Day 26 - Distractions
"Hiccup?" Astrid looked over from her badly scribbled doodle of Stormfly to her boyfriend, who was bent over his own drawings. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Mm," he replied in answer, his gaze not moving from his sketch. Stretching out on their stomachs, side-by-side in front of the fireplace, the two were warming up after being caught in a sudden downpour. He'd just been walking her home from the dragon stables when the storm struck, but instead of splitting off to sprint for his own house, he'd so gentlemanly brought her the entire way to her front door. Upon seeing her daughter and the chief's son dripping wet on her porch, Slugdora Hofferson immediately wrapped them in furs and insisted Hiccup stay for dinner. Astrid didn't try and conceal her delight.
She rested her cheek on her hand, stealing a peek at the blueprint he was drawing for a new prosthetic. The current one, her bare toes were currently exploring. Her cheeks were warm, but she hoped it was from the fire, not evidence of her embarrassment. "Do I… distract you?"
Hiccup's brow furrowed, and he lifted the charcoal from the paper to glance up at her. They lay a couple of feet apart, except where Astrid's feet were toying with his calves, but even from that distance, his gaze felt like a warm stroke down her spine. "What do you mean?"
Astrid twisted her lips thoughtfully and shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "I dunno. Nevermind."
He gave a short laugh and lowered his voice so that her mother wouldn't hear from the kitchen. "I thought you did a sufficiently good job distracting me in the forge last night," he reminded her, and she resisted a smile at the thought of snaking her hands around his waist while he measured support rods. That had led to more fun than could be discussed with her parents within earshot.
"That's kind of what I mean," she replied, matching his quiet tone. Suddenly wishing she hadn't brought up the subject at all, she picked up her own charcoal and traced Stormfly's outline. "I went there to read last night. Just hang out. But when you're around…" Astrid nibbled at her lower lip and looked at him from beneath her lashes. "I don't know. I can't keep my hands off of you."
She saw a dorky kind of cocky grin breaking on his face and had to resist the urge to kiss those stupid lips. "So," he began slowly, his eyes glittering with amusement, "what you're asking is…"
Astrid distracted herself with shading her Nadder's wings. She muttered, "…if you desire me like that."
From what she could see without looking up, there was a sexy, mischievous twinge to his expression. Hiccup took a breath and opened his mouth to answer her, but then her mother suddenly bellowed, making Astrid jump and twist her head toward the kitchen.
"Dinner's ready!"
When she looked back at Hiccup, he was pressing his lips together, but that entertained glint still occupied his eye. "C'mon," he told her. He set down his charcoal and pushed up to his feet. "It smells good."
She frowned, but accepted the hand he proffered and led him toward the kitchen. Spoilspit the Sinister was already taking up half of one of the bench-like seats at the table, nursing a mug of mead as he removed his helmet. Slugdora stood by the stove, ladling delicious smelling stew into separate bowls. As Astrid and Hiccup took up the other side of the table, she set the food down in front of them.
"Looks delicious," Hiccup told the woman as she fixed everyone's drinks before sitting down herself. It wasn't an odd occurrence that he shared a meal with the Hoffersons, especially since they'd been dating for a few years now, but he always eyed her mother's cooking like the way Meatlug looked at rocks. It made her wonder exactly how bad of a cook her boyfriend and their chief were, if neither of them ever ate a decent meal.
"Aye, well, it's not as good as Astrid's." Slugdora sighed as she took her first bite. Her husband glanced sideways at her, his own spoon paused halfway between his bowl and mouth. "She cooks all the time. She's very good at it."
"Mom, don't lie." Astrid said flatly. She'd forgotten this particular part of having Hiccup dine with her family. The never-ending hints.
"I'm not!" her mother insisted. "Remember last week? The mutton?"
The younger viking woman pinned her mother with a glance. "It was black."
Beside her, she heard Hiccup stifle a snort. The hints weren't unfamiliar to him either. It eased Astrid's mind to know he didn't feel as horrified at her parents' behavior as she did.
"Anyways, skill with cooking comes with practice," her mother rambled on. She was a burly, intimidating woman, but as anyone in the village knew after ten minutes of speaking to her, Slugdora was as much a mother as any woman half her size. Meaning, she constantly badgered her daughter, smacking the girl on the arm and growling, "Yeh better not be letting tha' boy shear the wool without buying the sheep first."
To which Astrid always replied, "I'll tell you whatever you want to hear, as long as you never refer to me as livestock again."
There was a warm pressure on her knee, drawing her out of her thoughts. Her boyfriend smiled next to her, but didn't meet her questioning gaze. His eyes were on his bowl of stew, which he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying. His hand gave her knee a comforting squeeze, and she relaxed.
"I mean, there's much more important things anyways. Like being able to protect yer children." Her mother blew innocently on a spoonful of hot broth. "That's why we always encouraged Astrid to push herself when it came to dragon training."
"Nope," the girl in question negated through a mouthful of potatoes and meat. "Definitely for Uncle Finn."
Hiccup's fingers were beginning to circle the inside of her knee with slow, gentle swirls. The action made her toes curl beneath the table, and the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Why his fingertips felt like fire outside her leggings, she could only imagine, but she parted her thighs a little as an invitation for more. From above the table, her boyfriend appeared engrossed in her mother's prattle, but below it, his hand was obviously interested in other things.
"How's the piping project been comin' along?" her father asked Hiccup, unaware of the way the young man's fingers were stroking up and down his daughter's inner thigh. "Think yeh'll be able ta start building soon?"
The chief's son nodded and swallowed the bite he'd been chewing. "Everything's drawn out, and Gobber and I have calculated materials and expenses. Dad was planning on discussing it at the next meeting."
Astrid's breath hitched when his hand slipped beneath her skirt. She quickly picked up her mug and took a long draw, hoping it disguised the expression of surprise on her face. Cutting her gaze to him, she tried not to appear as baffled and aroused as she felt.
The corners of his mouth only twitched in reply. He didn't so much as look at her.
"Would be good for the island," Spoilspit commented, stirring his stew with a beefy hand. "Save time and effort recovering from fires, save on lumber." If Astrid wasn't so distracted by the way her boyfriend was inching beneath the pleats of her skirt, she would be beaming over how well Hiccup and her father got along.
"Would yer uncle be helping out with the building?"
"Probably. It'll be a huge undertaking. Most of the villagers'll end up doing stuff here and there."
"Ah. Yeh know he's been hinting at a marriage contract, correct?"
Astrid inhaled sharply. Hiccup's hand went still for a moment, but then his palm pressed gently at the apex of her thighs. Her mouth dropped open, and she was unsure whether it was because of her father's sudden change of subject or the delicious pressure under the table.
"Sir?" Her boyfriend's brows knit together, but he looked less concerned and more confused. His fingers searched the soft place they'd found, working gently at the seam running down her center.
She worried she might choke on her own tongue. Her face growing warm, she picked up her spoon with a trembling hand and tried not to meet either of her parents' gaze.
"For Astrid and your cousin," Spoilspit elaborated. His daughter spluttered as he scraped the bottom of his bowl.
"Dad!" she blurted. Her cheeks must have been bright red, and her gasp of shock almost came out as a breathy moan when Hiccup's fingertips located a little spot he knew very well. "Not you too!"
If anything, the grin playing on Hiccup's lips grew as he shook his head. "No, sir. I hadn't heard that." He turned his amused gaze on his girlfriend. "Did you know about that?"
Just as Astrid opened her mouth to speak, the fingers between her thighs performed a trick that made her tongue stop working. She only stammered blankly, feeling a little ire growing as the other three pairs of eyes stared. Yes. How hard was the word yes? With Hiccup's hand searching deeper into her lap– hard. Very hard.
"Wasn't important," she finally managed, swallowing hard. His little game had started out fun, but now that her breath was becoming heavy, it was getting torturous and dangerous. Why, for the love of Freya, did that make her want him even more?
"I think it's important," her mother chimed in. She pointed her mug at the girl. "Yeh shouldn't brush him off so easily. Marriage proposals don't happen every day." The fingers stumbled at that one.
"Oh, gods!" Astrid's hands grabbed the edge of the table with a white-knuckled grip. Was that her irritation speaking? Her humiliation? Or the damned hand mimicking things she wanted from a much different body part? Her poor circulatory system must have been flustered beyond reason, what with all her blood wanting to flood to one polarity or the other. The mix of emotions and physical reactions was almost painful.
She wanted the floor to swallow her whole. She wanted to never invite Hiccup over again. She also wanted to brandish her axe and show her parents exactly what she thought of their hints. But most of all, she wanted the young viking at her side sprawled beneath her, worked as hot and frustrated as she currently was.
She turned on her boyfriend, her expression feral. "Would you please stop this?" Surely he would know whether she meant what was happening above the table or below it. Gods knew she didn't.
Hiccup blinked and then met her gaze. "What? Oh, sorry… I was distracted."