Harper St. George - One Night With The Viking

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Kadlin awoke to the disturbing knowledge that she was not alone in her bedchamber. She lay perfectly still, listening for some sound that would betray the intruder, but she failed to hear anything past the pounding of her heart. The fire had reduced to only a smoulder, so she blinked, urging her eyes to adjust to the absence of light. There was a heaviness in the room, a presence that wasn’t her own. She was certain that it wasn’t a trick of her imagination. The presence prickled her skin and sucked out the air in the small chamber.

Where was her dog? The realisation that her faithful companion had abandoned her set off a cold flare of terror and her heart froze in her chest. If someone had been able to take Freyja, then—

‘It’s only me, Kadlin. Don’t be afraid.’

Gunnar! She would have known his voice anywhere. The deep cadence was followed by a spark of orange as the fire flamed back to life. Its warmth caressed his beloved features, making his wolfish amber eyes appear to glow at her from across the small distance. The flickering flames highlighted the deep red of his hair and drew her attention to the angular planes of his face as they played hide-and-seek with the light. He was the fire god come to life.

But he was Gunnar, decidedly flesh-and-blood male. Her heart resumed its pounding, but for an entirely different reason. She’d not laid eyes on him in well over two years; he’d been gone, fighting across the sea. Even before that, her knowledge of him had become sparse and relegated to stolen glimpses and awkward meals when their fathers met. They had still been children the last time he had made the long trek, alone through the forest, from his home to her bed.

Now, he had the broad shoulders of a seasoned warrior, made even wider by the fur cloak draped across them. She could barely tear her gaze from their solid strength, but he prodded the fire and she noticed how large and strong his hands had become. Much different than the hands that had held her so many years ago. A trembling began somewhere deep within her.

‘I didn’t know if I would see you again.’ Her words came out a bit breathless so she forced herself to take a deep breath as she sat up in bed. She wanted to touch him, to reassure herself that he was really there and this wasn’t some dream, to know the feel of his shoulders beneath her hands so she could compare it to her dreams. She wanted to reach out and hold on to him before he left and she never saw him again. To shake him for taking himself away from her.

But it had been so long since they’d enjoyed the easy camaraderie of their youth and he seemed so fierce and remote from the boy she had known. ‘You returned with Eirik in the autumn.’ They could have had the whole winter to know each other again. She didn’t give voice to the words, but the accusation hung silently in the air between them. ‘Why have you stayed away?’ A shadow moved in the corner behind him and she realised that her dog had been given a large hank of dried meat to chew. Gunnar had come prepared, it seemed.

He took a deep breath and seemed to come to some decision, because when his gaze lit on hers, he looked at her so directly that she was left speechless. There was no jesting there, no artifice, or even a veneer of civility. There was just a restless energy that he seemed determined to harness so that it focused completely on her. When he finally spoke, his voice was textured with longing. ‘You were betrothed to my brother. If I saw you again, I knew that I would have challenged him for you.’

He finally released her from the captivity of his stare, his intense gaze flicking over her tousled hair and down to her breasts, making warmth bloom in her chest. He dropped one last piece of wood on the fire and rose to his full height so that he seemed to take up most of the space in the room.

Her skin prickled from the intensity of his attention. She’d imagined this very scenario many times over the years, awakening to him in her room, but the reality of his presence was nearly overwhelming. His acknowledgement of his desire for her, coupled with the intensity of his stare, set her body to life in a way she’d been unable to imagine. Heat prickled her skin, so that every part of her was aware of him. When he took a step in her direction, her belly fluttered in anticipation. To rein herself in, she offered a challenge to his words. ‘You would have allowed your brother to marry me? Knowing that you wanted me for yourself?’

There was no mistaking that heated look in his eyes. She’d seen it enough in other men who had come to ask her father for her hand, though she’d never once welcomed it. But from him, it was like the light of the spring sun warming her skin after a particularly brutal winter. He was the only one she had ever imagined herself marrying.

‘I believed that he was your choice.’ He came to a stop at the edge of the bed next to her.

She rose to her knees before him, leaving her blanket to pool on the bed, and fought her desire to touch him. Apparently he had harboured some affection for her all of these years, but she found it difficult to believe, when he could have had any woman he wanted. Or perhaps she was afraid to believe it, afraid that even knowing that, it would change nothing. That he still wouldn’t be hers. ‘You must know that Eirik never owned my heart. He is a dear friend, but...not in the way that I would require for marriage.’

‘I passed the winter away from home, in places that would make you shudder with revulsion.’ He shook his head. ‘With horrible people...because I didn’t want to return to my father’s home and see you as Eirik’s wife. Every night I imagined you in his arms and it was torture. When I returned home to find that you hadn’t married him, I came to you as soon as I could.’ He paused, his lips curving in an attractive smile. It lit his eyes, giving her a glimpse of the boy she had loved. His strong hand reached out to catch the end of one of her braids and curl it around his finger. They both watched as the light caught it and turned the blonde strands to silver. ‘Leave it to you to thwart the wishes of not one but two jarls, your father and mine.’

Her lips curved in a slight smile at his jest, but she was reluctant to get away from the confrontation. ‘ He was not the man I wanted.’ His breath hitched, but he didn’t shift his attention from the strand of hair he caressed. ‘Why have you ignored me all these years, Gunnar?’ she whispered.

‘Nay, Kadlin, you were never ignored. There was never a moment when I wasn’t aware of you. Any time you were near, I felt it even without seeing you. My body knew you were there and I couldn’t help but hear you, smell you.’ He brought the strand of hair to his lips and closed his eyes as he breathed in her scent. ‘I could never forget the way you smelled and the way it felt to sleep with my face buried in your hair when we were children.’

‘But you’ve stayed away. Why?’

He groaned and pulled back only enough to look at her. ‘The boy you knew died a long time ago, Kadlin. I am not what you need.’

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. This man, this warrior standing before her, so forbidding and brutal, was not the boy she remembered. But he was no less attractive for the change that his harsh life had wrought. To the contrary, he carried an edge that somehow served to make him desirable with that mystical allure taken on by all things forbidden. Despite that, he still seemed so familiar to her. Unable to avoid touching him any longer, she let her palms rest on the backs of his hands. Did he feel the magic that happened when their flesh touched, the invisible flame that sparked between them?

Her hands moved restlessly up and down the length of his forearms, unable to stay still when the urge to touch him was so powerful. They were as solid as iron beneath her palms. Taking in the broad expanse of his chest, she suspected that all of him would feel that way. A jolt of unexpected excitement moved from her fingertips to her belly. ‘I don’t care, Gunnar. You are what I want.’ Truer words had never passed her lips. In the few minutes he had been there, she felt like a part of her had come back to itself. There was no more aching where her heart had been. He was meant for her and she knew it now more than she had ever known it before. Only now, she knew that deep in his heart he felt the same way.