Page 68 of The Outlaw Viking

“Well, there are probably some especially excruciating Viking tortures you would employ. Like…oh, tickling a person to death. But I’m not ticklish, so that wouldn’t work. Although, if you used a feather, and I was naked, and you were naked—”

Selik made a raw sound low in his throat and clapped a hand across her mouth. “Enough, wench! Do not think to sidetrack me with all these suggestive words. What I just might do if you persist is find that bloody G-spot of yours, then dig it out and nail it to your forehead for all the world to see what a wanton tease you are.”

Rain waited until he removed his hand from her mouth a short time later and commented in a deliberately innocent voice, “So do you think you know where it is located?”

“What?”

“My G-spot?”

Rain heard a short, strangled sound; then Selik surprised her by cupping the apex of her femininity, through the linen cloth of her slacks, and pressing a thumb against the area just above the pubic bone. “Yea. ’Tis just about here. On the inside, of course.”

Rain looked up at him in surprise, astonished that he understood feminine anatomy so well and that, with all her talk of modern sexual manuals and female satisfaction, he had understood only too well every word she’d spoken. Despite his still grim features, he winked at her with supreme masculine conceit.

“Some things a man just knows, without the book-learning.”

Rain was the one who made a choking sound then.

When they got back to Gyda’s house, everyone was sitting down at the long tables eating dinner—those of more importance, like Gyda and her family, at the head and, at the other end, Selik’s retainers, particularly the captives-turned-soldiers. In an infuriating move, Selik grabbed Rain by the scruff of the neck and pulled her along at a rapid pace toward the head table, as if to show his authority over an errant slave.

Selik sat in the high-backed chair Gyda indicated and forced Rain to sit on a lower stool at his side which he directed a servant to bring forth. Like a dog, she thought, practically gnashing her teeth.

When she opened her mouth to protest, Selik popped a piece of roast venison into it. She tried to stand, but he put a large palm firmly on her head and held her in place.

Through the red haze of her anger and humiliation, Rain barely listened to the friendly conversation around the table.

Gyda flashed a condemning look at Selik for his treatment of her but didn’t reprimand him. Instead, she asked, “When will the fighting stop, Selik? All the talk in the streets is of the Great Battle and so many good Norsemen dead or crippled.”

“It will never stop, Mother. You know that,” Selik said wearily, “not ’til every man of Norse descent is gone from Northumbria.” Rain felt the tenseness of Selik’s words transmitted through the pressure of his fingers on her scalp.

After making sure that everyone had enough food and ale, Gyda came back to Selik. “Then ’tis not safe for you here in Jorvik. Even today I saw some of Athelstan’s royal guard near the harbor.”

“They were, no doubt, searching for Anlaf, who is long gone to his Dublin domain. But, yea, I must needs make myself scarce as well.”

“What of the Saxon captives you brought with you?” Gyda jerked her head toward the other end of the hall, where Blanche helped her servants over the cooking fire. Eadifu, who was supposed to be scouring pots, talked instead with the three remaining male captives.

Selik shrugged. “You can have any that you want, including the soldiers. All the others will be sold.” Rain’s blood turned cold at that prospect, not knowing if he meant her as well. Before she had a chance to ask, his hand slipped from her hair to her mouth in silent admonition.

“The young woman, Blanche, would suit to help inside the hall, but the other slut must go,” Gyda said. “In truth, you left so many men behind afore to guard me and Tyra that we bump into each other all the time. And no more mouths do I want to feed.”

Seeming to notice Rain then, Gyda asked, “And what of Ruby and Thork’s daughter? Wouldst you sell her as well?”

He remained silent an infuriatingly long time, and Rain tried to stand up to tell him what she thought of his thinking process. But Selik had furrowed his fingers in her hair and pulled hard to show his mastery in this situation.

“Nay, I will not sell the troublesome wench. Leastways, not yet. I keep her for possible ransom with King Athelstan.”

Tyra giggled merrily, as if Selik had said something very funny. “Oh, Selik! You jest, of course. Who would ever want such a giant of a woman?”

“You have a point there, little one,” Selik commented in a dry tone of voice, tugging on Rain’s hair in emphasis. The brute!

Gyda bit her bottom lip pensively, her eyes darting back and forth between Rain’s furious expression and Selik’s arrogant flash of a smile. “Surely you would not sell Thork’s daughter to the slave traders.”

“She is uncommonly shrewish, Gyda.”

“I still do not understand how she could be daughter to Thork and Ruby. They were together but twelve years ago, and she is certainly much older than that.”

“She claims to come from the future and that time moves faster there, or some such foolishness.”

Gyda’s mouth dropped open, and she made a clucking sound of disbelief. “But—”