Chapter Eleven

Let the games begin….

Angela was in the dark…in more ways than one.

Magnus had been gone for what seemed like a long time. She'd heard the shower running, but that had ended at least fifteen minutes ago…though it was hard to judge time with her eyes blindfolded.

He had been right about one thing, though: cutting off her vision had indeed heightened her other senses. She was more aware of her own body than if she'd been looking in a mirror or touching herself. Where did that latter thought come from? Fine hairs stood out all over her skin. Her nipples were turgid and upright; she knew that without seeing them, because they literally ached for touch—Magnus's touch…or his mouth. Hot liquid pooled between her legs at the image in her mind, and she squirmed restlessly on the bed.

"Magnus," she whispered, sensing his presence in the room. Yes, she could smell the pungent scent of Irish Spring soap. And she could swear she felt his body heat as he drew closer.

"Yea, sweetling, I am back. Did you miss me?"

Is that a trick question? She nodded.

"Speechless, are you? Now, that is a wonder."

"Are you mocking me?"

"Nay, just gazing at your body…and wondering where to begin. Do you have any preferences?"

Man, oh, man, is that a loaded question? "Come lie down beside me. I want to feel your body heat."

He did as she asked, placing himself on his side, up against her, very close. She imagined his head was propped on one hand. She could feel a hard part of him prodding her hip. "Are you cold?"

She laughed. "Are you kidding? I'm hot, hot, hot."

He laughed, too, a low, throaty chuckle. Then he placed one hand gently on the side of her neck and leaned down to kiss her.

She whimpered at that mere whisper of a caress, so needy was she already for his touch.

His lips moved over hers, persuading her to open for him. Then his tongue delved inside, exploring her moistness before stroking in and out with carnal hunger. The kiss went on forever, employing both hard and soft lips; tongue; and teeth, till Angela's whimper became a continuous vocal moan of arousal.

Only then did he move to new territory.

He stroked her shaven armpits and kissed her there…first one side, then the other. "I like the way women in your land are clean-shaven here, and on your legs. It makes you different from us men, as if there are not enough differences." His lips tickled, and she shivered with pleasure. "And you smell good, too."

Thank goodness for Lady Speed Stick .

He touched the tips of her breasts with the tips of his fingers, and she arched upward at the sheer ecstasy. For a long time he fondled her breasts, teasing them to a throbbing ache, till finally she moaned, "Please."

"Please what, dearling?" he replied, his warm breath blowing on one distended nipple.

He knew what she wanted. He knew, but he was going to force her to say it.

Pride goeth before the fall . Wasn't that how that old saying went? Well, she was falling fast. "Please put your mouth on me."

"And?"

She moaned. "Suckle me."

That hard part of him jerked against her side, but then he put his mouth over her right nipple and began to suck. His mouth was so very hot and wet. The rhythmic action of his lips was so tantalizing that Angela did the unthinkable.

She climaxed.

She stiffened and tried to stop the small ripples that passed through her female parts, inside and out.

Magnus raised his head and seemed to understand what was going on, because he placed a palm over her pubic area.

Oh, Lord! How mortifying!

And then he gave similar attention to her other breast, which caused the ripples to continue, seemingly without end. She writhed from side to side, trying to remove his mouth from her breast, but he held fast, and pressed his palm harder against her mound.

When she was done, tears streamed down her face. "I am so embarrassed."

"Why?" Genuine surprise rang in his voice. "I love how responsive your body is. Do you not know how much pleasure I get from your pleasure?"

She felt him use the edge of a sheet to gently wipe away her tears. Then she lost her sense of where he was. Oh, no! Oh, geez! When had her legs gone widespread? Was Magnus really kneeling between them, as she suspected? And why was he so quiet?

"What are you doing?" There was a nervous gurgle to her voice.

"Just looking."

Oh, geez! Don't be looking. Not there . "Looking?" The gurgle was more pronounced. "At what?"

"You."

"There?"

"There."

Is this not every woman's nightmare? All her private secrets exposed? Her most intimate parts examined…and possibly found wanting? "Well, don't," she said, and tried to push him away with her knees and feet. The unsuccessful maneuver left her knees bent and her legs even wider apart.

He just laughed. "Do not go shy on me now, sweetling. You are beautiful there ."

Oh, my goodness! "What are you doing now?"

"Still looking."

I am going to give him till the count of five, and then I am going to insist that he stop…looking. One, two… But then she felt his breath there and she lost her power of speech…or ability to count.

Magnus pressed one palm flat on her lower stomach and trailed the fingertips of the other hand over her pubic hair, barely touching, just a hint of a caress. He did it over and over till she wanted to scream out her yearning.

But then he moved to more interesting territory—the hot, slick channel between her legs. Suddenly she felt something inside her. So surprised was she that she yelped, "Magnus! Is that you…your penis?"

"Angela!" Magnus exclaimed indignantly. "You malign me greatly. 'Twas a mere finger." He withdrew it instantly.

In retrospect, she should have known the difference, but with her eyes blindfolded how was she to tell? She giggled at her mistake.

"You find humor in making mock of my manliness, do you, wench?" There was amusement in his voice now. "Ne'er have I had a woman compare my man part to a finger afore. The skalds would write a saga about this event, if they ever found out…which they will not. ‘Magnus the Needle-Cock' or some such ignominious title, I would imagine."

"Really, Magnus, you make much ado about nothing."

"Ha! Do not ever tell a man the size of his man part is nothing."

Angela was about to tell Magnus that he had nothing to worry about in that department when he began to touch her most sensitive places with light strokes that bespoke an expertise she didn't want to think about. When the light strokes turned to thrumming vibrations against the heart of her, she felt a new climax coming, and she didn't want it to happen this way again.

"Enough, Magnus! Untie me. I do not want to come again without seeing you, or touching you."

"You are a demanding mistress," he said in a growl, but immediately followed her commands. Thank God!

She blinked her eyes several times to adjust to the light. Then she noticed how she lay spread-legged on the bed with Magnus kneeling between her thighs. The erection that stood out from the thatch of hair at his groin was thick and blue-veined and very, very impressive…a compliment to herself, she chose to believe.

Opening her arms, she leaned upward, "Come here, darling. Enough games! Let's make love."

"Whate'er you say, dearling." Magnus braced his elbows on either side of her head and gently settled his much heavier body over hers. Then, holding her eyes, with his fingertips bracketing her face, he began to enter her…inch by glorious inch by glorious inch…till she was full with him.

She whimpered softly, but not from pain. It was all the delicious sensation assailing her. Magnus spasmed slightly as her inner walls shifted around him. Her breasts ached with torturous ecstasy. Her heart thrummed madly.

"Come …with me ," he encouraged.

As if she needed such encouragement!

At first he withdrew and entered her with long, slow strokes that were a delicious torment. Her body was tensing for some cataclysmic event, and she wanted more. "Harder! Quicker!" she finally pleaded. I can't believe I actually said that aloud . But her arousal was making her frantic, clouding her mind, loosing her tongue.

Instead he moved even slower. But he was panting as he did so, and Angela knew he was as turned on as she was. He was just able to control it better.

She pounded his chest with her fists when the stubborn man stopped altogether, fully imbedded, and watched the play of emotions on her face, especially when he deliberately shifted his hips from side to side, just once, and a miniorgasm caused her to convulse around him. "Oh, oh, oh…" she cried out.

Now he would surely start the real business. Now he would end this pleasure-pain that had her writhing from side to side, keening endlessly. Wouldn't he?

No .

Instead, in one fluid motion he sat up on his heels, bringing her with him so that she straddled his thighs. "Like this, Angela," he said huskily. He began to thrust his hips against hers and at the same time put his hands on her buttocks to show her the counterpoint rhythm he wanted her to follow.

Her orgasm came as she bucked against his belly, the pistonlike strokes of his penis inflaming her senses. But it was not enough. Even as she convulsed around him, he continued to pound her, and she wanted more. She threw her head back and strained against the terrible/wonderful tension that continued to ripple over her entire body. When he leaned his head down and took one breast into his mouth and bit gently on the nipple, she climaxed instantly…a hard, dramatic spasming that started in her woman folds and went out in seemingly endless waves to her belly and breasts and down her thighs.

When that died down, she realized that she was on her back once again. As she was inhaling and exhaling harshly to catch her breath, another realization came to her: they were not nearly finished, and Magnus—her magnificent Viking—still hard as a rock and positioned at the edge of her cleft, had not been satisfied…yet.

"Are you ready?" His brown eyes were glazed golden with passion. His lips were parted and panting. His nostrils were flared as he attempted to control his surely approaching climax.

Need you ask? "No, I'm not ready. I mean, yes, I'm ready, but don't you think we should wait—"

Whoosh! He was in her again, and this time he meant business. No playful jests. No games. No half-sex, or extended foreplay. This was the big time. She saw that in the serious expression on Magnus's face, and the purely masculine growl he emitted as he began to plunge into her hard and fast, the way she had wanted it all along.

In, out, in, out, in, out, inoutinoutinout, in, out, in, out, in, out, inoutinoutinout, IIIINNNNN, OOOUUTT!

"Oh…my…God!"

"Oh…holy…Thor!"

Angela screamed.

Magnus howled.

They came together in such a powerful climax that Angela's body shook and Magnus's hands trembled. In the aftershocks that swept over them both, as Magnus finally grew limp within her, he fell upon her heavily and rested his face in her neck, which was damp with perspiration, hers and his both.

They fell asleep then, or passed out from lack of blood to the brain. But before they did, Magnus put his lips against her ear and whispered, "I knew it would be like this, heartling."

Heartling? I like that . "Like what?" she asked, caressing his hair and shoulders.

"Destiny is sweet," was all he said.

She couldn't argue with that.

Man (even virile Vikings) cannot live on love alone….

Magnus awakened a short time later, totally invigorated. There was naught like a good bout of swiving to replenish a man's juices.

He looked down at Angela, who was sleeping soundly beneath him. Poor lady! He had worn her out. He gave himself a mental pat on the back for his prowess, which apparently hadn't been diminished by a year of abstinence.

He was tired, too, but in a sated sort of way. Mostly he was hungry…famished, in fact. After all, he hadn't eaten since morn, when he'd consumed eight waffles, six sausage links, four scrambled eggs, and two slices of buttered toast.

Carefully he lifted himself off of Angela, gently kissed the mole above her lip, and eased his body off the bed. After visiting the bathing chamber, then pulling on a pair of jaw-keys, he made his way to the scullery. Opening the cold box, he leaned against the door and looked inside for a long time. What I would not give for a horn of mead! No such luck! He settled for half a carton of orange juice and drank it straight down in a series of long gulps. There was nothing else in the cold box that would satisfy his huge hunger…certainly not those thin slices of cheese in clear wrappers. So he called the dome-nose on the tell-of-own to order two large sausage-and-pepperoni pizzas. While he waited for the delivery, he settled down at the table with a bowl of granola—which was the same as grain and nuts, but tasted like bark—with milk and five spoonfuls of sugar. Who would have ever thought that he—a thirty-seven-year-old man—would be slurping up sugared milk, but there it was!

While he crunched away, he pulled a news sheet over toward him. He still had trouble deciphering all the written words in this land, but one thing stood out: the date. June 30, 2003. A stark reminder of what he had been able to forget this past hour.

Magnus closed his eyes for a moment and raked his fingers through his hair, which had come loose during his bed romping. When he opened his eyes again, the date was still there, and he could not ignore the fact. He must have time traveled. What other explanation was there?

He flipped through the news sheets. Everywhere were glaring examples of what he should have seen before. Men had traveled to the moon on spaceships, for the love of Odin! People had heart transplants. Women bragged of breast augmentations. Now, that is a type of surgery I would be interested in knowing more about . Then there was computer sex. That, too. Not that I know what a computer is . Drug busts. Police brutality. Middle-East wars. Animal cloning. Comic strips. Ah, who is this Hagar the Horrible? Methinks I would like to meet this dumb Norseman. He appears a fine, though misguided fellow . And sports. Well-muscled men in this time were paid vast treasures to run about on a field kicking a leather ball or knocking their com rades to the ground. He liked that concept. Mayhap he would become a football player, if forced to stay here. Then again, he was probably too old. Nay, old or not, that occupation did not really appeal. He would much rather be a farmer.

Magnus shook his head from side to side in confusion.

Had he really time traveled?

Why?

Would he stay here or time travel off somewhere else? If so, would it be back to his own time, or forward? Was he doomed to be an eternal time traveler? God's blood! That would be a living hell.

What should he do now?

Well, one thing was certain: he would have to disclose all to Angela. That was a task he did not relish. He needed fortification for the disbelief he was sure to encounter. Since mead was not available, he would have to settle for pizza.

One question kept nagging at him, though: How would Angela react to having made love with a thousand-year-old man?

You're a what…?

"Are you hungry, sweetling?"

Through a cloud of sleep, Angela heard Magnus's whispered question against her ear.

"Oh, no! Not again! I mean, really, Magnus, you are a magnificent lover, but let's not try to set an Olympic record here. Can't we save something for another day?"

A deep male voice chuckled as the mattress dipped and he sat on the edge of the bed. "Not that kind of hunger, you suspicious wench, you!" He tweaked the side of her breast. "And do not try to paint me as the only insatiable one in this bed, oh you of the pop-sigh-call trick. You told me we could try it later. I can hardly wait."

Angela's eyes flew wide open at that reminder of the outrageous suggestion she had made mere hours ago, and Magnus's more than willing agreement to follow through. That was when she noticed the box of pizza sitting on the mattress between her and the insufferable, grinning rogue. Oh , that kind of hunger .

"You called Domino's?" She sat up in bed and pulled the sheet around herself. A bit of belated modesty on her part. Very belated, if Magnus's arched eyebrows were any indication.

"I did," he said, placing a paper napkin on her lap and handing her a glass of iced soft drink. "1 already ate one."

She smiled at him. She was hungry, and she had soon devoured three slices and the entire glass of Pepsi.

"Now, about that pop-sigh-call trick?" Magnus asked silkily as he removed the box and glass from the bed and slid under the sheet with her.

Who knew Angela Abruzzi could set Olympic records?

Would wonders never cease?

Well, apparently not…because soon thereafter—with Magnus sitting up in bed propped against a pillow and the headboard, and she lying facedown on the bed, her face buried in her own pillow—Angela was hit smack-dab with the biggest wonder of them all.

"By the by, there is something important I must tell you," Magnus said in a voice that was surprisingly serious…and oddly nervous.

"Oh?" Her response was muffled by her pillow.

"I am a thousand years old."

"Yeah? And I'm sweet sixteen and virgin to the…uh, bone." Her voice was still muffled by the pillow.

"I am serious, Angela. I was born in the year 963. I reached my thirty-seventh year two months ago, in the year one thousand."

"Puhleeze!" She raised her head to look at Magnus. Even though he was sitting, his height was still immense.

He stared back at her, looking concerned. He kept flexing his hands in an agitated manner.

She rolled over on her back so she could see him better. "You're mighty virile for such an old man."

"Do not make mock of me, Angela."

"How can I not make fun of you? You're trying to say I just made love with a man old enough to be my grandfather more than fifty times removed."

"Precisely."

"This is a joke, right? Next, you will be proposing another one of your sex games, though I can't for the life of me think what the appeal would be in senior-citizen sex games."

"Huh?" Magnus scratched his head and appeared to ponder her words. "Exactly what would senior-citizen sex entail?"

"I haven't a clue." She had to laugh at his interest in what would surely be a perversion. But then she sat up and wrapped the sheet around herself, sarong-style. It was obvious Magnus had something he wanted to discuss, and it wasn't sex, despite his momentary curiosity about yet another fantasy game.

"I do not know how to tell you this, Angela, except to blurt it out. Alas, I am a time traveler."

"Ha, ha, ha! You and Jules Verne. Quit joking."

"I wish I were joking."

"Okay, big boy, exactly how long have you known you were a time traveler?"

"Since yestermorn. I was in the winery cellar with Miguel and noticed the date on the bottles from your last year of producing wines, It said 1997. That gave me my first clue."

She rubbed her forehead with one hand to erase the headache that was beginning to throb behind her eyelids. "There is no such thing as time travel, Magnus."

"That is what I would have thought…till yesterday. Now it is beginning to make sense."

"How could it possibly make sense? By the way, Flash Gordon, did you come by spaceship? Ha, ha, ha."

"I came by longship, not a spaceship. And what I meant by ‘making sense' is that all the wonders that have stunned me and my children since our arrival make sense when you consider that we are of another time."

"I do not believe in time travel. I'm sony, Magnus, but it just doesn't pass the giggle test."

"I do not believe in time travel, either, but…"

"But what?"

"I do believe in miracles."

"You're crazy."

Still crazy…the next morning…

They were in a nearby Barnes in truth, they were often fastidious to a fault. In addition, this Arab claimed that Vikings routinely had sex with their servants in front of everyone. Ironically, this move-he was based on a book that purportedly portrayed legendary events taking place in the tenth century…his very time period.

Finally Magnus began a series of five videos that were produced by Pea-Bee-Ess, entitled, Vikings , and narrated by a man with a fine Norse name, Magnus Magnusson. These were documentaries, according to Angela, and therefore more reliable historically. Some of the subtitles were, "Hammer of the North," "From the Fury of the Northmen," "Here King Harold Was Killed," "Halfdan Was Here," and "England at Bay." He was riveted to the screen by these mostly accurate portrayals of the Vikings of his time, and he was still watching closely when Angela returned early that evening.

"So what do you think?" she asked as she sank down to the carpet next to the sofa and gave him a quick greeting kiss. He liked the way people in this country gave each other greeting kisses, farewell kisses, congratulatory kisses, sympathy kisses, kisses for each and every occasion. He could become accustomed to that.

"I think that there are many false rumors perpetuated about Vikings," he answered, "but these last videos are interesting. Even I am learning things about my own people."

She smiled gently at him.

His heart tightened with emotion, just looking at this woman. He had only told her one time, back at the Blue Dragon, that he loved her, but Magnus feared it was so. At this late date, in these unbelievable circumstances, he was falling in love. And it might very well be an impossible love…one with no future. That was why he had not repeated the words. Then, too, she had never said the words to him.

"Would you like to go out for dinner?" she asked.

If you only knew what I would really like! Hot, perverted, blister-my-bones sex, but I would settle for plain sex…for now . "Nay. Can we not eat here?"

"Sure, but no more pizza."

Just sex . He laughed and chucked her playfully under the chin.

"How about if I cook a steak and baked potato, with a salad?"

And sex . "Whatever you want…though I could do without the weeds."

It was her turn to laugh. "Okay, I'll put the potatoes in the oven, but I won't start the steaks for an hour. I think I'll take a shower first." She rose to her feet by bracing one hand on the low table.

This must mean sex . "All right," he agreed, and stood as well.

"All right?" She cocked her head to the side in question.

"What? That was not an invitation?"

At first she seemed not to understand. Then she smiled her understanding. "You are insatiable."

Sex, sex, sex! "Yea, 'tis one of the best things about us Vikings…but you won't find it on any of these documentaries."

"The best-kept secret?" She giggled.

He loved it when a grown woman like Angela giggled. It made her appear girlish and not so lofty. Plus, it must mean sex . "Only our special women know about it," he proclaimed.

"And I am special?"

"Oh, lady, you are more than special…to me." And we are, for a certainty, going to have sex now .

As it turned out, they never got a chance to take their combined shower, or to eat the steak dinner, or to engage in sex. The tell-a-phone rang just then, and it was bad news from Grandma Rose. There was a huge fire at the Blue Dragon in one of the grape fields, and it had been deliberately set.