Page 89 of The Outlaw Viking

Pulling her silky braid back over her shoulder, Selik removed the leather thong and combed his fingers sensuously through the long strands down past her shoulder blades. He held the ends up to his face and inhaled deeply, delighting in the combined scent of Gyda’s hard household soap and Rain’s Passion.

Baring her nape, Selik lightly traced the delicate curve where her neck met her shoulders with his fingertips.

“Selik,” Rain moaned.

“Shhh. I just want to hold you. That is all, I swear.”

Rain laughed nervously. “Men have been telling women that for centuries.”

He chuckled softly. “Well, mayhap I have said the same a few times in hopes of reaping a certain reward, but I mean it now. Truly, I only want to touch you.” He hesitated, then admitted, “Nay, that is not quite true. I need to touch you.”

Rain turned in his arms and put a hand on each side of his face. “It’s all right, Selik. I want you to touch me too.”

Selik groaned and rolled his eyes upward. Now you give her to me! Hah! Where were you gods afore I knew the risk of breeding babes? And you, God, how could you put that Onan lackwit in your Bible? Didst thou not realize that men throughout the ages wouldst believe themselves safe from fatherhood in ‘spilling their seed’? Oh, ’twas a cruel trick you played on mankind!

Rain had already pushed him to his back and was leaning over him. “Your skin is like stone—hard and rough as pumice in some places,” she said huskily, brushing her knuckles across his cheek and jaw. “But smooth and sleek as marble in others.” She swept her widespread palms across the planes of his chest and abdomen to demonstrate.

He inhaled sharply at the delicious contact. “You are blind, dearling, if you think such,” he whispered, pleased nonetheless by her softly spoken praise. “I am a battered hunk of common stone—granite, no doubt—that is ugly and crumbling with time and the elements.”

Leaning on one elbow, Rain reached up and drew her forefinger along the lines of the jagged scar that ran from his right eye to his mouth, then moved down to the rough word, ‘Rage’, which he had carved into his own forearm. “Your scars are like the grains in a piece of seasoned wood. They show your character.”

Selik shook his head ruefully from side to side at her disarming words. “I wish you had known me afore. I would have pleased you then, I warrant. And not just in appearance, or in the bed sport. Nay, in all ways. I was whole then. A man.”

Rain made a small sound of consternation and sat up with a jerk. Her eyes flashed angrily. “You foolish, foolish man. Yes, I said man. Don’t you know I have never met anyone, ever, who was more a man than you?”

A vast emptiness in Selik began to fill suddenly. Despite his unwillingness to accept Rain’s words, he wanted to believe so badly. For the past ten years, ever since he had failed to protect his wife and child, Selik had felt crippled, less than a man. With her few precious words, Rain was beginning to make him whole again, giving him back a small portion of his pride.

“Thank you,” he said in a suddenly raw voice, overcome with this new feeling of completeness. He decided he had to lighten the mood or betray his vulnerability. “Does that mean you no longer consider me a beast?”

“Well, sometimes,” she said teasingly, staring at him with such open yearning in her eyes that Selik did not know how he would resist making love to her. And making love was an impossibility now that he knew he could impregnate her with just the tiniest bit of his seed, even if he withdrew early. Especially since he had a foreboding about this upcoming trip to Gravely’s estate. In all likelihood, he would not return. And he would not leave another woman and child alone and vulnerable ever again.

But still, a tiny voice of deviltry in his head whispered, “You could play a bit. You can always stop. What can it hurt?”

With a groan, he told Rain suddenly, “I’m leaving in the morn. I may…I may not be coming back.”

Rain surprised him by nodding her head. “I suspected you would be going soon. To Steven of Gravely.”

“I have assigned two guards to stay with you and will leave enough coins to pay them for one year.”

“A year!” she exclaimed, then seemed to close off all expressions from her face.

“And what will you do when I am gone?” he asked, unable to stop himself from touching the soft flesh of her arm as he nudged up the sleeve of her tunic. He smiled when he felt the fine hairs rise under his light caress.

She touched his wrist, distractedly tracing the pulse beating there with a circling motion of her thumb. Bemused, she answered, “I’ll work at the hospitium. I know I could help, and I could learn a lot.”

He nodded. “As long as you take the guards with you. And be cautious with the wily priests. They are a sorry lot, some of them.”

“Is there any chance you will change your mind about leaving tomorrow?” She stared at him intently, as if his answer was of vast significance.

He shook his head without hesitation. “I have lingered too long already. Gravely may already be gone, eluding me once again.”

She bit her bottom lip, as if pondering some momentous decision, then slanted a cautious glance at him under her half-shuttered lids. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. The wench plotted some mischief, he would warrant. She jumped suddenly and moved away from the pallet, out of his reach.

“I’m going to get us some food and ale.”

“I don’t want any bloody food or ale. Come back to bed.”

“I’ll only be a second,” she said and was gone before he could stop her.