“Eirik, stop that rude yawning and look at me.”
“Yawning is rude? I did not know that. See, you are good for me, Eadyth. You teach me so many significant things.”
Eadyth slanted a suspicious look at him. Was he mocking her? “Eirik! Stop changing the subject. I want to tell you something important.”
“Nay, ’tis too hot to talk. I can scarce breathe With all these bed linens.” He looked pointedly at the one covering her naked body. “And every time you have ‘something important’ to tell me, it involves more work. You make my blood boil when you nag at me, and ’tis already too stifling in here.”
“Maybap ’tis all these candles you have lit.” She looked about the bedchamber where a dozen candles burned wastefully at his insistence. Eirik claimed a sudden need for light in the event he needed to use the chamber pot during the night.
“In any event, I was not going to nag.” Eadyth studiously tried to avert her eyes from his naked body as she continued talking. “I just…”
She failed.
Her words trailed off as she inadvertently glanced at him in the midst of her reply, and, oh, Lord, he lay with his arms folded behind his head, his long legs crossed at the ankles, and that part of him standing straight up in the air like a steel-firm pike.
She gasped and forced her eyes upward toward his face.
“Eadyth, you always nag.”
Thankfully, Eirik did not seem to have noticed her perusal or subsequent embarrassment. He stared back at her blithely, his blue eyes distastefully scanning the bed linen she had pulled up to her chin.
“It feels like an oven in here,” he grumbled again.
“What do you want me to do about it?” she snapped and immediately regretted her impulsive question.
“Get rid of the bed linens. All of them.”
Eadyth gulped.
Eirik slid downward and rolled back and forth, trying to get comfortable. Once, he flung an arm out, accidentally brushing her left breast through the coarse linen. When she turned her back on him, his knee nudged her buttocks, ever so briefly.
She stiffened. However, she soon relaxed, realizing that his touch must have been accidental. He had told her often enough how her form and face and mannerisms repelled him. In fact, the only part of her body that seemed to hold any attraction for the insufferable man was the mole above her lip. Blessed Saint Bridget! The man was perverted. If he mentioned one more time what he’d like to do to her mole with his tongue, she just might strangle him.
And yet he failed to consummate their wedding vows. Hmmm.
Suddenly, Eadyth realized that she had allowed the man to divert her attention once again from the matter at hand—her confession. She sat up abruptly in the bed, barely catching the bed linen from its quick descent to her breasts.
Eirik’s eyes widened and almost popped from his head. ‘Twould seem he could see well enough for some things!
“Eirik, I insist on telling you something important. Stop fidgeting and listen—”
“Mayhap we should consummate our marriage,” he interrupted smoothly. “Now.”
“Now?” she squeaked out. Lord, the man did run hot and cold from one moment to the next.
“Yea. If you would just do a few things to help, I might be able to rise to the occasion,” he offered solicitously. Eadyth could swear she saw a grin twitching at the edge of his firm lips, but the movement stopped before she had a chance to study him more closely.
“Seems to me your dough has more than leavened,” she remarked dryly, remembering too well how it had looked just moments ago. She waved a hand in the direction of his man part, but refused to look at it again. “A limp lily you are not.”
“Ah, so you noticed. But, as you can see, the bread has fallen again. Look for yourself.”
Not even if my life depended upon it! Eadyth lifted her chin and looked, instead, toward the opposite wall, her face flushing as she tried to wipe the mental picture from her mind.
He made an odd chuckling sound. “Of course, if you tried some… things… we might be able to get it to rise again.”