Today's guest is my amazing mythological-smutwriting-twin, Samantha MacLeod, with an excerpt from her latest Norse story Death and Beauty:
Baldr the Beautiful is dead.
Desperate to get back to his privileged role as Óðinn’s favorite son, Baldr strikes a bargain with Hel, the terrifying half living and half skeletal queen of the realm of the dead. He offers her the only thing he’s got: knowledge from the living world. Hel gives him three days. If he can teach her something new, she will return him to the realms of the living.
But the icy Hel seems completely impervious to Baldr’s charms. What’s worse, she already knows everything. By the end of the third day, Baldr realizes he’s only got one chance left to impress her.
Returning to his former life looks like it’s going to depend on Baldr the Beautiful seducing the most formidable woman in the Nine Realms.
I pulled Hel into my arms and kissed her.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, if her lips would be silky, like her arm, or if I’d feel the hard scrape of bone against my mouth, but I couldn’t resist any longer. She looked so innocent, and so scared. I wanted to comfort her.
I wanted to taste her.
Her lips felt soft and full against mine. I moved across them gently, feeling the hiss of air as she inhaled, then smiled before kissing her again, more urgently, tilting my head to meet her. I wrapped my arm around her waist, running my hand over the rough cloth of her ridiculously ugly dress as I pressed against her, asking for more.
She pulled back, shaking her head. “I don’t know how to kiss,” she said, her voice shaky and her breath uneven.
“You’re doing just fine.” I already missed her soft weight in my arms.
She took a deep breath and smoothed the front of her dress. Her shoulders trembled. “I should lie down,” she said, looking at the petal-strewn grass beneath her feet.
Something golden flashed in the space between us. I froze. Hel panted as she stared intently at the ground. And with each ragged exhale, something flickered across her skin, like a slow ripple of light over water. When I wrapped my fingers gently around her wrist, the pulse of light flashed again, stronger and brighter.
“Do you want to lie down?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Yes. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t…”
I stepped closer, turning my waist so I didn’t impale her with my hard-on, and leaned into her neck, running my lips softly along her skin as I reached around her back for the seam of that horrible dress. I kissed her lightly, listening to her breath catch in her throat as I unbuckled the row of clasps along her back. Her pulse raced, and golden sparks sizzled across her skin as I touched her. I wondered if she noticed them.
When the last clasp was undone, I raised my hand to her shoulder and gently slid the dress down her arms and over her waist. Then I stepped back, smiling at her.
She had a surprisingly lovely body, curvy and soft. Her single breast was every bit as perfect as I’d imagined. Even her skeletal side seemed vulnerable, not terrifying. I realized I might be the first person to actually see Hel naked. The ripples of light flashed faster and brighter now, obscuring her body as they washed over her. No, maybe not obscuring. It was almost as if there was something else underneath.
Hel hesitated, her brow furrowing. The ripples of light stopped moving over her body, and I realized she was holding her breath. She looked like she was about to cry.
“You okay?” I asked, wrapping my hand around her waist.
“You’re looking at me,” she whispered.
I kissed her again. This time she opened for me, leaning into me, allowing me to explore her secret, hidden places with my tongue. I fell into our kiss, pulling her chest to mine, feeling her breast swell against me as her breast rose with frantic, panting breaths.
“I like looking at you,” I said, when we pulled apart. “You’re fascinating.”
She trembled, hiding her face against my neck, and I realized the truth of my words. Hel was fascinating; she was the single most fascinating woman I’d ever met.
“Let’s lie down,” I said.
Hel nodded and pulled back, stepping out of her dress. She didn’t meet my eyes as she lay down on the petal-strewn grass. Her naked body flashed and rippled with light. I didn’t dare ask about it.
“Will it hurt?” she asked. “I’ve read that it hurts, the first time.”
I lay down next to her living side, weaving my fingers with hers. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I brought her hand to my lips and kissed every finger, moving slowly, watching her chest rise and fall. Sometimes, as the web of light surrounding her rippled and crackled, I could see two breasts, their twin nipples tight as rosebuds.
I turned her hand over and brought my lips to her wrist, feeling her pulse race against my mouth. My lips moved slowly up her arm, kissing her as the golden light surged around me. She was gasping by the time I reached her chest; she cried out when I closed my lips over her nipple. Her scent overwhelmed me, and I struggled with the dull throb in my groin. Oh, damn, I wanted her.
I closed my teeth gently around the hard bud of her nipple, and her back arched beneath me. My hand slid down, leaving the soft curve of her chest and caressing her stomach. Her breath stuttered as my hand reached her thighs. I gave Hel’s perfect breast one final kiss and watched her face as my fingers moved between her legs.
Her eyes closed. Both eyes, although I hadn’t been certain her skeletal half had an eyelid. The golden light poured over her now, pulsing in rhythm with her breathing, and her lips parted.
I caressed the curls outside her sex, waiting and watching for her reaction. Hel groaned, moving her hips into my hand, and I slipped a finger into her folds. She was slick and wet; heat poured from her, bathing my palm. My hand circled her lips, pressing gently as she panted under me, searching for the tight little bud at the apex of her sex.
She gasped when I found it, and her legs tensed around my hand. For a moment I thought that was enough, that I’d brought her to climax with one touch. But she lifted her hips again, moaning a single word.
“More.”
Death and Beauty can be pre-ordered (or bought from 20th June) at
Born and raised in Colorado, Samantha MacLeod has lived in every time zone in the US, and London. She has a bachelor’s degree from Colby College and an M.A. from the University of Chicago; yes, the U. of C. really is where fun comes to die.
Samantha lives with her husband and two small children in the woods of southern Maine. When she’s not shoveling snow or writing steamy sex scenes, Samantha can be found teaching college composition and philosophy to undergraduates who have no idea she leads a double life as an erotica author.
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