Before she even looked at him, she turned and made sure the door was locked so they would not be disturbed. Smart thinking. At least someone in this room was thinking with the right body part.
She wore the same blue cloak she’d worn to his chamber afore, but she was not nude underneath as she’d been then. He saw that when she dropped the cloak. She was covered from neck to wrist to ankles by a thin linen bed rail. The shift was plain, but Helga was not. Her blond hair hung loose about her back and shoulders and chest.
Her wide blue eyes took in his state of undress. He saw fear there and in the clenching of her fists at her sides.
In that moment, Vagn forgot his misgivings over his own seeming vulnerabilities. “Helga,” was all he could manage to say.
As if given a cue, she flew at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her face in the crook of his neck. “I thought this would be easy,” she confessed.
So did I. “It will be.” I hope.
At first, he just held her tightly against him with one arm around her waist and the other hand up under her hair, kneading her nape. He kissed the top of her fragrant head and murmured nothing words to soothe her.
Helga was tall, only a half-head shorter than he. So, with her on tiptoe, they stood breast to bare chest, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, woman-place to manpart. It seemed they fit perfectly together.
In that instant, Vagn realized something important. All his experience in bedsport, all the charm acquired during years of dealing with women—none of it mattered. This joining with Helga was special… different. He couldn’t say how or why. It just was. In some ways, he would be as much a virgin as Helga. He thought he heard Toste laughing in his head at that outlandish notion.
Helga raised her head finally and looked at him.
He kept one hand on her nape and used the other to cup her cheek. He kissed her then, searching, slow and soft. Seeking the perfect fit.
She kept her hands on his shoulders and followed all his signals with her own mouth. She mimicked his movements, shifting and adjusting. He ran the tip of his tongue along the seam of her mouth; she did the same to his. When he deepened the kiss and filled her mouth with his tongue, she sucked him in welcome.
He hadn’t realized that his hands had moved, but they were everywhere, learning the curves and planes of her body. The soft places and the hard. His big palms moved the fabric of her bed rail as he caressed her. Sweeping her shoulders and back. Kneading her buttocks. Testing the smallness of her waist. And all the while, he kept kissing her hungrily.
And, praise the gods, she kissed him back, just as hungrily. And ran her small hands over his shoulders, the flat nipples on his chest, his backside.
“You won’t be sorry, dearling,” he murmured against her wet lips when he came up for air.
“I know,” she said and smiled.
That smile caused his heart to lurch.
He was aroused beyond anything he’d ever imagined, and yet totally in control now. He would go slow. More than anything, he wanted to please Helga as much as himself.
Finally he took hold of Helga’s forearm and held her away from him. Maintaining eye contract, he shrugged out of his braies and took supreme male pleasure in the way her mouth opened in surprise at the size of his thickening. He was pretty surprised himself. Blue-veined ones were rare and to be prized. Leastways, that’s what Toste always said. Then he stepped forward and raised her bed-rail up and over her head, leaving them both naked to observe each other.
She was as tall and willowy as a young sapling. Fine-boned, with a narrow waist tapering out to small hips. How does she ever expect to carry a babe there? Her breasts were so small they would not even fill his hand, but they were capped with big pink nipples that made up for any lack in size of the whole. Would she nurse a babe? Would her breasts change then? Do not think of that, Vagn. Do not even think it. Her long, long legs were thin but shapely. Would her sons be long-legged, too? Dangerous thought, that. Her woman-fleece matched the blondness of her hair, but was curly. She was different from the women he’d been attracted to in the past. But better. Way better.