Free Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) by Susan Fanetti Page A

shoulders, and then her head. He caught the fabric of her headscarf in his fingers and tugged. As it fell loose from her dark hair, it caught in the knotted braid at her nape and unwound it. Her heavy plait dropped over his hand.
     
    He had never seen her hair unwound, and he felt a powerful need to see it now. To see all of her, to feel her.
     
    This woman. She had been brutalized. Enslaved. Wrested from her family. And yet she carried no ill will. Calm surrounded her. Even when she had borne a rope around her neck, that had been true. She lived among men who had savaged her, who had killed many of her people, and she had made them her friends. Her serenity infused the people near her.
     
    She gave Leif peace. She eased his heart.
     
    Could he have her? Could he bring her to Geitland and begin a new life? Was that fair to her? Did it honor her in the way she deserved?
     
    He didn’t know. But he’d heard the words she’d said, the desire she’d expressed. The intent.
     
    “Olga,” he murmured, wrapping her braid around his hand. “I don’t wish you to know more pain.”
     
    “Then do not hurt me,” she whispered back and rose to her toes.
     
    Leif bent to her and claimed her parted mouth with his.
     

 
     
     

     
    Leif’s mouth touched hers, just softly, and Olga sighed at the caress of his warm lips. He lifted away, a hairsbreadth, and then returned, covering her mouth so that she felt the wet of him. At the press of his tongue against her lips, she opened for him.
     
    At that, hesitation disappeared between them. Leif groaned into her mouth, and his arms tightened around her. Olga wrapped her arms around his neck and grabbed fistfuls of his long hair. When she tugged, he made an animal noise, feral and needful, and then her feet left the floor. He’d stood straight and taken her with him so that she dangled against his body.
     
    Men’s mouths had been on her before, but never like this. Everything Leif did, he seemed to be asking her, with only touch, to follow. And she did. Their tongues slid together, their heads moved to and fro, and there was a rhythm that seemed to be known to them both, even this first time.
     
    He groaned again, the sound trapped in her mouth, only for her, and swept an arm under her bottom, shifting her so that she was cradled in his arms. The brisk sensuality of the move shocked her, and she gasped.
     
    The kiss broken, Leif opened his eyes. They were so blue, like the deepest part of the sea. And alight with desire for her.
     
    “This is what you want?”
     
    Olga nodded and pulled on his hair, wanting his mouth on hers again. “ Jah . Giving, not taking.”
     
    “Yes.” He kissed her again, lingering as he turned and headed toward the doorway that would take them to his room.
     
    “No. My room,” she corrected. “So that Vali can find me if I’m needed.”
     
    Leif stopped, and in his expression Olga saw second thoughts. Indeed, he said, “There has been so much loss tonight. Perhaps it’s not—”
     
    “Hush,” she interrupted, knowing the concern he meant to voice. “Now is the time. This place needs good to heal. What is between us is good. You feel that, yes?”
     
    “Yes. I do.”
     
    “Then now is the time.”
     
    They searched each other’s eyes for a moment. Olga sought for more conflict in his, but at last she found none. He was with her.
     
    He turned and crossed the hall, carrying her to her room.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    “You deserve a grander room,” Leif said as she set the bar across her door.
     
    She liked her cozy space—much smaller than the suites of rooms Leif, Vali, and Brenna and the other raiders had, but more luxurious than any home she’d had before, even including her husband’s officer’s quarters. And because she was not far from the kitchen, her room was generally warmer than the more elegant chambers above. The stone walls drew and held the heat of the cooking fires.
     
    Among the villagers, Olga’s