Free Touching Rune by S. E. Smith Page A

delivery truck. As far as her clothing, she planned to use her feminine wiles to get into our bed. Her ‘little’ girl vulnerability is just an act. She will show her true colors in the morning when she has more time to think. Just wait. I bet she will be trying to seduce us both with a flutter of those long lashes.”
    Dimitri touched his sore nose and looked skeptically at Sergei. “Well, my nose and balls will have to wait and see if her attempts to seduce are better than her earlier try.”
    Sergei shrugged. “We startled her,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “Just wait. She will be different once daylight is upon us.”
    Dimitri shook his head as a yawn threatened to escape. “Well, I need a few hours of sleep before we discover where our mysterious visitor is from,” he said, standing up.
    Sergei frowned and stood as well. His eyes glanced toward the closed bedroom door. Unfamiliar doubt swept into his mind.
    “I sleep on the left,” Dimitri commented. “You can take the right side. That way we know she will not try to escape from us.”
    Sergei’s eyes lit up with relief and he grinned. “It will be interesting to see how she reacts to us being in bed with her.”
    “I look forward to it,” Dimitri said as he set his glass on the small end table between the chairs. “I want her so damn bad that I really hope she plans to seduce us both.”
    Sergei’s eyes darkened as he set his own glass down. “You are not the only one, my friend,” he muttered under his breath.
    *.*.*
    Rune rolled, again. Her sisters always complained when one of them had to sleep with her. She was a sprawler. She took up the entire bed. Arms and legs spread out in blissful abandon. Sometimes she slept on her stomach, sometimes on her back but always taking up every inch of the narrow bed. She groaned when her foot moved again, searching to peek out from under the covers to see how cold it was. She needed to pee and hated getting up when it was cold. The trip to the water closet as the last term for the privy was called had always been a challenge on a cold morning.
    She was sprawled across a smooth but hard surface. She didn’t remember sharing her bed with her younger brother, Olaf. At ten and one, he was more bony than hard.
    Rune’s head popped up, her hair hanging down in a tangled mess around her face. She groaned when her foot encountered a hairy leg instead of a cold room. Either Aesa had become hairy for the winter or she had let one of the strays she loved so much into their bed again.
    “Aesa, you better have not let another mutt in my bed,” Rune grumbled. “Because if you haven’t, you’ve got more hair on your legs than Jorundr Hasteinson.”
    “Who is Aesa?” A deep, all too familiar voice asked, amused. “And do you always move so much in your sleep?”
    Rune’s eyes popped open in surprise before they widened. She really, really needed to pee. She looked into the amused, dark blue eyes staring up at her.
    “Privy,” she murmured huskily.
    Dimitri’s lips twitched and he nodded his head to the right. “Through there,” he replied.
    Rune didn’t wait. She got to her hands and knees and began crawling across the massive bed. She murmured an apology when she accidentally put her knee on a sensitive spot on the other warm body in the bed. Her eyes glanced up into the dark brown eyes of the man she was crawling over. He was hard as well but his chest was covered in dark hair. She grimaced when she saw the speculative look on his face. Obviously her foot had encountered neither a stray mutt nor her sister’s suddenly hair leg.
    “Sorry, have to go to the privy,” Rune muttered.
    “Just be careful,” Sergei muttered as her other knee pressed against his family jewels.
    “Sorry,” Rune muttered again as she half slid, half fell out of the bed. She paused for a moment before looking at the two men who were lying in the huge bed behind her. “Thank you for small blessings. Tisn’t freezing!”