The Viking's Secret Heir - Chapter seven
She stiffened at his words, rearing away from him as if he had suggested something unthinkable. ‘Is that why you wish to help, so that you can receive bed favours in return?’
He laughed. ‘Odin’s teeth, no! Why would you imagine such a thing? Besides, you have me at your mercy. I cannot return to my father without my arm ring—it is precious to my family, and believe me, I will not ravish you!’
Offence turned her eyes stormy, and her hand dropped to the small swell of her belly defensively. ‘I am not that big yet! The babe isn’t due until after yule.’
A prickle of awareness ran down his spine. ‘Before yule…surely?’
Her eyes widened a little, but then she shrugged. ‘First-born children always come late. Every woman knows that.’
He didn’t know if that was true or not. ‘Well, I only meant that I could not ravish you—at least not yet.’ He winked at her and a blush crept up her neck, as he went on to explain, ‘I am still as weak as a lamb.’ He gave a dramatic sigh as he flopped back onto the bed, and she chuckled at his foolishness. A thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘Where have you been sleeping? There are no other beds.’
‘I can sleep on a pallet beside the fire—we keep one beneath the bed.’
‘Why would you do that, when there is a large comfortable bed here?’ He opened the blanket, and patted the space beside him. ‘You slept beside Heimdall, did you not?’
She stared at the open space of the bed, as if deliberating over something. Eventually she nodded. ‘Of course I did.’
Was it wishful thinking, or did she sound as if she were lying?
‘Then…what is the problem?’
‘I am a free woman. I no longer have to do what a man tells me.’
All amusement dropped from his body. Had she felt compelled to sleep with him before? His gut said no, but he watched her carefully as he spoke. ‘I would never force a woman.’ She nodded in agreement and relief eased the tension in his shoulders. He gave her a playful smile, hoping to coax another delightful laugh from her. ‘You must think of the child! Sleeping on a thin pallet cannot be good for them.’
Kendra huffed at his words, but seemed to accept them. She stood, slipped off her boots, and unpinned her plain brown apron dress, folding it carefully and placing it on the nearby chair.
The firelight shone through her threadbare shift, showing the curves and dips of her body. He stiffened in response, contradicting his words of weakness from before. His fingers itched to reach out and pull her close, but he was afraid that if he did, she might disappear into the night like smoke, as she had once before.
‘Please tell me you do not snore,’ she grumbled, as she settled beside him, her back towards him.
A thorn of pain snared on his heart and dragged across it. ‘I do not know…but this time you will stay long enough to find out.’