Page 34 of Viking Unchained

“Listen, buster, you aren’t getting within a hair of my son until I find out exactly who you are. If you’re not Dave’s reincarnation, or sent by Dave, you will never see him.”

He girded himself not to say something rash, like that she would be the one not seeing her son again once he laid hands on him, but even in his fury, he recognized that he was in no position to make threats. “If you think I am going to be interrogated whilst I lie here naked, enthusiastic as a raging bull, and you fully clothed, or partly clothed in those scandalous garments, you are more barmy than I already thought.”

“I’m wearing shorts and a tank top. There’s nothing scandalous about that.”

“Scandal is in the eye of the beholder. And bare feet! Didst know that in some cultures a woman’s foot is considered a temptation greater than a bared breast?”

“You’re making that up.”

“Why would I? You are the one wearing wanton attire. ”

“Wanton? I’m not wanton. In fact, I never bring strange men home.”

Really, I am in no mood for false modesty at this late date. He arched his eyebrows at her, taking her measure with a full-body survey. “Women always protest their chastity, even as they wiggle their arses in a man’s face.”

“I never wiggled . . . just for the record, I’m not a slut.”

“Dost think I care.” In fact, wantonness is an asset to be desired, in some women. “But just so we are clear, you invited me, then swived me up one side and down the other, head to toes. If that is not wanton, I do not know what is.”

“Uh . . . you mentioned feet. You’re not into toe-sucking, are you?” Rosy patches bloomed on her cheeks as she asked that outrageous question.

He pretended to consider her question. “Nay, methinks that bedsport exercise would not be to my taste .

. . lest you mean that you would be sucking another body part of mine whilst I sucked your toes. Yea, there might be some attraction in that . . . um, position.” And, after all, I did pare my toenails this week.

“Oh!” she huffed with indignation. “I didn’t mean that I wanted . . .” She clamped her mouth shut, but he could tell she wanted to say something biting to him. Instead, she waited ’til her temper tamped down and asked, “Are you Dave?”

His only response was a snort.

“Did Dave send you?”

Dave, Dave, Dave. I am sick of hearing about this Dave person.

“Where do you live?”

If you only knew!

“Why did you follow me to the ladies’ room last night? Did you feel that same zap of recognition that I did? Why did you come here with me?”

He bit his bottom lip to keep from answering her last question in crude terms once again. But he thought them, and those thoughts must have shown on his face.

She grimaced, then made her face go blank. “You said your name was Thorfinn. Do you prefer Thorfinn or Finn?”

He still did not answer.

“Okay, Finn it will be. Thorfinn is too much of a mouthful.”

I can think of something that was not too much of a mouthful for you.

“I’ll be right back.”

And she was gone, afore he could tell her all the things he wanted to do to her.

Chapter 7

Getting to know you . . .

He followed her to the solar, where she tossed his clothing at him. Afterward he went into her scullery, where she was preparing a meal for them both . . . ham, eggs, more toasted bread, and a hot beverage he recognized as coffee, a bitter brew which he had come to like.