to get away from her before he did something foolish like forget his anger or even the reason he was angry. One entire night with her and he was certain he’d forget all about her treachery.
Damn it all—he loved her.
Elswyth passed a fitful night and finally gave up attempting to sleep when the grey light of dawn shone through the edges of the door. For the very first time she allowed herself the absolute despair that her marriage with Rolfe might be over. For a few moments last night she had made herself believe that a future was possible.
The truth was that he despised her. She’d throw another pot if she had any anger left within her, but there was nothing left. He’d wrung it all out of her last night. Instead of behaving like a child, she’d dressed in her winter clothes and doled out a bowl of pottage for herself with the first morning light. There was nothing to do but wait until Lord Vidar arrived and then she could finally tell her story. She didn’t know what would happen after that and she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Then something extraordinary happened. After she had finished her meagre meal, a man opened the door. He was the Dane who had been sent to guard her on a previous day. The man she had attacked with her blade when he’d refused to summon Rolfe, to be exact. He stood inside the door and gave her a wary stare.
‘What do you want?’ she asked with very little patience.
He bristled, looked out the open door as if he didn’t like what he’d been tasked with doing, and then glanced back at her. ‘I’m to take you to visit a grave,’ he mumbled.
The hope bursting through her heart brought her to her feet. Rolfe had sent him. He’d remembered her request from the night and sent this man to take her to see Osric. After everything else that had happened, she had assumed he’d forgotten the request. What did it mean? Did he still care? Was he merely attempting to assuage his conscience? Whatever it meant, he was thinking about her. Last night hadn’t been some final goodbye. He might have meant for it to be, but he was still thinking of her this morning.
Biting back her smile, she hurried to find her cloak and in moments had joined the Dane at the door. He held up a rope made of hemp and she glared at him. ‘I’ll not be restrained. If you must, then you can go find your master and tell him that I won’t be bound. Let him come do it himself if he insists.’
Shifting from one foot to the other, he sighed, clearly wishing to have any other duty than to deal with her. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling very much within her rights to insist that she be treated better than a common criminal.
Evidently deciding that he’d rather have the deed over with quickly than to return to Rolfe and explain his failure, he glared at her and stepped outside, indicating that she should come with him. He wound the rope back up into a coil and affixed it to his belt as he led her around the house and to the path that would take them to the village.
Despite the morbid reason for the outing, she was happy to be outside again. The day was clear, if not blue, and there was no new snow so the path was easy to navigate. She’d nearly worn holes in the plank floor of the house, pacing with unexpended energy over the past several days. In the distance a man—though if he were Saxon or Dane she couldn’t tell—put out hay for the sheep, their anxious baas making her feel more at home than she had since she’d arrived. How easy it would be to slip back into her old life, as if what had happened in Alvey had been a dream. But it hadn’t been a dream and she still had the telltale body aches from last night to prove it. Rolfe had been real and he’d been hers.
Her eyes moved of their own accord to find him. There were men sparring in the clearing outside Cnut’s longhouse, but he didn’t seem to be one of them. Aevir seemed to be the one running them through their paces. As they approached the village, men, women and children were moving about their daily chores. Not one of them seemed concerned with the additional Danes in their midst. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Without her father and the other agitators, there was nothing to keep life from happening as it should.
Lady Gwendolyn had been right. Everyone served someone and most people didn’t care who it was as long as they could live their lives in peace. As long as there was enough food and work and time to enjoy life, what did it matter? The Danes were here, but they were not a hindrance and they were not malicious invaders. If only her father could have seen this, perhaps life could have been different.
What would have happened had her mother never met that Dane and run off? Would her father have been more willing to work with Lord Vidar? In the days since talking to Father, she’d not been able to stop thinking of Mother. Somehow knowing that she carried the Dane’s child made the woman’s decision more poignant. She hadn’t simply left her family because she’d found a man more exciting than her husband. She’d been forced to choose and she’d followed her heart. She hadn’t left them so much as she’d chosen a future for her unborn child.
The knowledge gave clarity to Elswyth’s own dilemma. If she was allowed to follow her heart, it would lead her to Rolfe. She only hoped it wasn’t too late to choose him.
‘Good morning, Elswyth!’ They had walked close enough to the outskirts of the village that a few of the women paused to set their heavy baskets of laundry down to call to her.
She called back and smiled, happy to see familiar faces. She would have stopped and talked, but the Dane looked back at her. ‘Let’s go,’ he grumbled.
Biting back a retort, she followed him and gave a regretful wave to the small group. Soon he led her to a grave, a fresh mound of dirt covering it. A wave of sorrow came over her. Though she’d had days to come to terms with his fate and she had, it still didn’t seem possible that the boy she had known was gone. She wanted to laugh with him one last time, but she couldn’t and that wasn’t Rolfe’s fault. She could accept that now.
Rolfe was no more to blame for Osric’s death than he was to blame for the Dane presence in their lands. Osric had made his own choice and he’d been fully aware of the consequences. Even so, she found that she had to be angry with someone, because Osric wasn’t here to bear the brunt of it. In the days she’d spent in that farmhouse, she had come to realise that if anyone should share the blame with Osric that it was her father. Father and his bitter sense of betrayal towards Mother had led them all to this. Osric had not been a warrior. He would’ve been content living his life in peace. Father must have encouraged him to meet the Scots.
The sharp whinny of a horse caught her attention. Sleipnir raced across the ridge separating the field from the village. Rolfe was on his back, leaning forward as the stallion ran beneath him. Her heart clenched with longing as she watched him and it was quickly followed by a surge of possessiveness. He was hers. They had taken vows and nothing could change that. His people might believe in divorce, but hers didn’t and nothing he or Lord Vidar could say or do would change that.
Rolfe would always be hers.
She hadn’t realised she’d started running towards him until the Dane guarding her called out. She’d caught him unaware as he’d left her to pay her respects in peace and watched some of the women in the village. His heavy footfalls came up behind her, but they only spurred her faster. Rolfe had reached Aevir and had vaulted from his horse to talk to him about something that seemed rather important.
‘Wait!’ The Dane grabbed her arm, tugging her to a stop. Jerking away from him, she nearly succeeded in running again, but he was too determined. ‘You can’t go there. I have to take you back to the house.’
‘Nay, I need to see Rolfe.’ She swatted at his hands in a way that might have been comical had she not been so desperate. She opened her mouth to tell him in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t be returning without speaking to her husband when a great roar sounded from the forest north of the longhouse. Men on horseback flooded the valley, spilling in from the forest as if they had no end.
Scots! That’s why Rolfe had been moving with such urgency. He must have seen them from the rise and come to warn everyone.
‘Go to them!’ she yelled when the Dane seemed intent on dragging her away from the sight in the opposite direction.
‘I can’t leave you!’ His voice was stern, but he wasn’t looking at her. He stared at the coming violence as if he itched to join in.
‘Rolfe needs you more. I need to lead the women in the village to safety.’ One look showed her that the villagers were aware of what was happening. They ran for the forest to the south, prepared years ago by her father for the eventuality of invasion with peace with the Scots and Danes being so uncertain. Something must have happened with her father’s truce with the Scots to make them invade. Or perhaps they only came for the Danes and planned to leave the village in peace. Either way, someone needed to make sure they all hid in safety.
‘Nay, they’ll be fine. Jarl Vidar arrived with his men late last night. We’ve more than enough warriors.’
Relief overcame her. At least there was that. ‘But what if they need you?’
The Dane wavered, but his youth eventually won out. It was clear that he’d much rather fight with the men than hide with the women, so he shoved the grip of his dagger into her hand. ‘Run!’ he ordered. ‘Do you know where to hide?’
‘Aye, the rise in the forest.’ She indicated the direction in which the villagers were fleeing. Father and the warriors had made certain everyone knew to hide behind the rise. It was difficult to see for anyone who didn’t know the landscape and it would give the villagers a safe point from which to view the battle. It would also give them ample time to see any attackers who might approach.
He gave a curt nod. ‘Go then!’ But as he ran towards the battle, he didn’t even look back to make sure she followed his orders. Why would he? She was a woman and she was meant to obey.
Only she wouldn’t.
She ran as fast as her legs could carry her into the village. By the time she reached it most everyone had gone. A few of the men stayed back with weapons to guard their houses should the Scots get past the Danes. Sliding the dagger into her belt, she picked up a short-handled axe that had been left carelessly by the woodshed. Taking it in hand, she hurried towards the battle. Already the sounds of steel on steel could be heard ringing out as warriors clashed.
The echo only made her legs pump harder. Her only thought was to get to Rolfe, to make certain that he was safe. She could make out his head and shoulders at the edge of the sparring field. She couldn’t see clearly from the distance, but he moved fast, striking with his sword as it seemed one Scot after another came at him. She lost sight of him for a moment as she was forced to run around the forge, the tall stone wall blocking her view.
When next she saw him, he had two men coming after him at once. Blood dripped from his sword as he stepped over the bodies of the slain enemies at his feet. Aevir was across the way, fending off his own attackers. A man sneaked around the longhouse, walking silently but briskly into the open to approach Rolfe from behind. She called out, but her voice seemed to be lost in the noise of battle.
Bracing her feet against the dirt, she pulled back the arm with the axe. Excitement and fear ran through her entire body, but she forced a calmness she was far from feeling and breathed in. On the exhale she let the axe fly. It whooshed through the air and somehow that sound was louder than her own cry had been. The weapon was a blur as it sailed, coming to a rest with flawless accuracy in the back of the man who would have attacked Rolfe.
The attacker let out a startling cry as he fell to his knees. Having dispatched the two men he’d been battling, Rolfe turned, his eyes finding her before landing on the man at his feet. ‘Get down!’ he yelled.
It was only at that moment that she realised she was standing in the middle of a field, the battle swarming around her, with only a dagger in her belt for a weapon. Her heart too frozen in fear to pound, she looked for a place to hide as Rolfe finished the man off. The longhouse was farther away than the forge, so she turned back to it, hiding herself behind the solid stone wall and drawing her dagger.
She could hear Rolfe’s voice calling to Aevir, but she couldn’t tell what he said. By this time her heart had resumed its pounding and seemed to have taken up residence in her ears. All she could hear was the blood rushing through her veins. It might have been only moments or maybe it was hours that she stayed there, but Rolfe came around the stone wall. His eyes found hers and he rushed over.
She rose to her feet just before he caught her in his arms and pulled her against him.
‘Elswyth,’ he whispered against her ear, his hand going to the back of her head to hold her tight. ‘You’re safe.’
‘Is it over?’ she asked against his neck. He smelled of sweat and horse, but it was the most glorious scent ever. He was safe and whole.
‘Aye.’ His voice was little more than a hoarse croak as he tightened his arms. ‘Why didn’t you run to the forest?’
‘Because you needed me.’ She pulled back just enough to glare up at him.
He grinned, his arms still so tight that she could barely draw breath. ‘Aye, I did. You saved me.’
She’d been prepared to battle it out with him, not thinking that he’d relent and admit that her axe had taken the man down before Rolfe could handle him. So she stood stunned, not certain what to say. Rolfe seemed to know what to do because he kissed her deeply, his tongue plundering her mouth with determination. When he pulled back to take a breath, he said, ‘Thank you.’
She shook her head, wondering how he could ever think she could do anything less. ‘I would give my life for you.’
He looked stricken, as if her words pained him. Dropping his forehead to rest against hers, he said, ‘Nay, never do that. I love you too much. I couldn’t live without you.’ He took a deep, wavering breath. ‘I’m sorry, Saxon. For ever thinking that I could live without you. For doubting you. For believing that you were anything less than you are.’
She laughed, though it sounded rather like a sob. ‘I forgive you as long as you spend the rest of your life making it up to me.’
His deep laughter moved through her as he swung her up into his arms. ‘You can count on that. I love you.’