So she told him, the man who was her own private legend, and he fulfilled her every secret desire, tasting and touching and pleasing her. He worshipped her body with his passion, celebrated their child in her womb with gentle kisses, kisses that lost their gentleness and became hot and hungry against her hips and blazed into flowing heat between her thighs.
Plunging her hands into his thick dark hair, she rose up against him, crying his name over and over.
Gavrael.
And after she’d run out of demands—or simply had been sated beyond coherent thought—he knelt on the bed, pulled her astride him, and wrapped her long legs around his waist. Her nails scored his back as he lowered her onto his hard shaft one exquisite inch at a time.
“You can’t harm the baby, Gavrael,” she assured him, panting softly as he held her away, giving her but a tiny taste of what she so desperately wanted.
“I’m not worried about that,” he assured her.
“Then why … are … you … going so slow?”
“To watch your face,” he said with a lazy smile. “I love to watch your eyes when we make love. I see every bit of pleasure, every ounce of desire reflected in them.”
“They’ll look even better if you’ll just—” She pushed against him with her hips and, laughing, he held her away with his strong hands on her waist.
Jillian nearly wailed. “Please!”
But he took his sweet time—and how sweet it was—until she thought she could no longer bear it. Then, abruptly, he buried himself deep within her. “I love you, Jillian McIllioch.” His accompanying smile was uninhibited, his white teeth flashing against his dark face.
She laid a finger to his lips. “I know,” she assured him.
“But I wanted to say the words.” He caught her finger between his lips and kissed it.
“I see,” she teased. “You get to say all the love words while I have to say all the bawdy ones.”
He made a rumble low in his throat. “I love it when you tell me what you want me to do to you.”
“Then do this …” Her low rush of words dissolved into a satisfied cry as he fulfilled her demand.
Hours later, her last conscious thought was that she should not forget to mention to Adrienne that the “general consensus” about Berserkers could not even begin to touch the reality.
EPILOGUE
“I DOONA UNDERSTAND IT,” RONIN SAID, WATCHING THE lads. He shook his head. “It’s never happened before.”
“I doona either, Da. But something is different about me from any of the McIllioch males before. Either that, or there’s something different about Jillian. Perhaps it’s both of us.”
“How do you keep up with them?”
Gavrael laughed, a rich sound. “Between Jillian and me, we manage.”
“But with them being, you know, the way they are so young, aren’t they constantly getting into mischief?”
“Not to mention impossibly high places. They’re forever pulling off incredible feats, and if you ask me, they’re just a little too damned smart for anyone’s good. It’s almost more than any one Berserker could be expected to keep up with. That’s why I think it would be useful to have their grandda around too,” Gavrael said pointedly.
The flush of pleasure on Ronin’s cheeks was unmistakable. “You mean you want me to stay here with you and Jillian?”
“Maldebann is home, Da. I know you felt Jillian and I needed the privacy of newlyweds, but we wish you would come home for good. Both you and Balder; the lads need their great-uncle too. Remember, we McIllioch are the stuff of legends, and how will they come to understand the legends without the finest of our Berserkers to teach them? Quit visiting all those people you’ve been dropping in on and come home.” Gavrael studied him out of the corner of his eyes and knew Ronin would not leave Maldebann again. The thought gave him great satisfaction. His sons should know their grandda. Not merely as an intermittent visitor, but as a steady influence.
In a contented silence that bordered on awe, Gavrael and Ronin watched the three young boys playing on the lawn. When Jillian stepped out into the sunshine, her sons looked up as one, as if they could sense her presence. They stopped playing and ranged in around their mother, vying for attention.
“Now, there’s a beautiful sight,” Ronin said reverently.
“Aye,” Gavrael agreed.
Jillian laughed as she tousled the heads of her three young sons and smiled into three pairs of ice-blue eyes.
A NORSE LEGEND