Viking's Pride Page 3

  “Can you tune out on purpose?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to. I wouldn’t even know how to trigger that.”

  He nodded slowly and rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I imagine you’d need to be conscious you were doing it before you could work out how to initiate it purposefully. Maybe next time you’ll notice what you did.”

  “I doubt it. I’m not that observant.”

  “Well, if you do go missing from the web again and I happen to be nearby, I’ll let you know.”

  “Sure.” She doubted that would happen anytime soon. She’d accepted his invitation to visit his apartment because she was so damned curious, and she also hated backing down from challenges. Him thinking those thoughts about her—about what he wanted to do to her—were a vicious tease, as far as she was concerned. But she didn’t want him to think he’d flustered her…even if he’d been doing nothing but that since the moment they’d encountered each other out on the trail. She gave as good as she got, or at least put up the pretense that she could. If he thought he was going to scandalize his old neighbor girl into running home, he had another think coming.

  “So, what’s your impression of my apartment?”

  “It’s, uh…” She rocked back on her heels, took a bite of her croissant, and shrugged. “It’s all right.”

  “Just all right?”

  She swallowed and sighed. “Okay, better than all right, even without furniture. This is the kind of place I aspire to have when I grow up.”

  He chuckled, pushed off the door, and eyed her from head to toes. “I don’t see where you have any growing up left to do. If that’s not a woman standing in front of me, then I need to increase the frequency of my eye exams.” As if for emphasis, he nudged his glasses up his nose.

  She turned so he couldn’t see the hot burn creeping up to her cheeks and walked to an opening she thought might be the closet. “You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe I don’t. Explain it to me.”

  She stepped into the small dark room and drew in a bracing breath. Gods, he can fluster me with just a look. She’d never known any man who could do that to her, not even Jody. He’s doing it on purpose. He’s trying to embarrass me. “Ugh.”

  She turned on her heel to walk out only to slam chest-first into Will.

  “You did it again,” he said softy. “The floorboards creaked. You should have heard me.”

  She started to back away, but his arms were suddenly there, encircling her torso, and her nose was against his jaw.

  Oh, shit.

  She would have bet half a case of chocolate turtle candies that the hard protrusion against her belly wasn’t a belt buckle. Actually that would have been a safe bet, because the man hadn’t even been wearing real pants.

  “Are you—”

  “Mm-hmm.” He pushed his fingers up into the base of her ponytail and worked the elastic off.

  Her hair fell over her shoulders, and he tossed the fastener away only to get a firmer grip on her hair. “Do you need help paying attention?” He gave her hair the tiniest tug, pulling her head slightly to the left.

  “Um…” Her fingers curled reflexively, and the sound of crinkling wax paper reminded her of the pastry she’d forgotten just that quickly. Obviously, she did need help.

  He skimmed his lips up the side of her neck and her breath came out in a ragged gust.

  Oh, shit.

  Her nipples, pressed so tightly against his chest, tingled from rapid engorgement. Her pussy gave an entreating clench as if demanding that the phallus pressed so brazenly against her immediately be put inside her.

  He took the croissant from her and tucked it onto the shelf behind him, then he closed the door.

  In total darkness, he couldn’t see her blush, but she also had nowhere to run.

  “Will…”

  “Pay attention to one thing at a time. Is doing that easier when you can’t see?”

  Somehow, he found her in the dark and pulled her against him again. So hard, and he didn’t seem to care if she knew.

  “What should I be paying attention to?” she asked.

  “You insinuated that you had more growing up to do, and I asked you to explain what you meant.”

  “And…you don’t think standing so close to me”—making her want to fall to her knees and pull his cock between her lips—“you don’t think that’s distracting me?”

  “I wanted to show you what I think of the twenty-three-year-old Erin Petersen. A grown woman with the most tantalizing ass I’ve seen in ages. I like those pants, by the way.”

  They weren’t pants so much as leggings. She always wore them when she was hiking, and no one had ever had a comment about them one way or another. People rarely gave her a second look.

  “What are you wearing beneath them?”

  “What?”

  “Simple question.” He gave her another one of those little hair tugs and this time lashed his tongue slowly up her neck.

  She pushed up onto her tiptoes to give more of herself to him, evidently, and he moved his hands to her ass, giving it a squeeze.

  “You are wearing panties, aren’t you?”

  She swallowed down the teasing retort that he should find out for himself if he really wanted to know. She was almost certain he would, and that surprised her. He’d drop her pants right there in his closet and examine the evidence. For as long as she’d known him, she’d never once attached the idea of sex to the thoughts of him, but now she wasn’t so sure she’d ever be able to separate the two things.

  Will and sex. Sex and Will. He looked like sex—the good kind of sex that she could feel in her thighs for two days afterward.

  “Yes,” she said in a whisper.

  “Describe them to me.” He clenched her ass—squeezed, lifted, parted—and her toes curled in her sneakers. She imagined that if he were to project one of his dirty pictures to her, it would probably consist of him putting things in a certain forbidden orifice and making her beg him to act.

  And just like that, her wetness surged and nipples beaded even harder.

  He’s doing it on purpose.

  Confused as she was, she didn’t want him to stop. If he stopped teasing, he might stop touching, and she didn’t want that.

  “I’m waiting,” he said.

  “Uh…” She dragged her tongue across dry lips and swallowed with some difficulty. “Well, there’s not much to them.”

  “I guessed that.” He gave her left ass cheek a little swat that had her up on her toes again.

  He was so presumptuous, but was somehow hitting all the right buttons. Hidden buttons she hadn’t even known she possessed. If she gave the man free rein, he’d probably make her head explode. And that didn’t seem like such a terrible thing. For all she knew, it might be a freeing thing.

  “They…uh…they’re lace. A G-string. Beige or cream, I guess. They have little ties at the sides.”

  “Real ties or just for show?”

  “Real.”

  “And who have you let untie them?”

  “No one. Just me.”

  “I’m glad. I like being first.”

  Is he teasing me?

  “Will you let me untie them?”

  “You want to…I mean…you want to see—”

  “Yes.”

  Just yes. She found herself nodding, but realized he probably couldn’t tell. She swallowed hard again. “If you want to. But we’re in the dark, so you couldn’t see anything.”

  “I don’t need to see anything, at least not right now. And I think your coffee’s done. What do you want in it?” He slipped his hands inside the back of her pants and curled his fingers into her cleft.

  She gasped, frozen in place.

  “Cream and way too much sugar?”

  “You want me to drink coffee now?”

  “You need to finish your croissant. Did you forget about it already?” He kneaded her ass some more and pulled her body even more tightly against his.

  He’s so h
ard, and he wants me to go get coffee?

  She didn’t want coffee, or even the chocolate that would go with it. She wanted cock. His cock. She couldn’t think of anything she’d wanted more in recent weeks.

  “There’s something to be said for anticipation, Erin. Wouldn’t you like to get to know me a little better before you offer your sweet ass up to me?”

  Fuck. She would have stomped her foot if she weren’t trying to be a dignified adult. Apparently, she’d had her metaphorical psychic headphones on and didn’t realize she was shouting.

  “You could pretend you didn’t hear the shit falling out of my head. That’d be the polite thing to do.”

  “Yes, I could pretend.” He pulled his hands from her pants and pulled open the closet door. “But what good would that do either of us? I’m trying to learn more about the nature of Afótama magic, and you need to learn more about your own. We both know you’re a psychic blurter, so why don’t you let me help you find a way to get it under control? Who better to help you than someone you’ve known your entire life?”

  She groaned. My entire life. He’d known her since she was an awkward little girl who wore pigtails that were always a little crooked and who liked to show off her underwear when doing cartwheels. “Helping me with the psychic shit is one thing. Seeing me naked is another. That would be illicit.”

  “Why?” He leaned against the doorframe and pushed his glasses up. “We’re both consenting adults. You are consenting, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point, then? You wanted to fuck Jody, and if memory serves me correctly, he’s two or three years older than me.”

  “I never said I wanted to fuck him.”

  “Fuck him. Be fucked by him.” He shrugged. “Same thing. Either way, one person gets his dick wet and the other gets a full cunt.”

  The hinges of her jaws popped when her mouth fell open. Speechlessness was becoming a habit around him.

  He shrugged yet again. “Might as well be candid. That is our nature, Erin. That’s what you feel radiating out from the center of the web—from our leaders. They’re embracing what they are, which is people who are aggressive, passionate, and practical. What kind of Vikings have the Afótama let themselves become if we think those three qualities are so unusual when combined?”

  She closed her dry mouth and swallowed hard yet again.

  “Embracing nature is so freeing, Erin. Let yourself be what you are and not what you think you should be.”

  “And what would that be? A chocolate-guzzling pervert?”

  “What’s natural can’t be possibly be perverted. There’s nothing unnatural about being aroused by two beautiful people making love. You’re getting standards and mores tangled up in your perspective.”

  “Are you condoning it, then? Watching, I mean.”

  “It’s not my business to condone it or not condone your voyeurism, just like I don’t expect anyone to give me approval for my proclivities.”

  “Which are?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  He stepped out of the closet and toward the bedroom door.

  That’s it? He’s just gonna walk away? “Like hell!” She followed and caught up to him in the hallway. “No, I can’t guess. You said we were being candid. What are your proclivities?”

  “Like I said.” They were in the kitchen by then, and he reached into a cardboard box on the counter and pulled out a newspaper-wrapped item. He peeled the paper away to reveal a mug and then rinsed the cup. “I think you need to get to know me a little better before I start educating you about the darker parts of my personality.”

  “Just how dark are you talking?”

  He gave her a heated glance out of the corners of his eyes and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Dark enough. Think of it the same way as how people take their coffee. Some like it sweet and light. Some like it dark and so hot it burns a little even after they’re finished.”

  “And you…like your coffee black, is what you’re saying.”

  “Not black. Just dark.” He pushed the cup toward her. “Sometimes, I like it just a little sweet. The tiniest bit of sugar neutralizes the bitterness.”

  “I could learn to like…coffee that way.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never had a taste of it.” He poured dark, rich coffee into the mug and popped the carafe back onto the burner. “I’ll be in the bedroom hanging clothes in the closet. Probably going to have to bust out the iron when I find the box of small of appliances. My clothes have been balled up for weeks.”

  She couldn’t think of a single thing to say as he retreated. She simply brought the coffee to her lips without thinking, really, and took a long sip.

  So hot!

  She set down the mug and hung her tongue out to cool. “Stupid.”

  After the burn gave way, though, there was a slight aftertaste. The bitterness of the black coffee, but something else, too. She pressed her tongue against her hard palate and tried to make sense of what she tasted—what was there beneath the sugar and cream she usually covered up the natural flavors with.

  Cinnamon? Or maybe nutmeg?

  She took another sip—a smaller one, this time, so the liquid wouldn’t burn her mouth.

  “Definitely cinnamon.” It brightened the flavor of the drink without altering the rich flavor too much. She probably wouldn’t have known it was there if she’d behaved as she usually did and sweetened before she’d had a taste.

  That was her life in a nutshell, though. Covering things up to make them palatable when she wasn’t even mature enough to appreciate their natural states first. She did it with coffee, with the hair she flat-ironed every morning like clockwork, and now she was discovering she’d been covering up her impulses the same way, too.

  Her impulses would have her to be curious and to explore what could be, but her conservative upbringing had trained her to do the opposite. She’d been taught to be cautious in all things and not to make waves, but sometimes, she wanted to throw caution to the wind and see where nature took her.

  “Maybe it’s time to explore.” She took another sip. The coffee was bitter as hell, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Just different from what she was used to.

  Kind of like Will. He certainly wasn’t what she expected from her old neighbor or for an Afótama man in general. He went against the grain, which for some reason didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

  Maybe she’d try to do things his way for a while. Perhaps she’d finally have a direction if she did. Gods knew she needed it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Will stepped out of his closet to find Erin lying on her belly atop his air mattress, leafing through the pages of his unedited research outline. He fetched one more suitcase to drag into the closet, and turned off the light. There wasn’t much more he could do until he got a dresser. “That’s pretty dry stuff to be reading recreationally.”

  “Are you really going to ask all these questions? Some of these are really personal.”

  “My goal is to ask, or have my assistants ask, as many as subjects are comfortable with. The major ones would all be in the beginning, of course.”

  “Yeah, I saw that.” She nibbled at her bottom lip and turned some more pages. “So…knowing if an Afótama person has had sex with someone outside the clan is important?”

  “I think it is. Subjects may not agree, though.”

  “I could see where they wouldn’t. Would you answer all these questions? Be honest.”

  “That’s a moot point. I already know all the answers.”

  “But surely you’re going to include yourself in the data, or the report, or whatever, aren’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “So, the answers will be a matter of public record, anyway.”

  “No. Subjects are assigned a unique identifier that is connected to their name only in records stored separately from the report itself. People might try to guess whom responded what based on attributes or occurrences t
hey find familiar, but they’d have no way of knowing for sure.”

  She scrunched her lips on one side of her face and drummed her long fingers atop the pages.

  “If there’s something you’d like to ask me, go ahead and ask.”

  “I—”

  “That’s why you brought it up, right? You want to ask me some of those questions. Well, go ahead.”

  “Get out of my head.”

  He chuckled and worked his feet out of his tennis shoes. “I wasn’t in your head. I just put two and two together and came up with four.”

  “Know-it-all.”

  “I’ve been called worse.” He sat on the edge of the woefully inadequate bed and settled onto his back with his fingers entwined behind his head. “Go ahead and start at the beginning. You know that saying, physician heal thyself. Let me see for myself how awkward some of the queries might be.”

  “Ooh. Okay.” She cleared her throat, sat up, and opened the binder onto her lap. “Number one. When did—oh my gods, wait.” She turned her wrist over and looked at the watch face. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “It’s past dinnertime. I didn’t let my dad know he shouldn’t hold dinner for me. He’s going to be pissed.”

  “Tell him. You’re capable of distance telepathy to family members, aren’t you?”

  She scoffed. “Nope. Remember?”

  “I don’t believe you. As far as I know, most Afótama within the compound can communicate with close family members on the web if they’re within a few square miles. You’re full-blooded, aren’t you?” He reached over, flipped to the back of the binder, and ripped out a blank page. Fortunately, he always had a pen in his pocket. He set the paper on the hardwood floor and scribbled some notes.

  “Yes, full-blooded. I’m sure Matriarch can shake out my family tree for you if you need proof.”

  “I could certainly get that from Muriel, and will at some point, but it’s not pressing at the moment. Both of your parents are capable telepaths, correct?”

  “Will, I thought I was supposed to be asking you questions.”

  “Well, that’s diversion if I’ve ever seen it.” All the same, he set the pen down onto the paper and lay back on the bed again. “Go ahead.”