by Sandra Hill
“Stick the buggers up yer arse, ye old shrew,” Eadifu retorted. “I got better things ta do with me time.” She looked over to the edge of the courtyard where a soldier waited, a lewd glint in his eyes and a horrific bulge in his pants.
Bertha noticed Rain’s presence and enlisted her aid. “Mistress, tell the bawd ta keep her legs planted on the ground next ta me, ’stead of up in the air. ’Tis too much work fer me ta do here meself.”
“Eadifu,” Rain warned icily, “if you dare to leave this courtyard before all the laundry is done, I swear I will have you chained in the dungeon.” Did they have dungeons here? she wondered idly before going on. “And you will not eat for a week.” This was one slave Rain was beginning to think she wouldn’t mind selling herself.
Eadifu muttered something under her breath that sounded like “bloody bitch,” but she turned sullenly back to her work.
“And do your work properly, the way Bertha orders.”
Bertha beamed like a full moon at being placed in charge.
“Stop twitchin’ yer arse every time a man comes within a hide of yer foul scent,” she heard Bertha berate Eadifu as she headed for the kitchen.
“Yer jist upset cause ye got no arse worth twitchin’,” Eadifu snapped back.
Rain heard a loud splash and hoped Bertha had dumped the slut into the cauldron of cold water. So much for being a pacifist. When push came to shove, it appeared that her principles were open to some flexibility.
Later, after the makeshift dinner, Selik came into the kitchen and told her that he and Tykir and the men were going to a nearby pond to bathe.
“Unless you want me to wait, and we can go together,” he offered in a low, husky voice near her ear. The eagle-eyed Blanche watched with interest from across the room.
“No,” Rain answered quickly, her skin turning warm at just the memory of their last bathing session.
Selik’s gray eyes turned misty with remembered passion as well, and the edges of his full, sensual lips tilted upward in a knowing grin. “Ah, well, mayhap next time.”
That night Rain climbed the stairs to a second-floor bed chamber, feeling aches in muscles she hadn’t thought of since medical school. Tykir already slept in the room next door, being exhausted from the trip and his still healing injury.
Selik was in the room, removing his clothing when she opened the door. She thought about closing the door immediately and retreating back downstairs at the magnificent sight of his half-clad body. Swallowing hard, she tried not to stare at his clean hair hanging down past his shoulders, his bare, muscular back, and a trim waist exposed by leggings slung low on his slim hips. Good heavens!
“Shut the door,” he ordered, having already seen her. “’Tis colder than a witch’s tit in here.”
Having no clean rushes to replace the ones taken from the mattresses, Selik had spread his sleeping furs on the floor before a fire in the hearth. The drafty room was warm only directly in front of the fireplace, and Rain already shivered from her recent bath. But still she stood frozen near the doorway.
“Come closer.”
Rain dragged her feet reluctantly toward the fire—and Selik. She had slept next to this man for the past two weeks, knew the smell of his skin, the sound of his light snores, the heat of his flesh. And yet, being here with him in the small bed chamber was different. More intimate. Even the air in the room seemed close, filled with tension.
She wanted to run. And she wanted to stay.
Rain didn’t delude herself about Selik’s intentions. The consummate lover, Selik knew exactly how she was feeling. She could see it in the smoky depths of his gray eyes which watched her every move with hawk-like intensity, the seductive parting of his lips, and the high-strung stalking movement of his body.
He dropped his pants and stood before her, hands on hips, legs parted slightly—totally naked. Rain could not look away. Sweet Lord! The man did not play fair.
She closed her eyes for just a second to gather strength. The firelight cast flickering shadows on his silver-blond hair, and a golden sheen on the firm planes of his chest and washboard-firm abdomen. He exuded restless energy and tightly coiled power.
“Take off your garments, sweetling,” he said in a raw voice.
Rain looked at him in horror.
He glided the tip of his tongue along the seam of his full lips and laughed. “I will not force myself on you. We will just sleep…if that is your desire.”
“Hah!” Rain said in a shaky voice, looking pointedly at his huge erection. He grew even longer under her gaze.
“Oh,” she moaned softly, feeling her defenses weakening.
And Selik moved closer, reaching for her.
She backed away.
He put the palms of both hands up in the air as if in surrender, repeating, “I will not force you.” Then he dropped down to the bed furs to show his good intentions, covering himself. “Come to bed, Rain. It has been a long day, and we are both tired.”
Rain didn’t believe for one minute that he was that tired.
“Selik, our sleeping together all the time is not a good idea.”
“So you have said numerous times afore.”
“I think I should go downstairs and sleep with Blanche.”
“What makes you think Blanche sleeps alone?”
“What?”
Selik shrugged. “She has approached me numerous times. I cannot believe I am the only man she invites to her bed.”
You better believe it, Rain thought with a heavy heart, wondering how long it would take Selik to relinquish his celibacy under Blanche’s unrelenting temptation. Oh, hell!
“There is no choice. You sleep with me,” he declared firmly, patting the fur beside him. “You are my hostage.”
She groaned. “Selik, I’m not going to make love with you. Why torture yourself?”
“And you as well?” His left eyebrow rose a fraction in question.
“And me too.”
He smiled with infuriating satisfaction at her admission.
Giving up, she began to drop down to the furs on the side closest to the fire.
“Nay. Take off your garments first.”
Rain stood back up and glared down at him. “I slept in my clothes at the campsites during our trip here.”
“That was then. This is now. Whether you come from the future, as you claim, or the bloody moon, you will adopt our ways whilst living amongst us here.”
Selik sat up and folded his arms over his bent knees, watching her intently as she began to disrobe.
Rain felt her face flame, but she would not betray her nervousness over undressing in front of the arrogant man. God, she was too tall, too big and gawky. The only times she’d been with men in the past, she’d undressed in the dark to hide her embarrassment over her ungainly body. They hadn’t seemed to mind.
The only sounds in the room were the crackling of the fire and Selik’s even breathing as she finally stood before him in nothing but her flesh-colored lace bra and panties. His burning eyes seared her skin. When they connected with hers, she jerked back slightly at the jolt of electric heat they transmitted.
“The rest,” he urged raspily, waving a hand to indicate her underwear. She could not be sure, but his breathing sounded ragged in the charged silence of the room.
Dazed, Rain didn’t even protest, but she lifted her chin defiantly when the wispy garments dropped to the rushes, refusing to cower before his too-close scrutiny. She had enough flaws when fully clothed. Naked, she felt as awkward and unattractive as she had in sixth grade, when she was the tallest student in her class, the brunt of jokes for all the mean, insensitive, teasing boys.
But Selik wasn’t mocking her. His eyes caressed every inch of her body. Wherever his eyes touched, Rain felt a tingling heat ignite and warm her skin. For the first time in her life, she felt attractive.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he whispered in awe.
Tears welled in Rain’s eyes. “Don’
t, Selik. Don’t make fun of me.”
He tilted his head questioningly, then lifted the bed fur next to him, urging her to join him.
When she was lying down, making sure her body did not touch his, Selik said softly, “The men of your time must be halfwits to make you ashamed of your body. Truly, Rain, you are beautiful.” Ever so gently, he brushed some loose strands of hair off her face.
“I think you are the one who must be halfwitted,” she said with a shaky laugh, pleased despite the fact that he was probably just trying to seduce her. Oddly, she wanted to be beautiful for Selik. “Besides, you likened me to a tree and a horse a few times, if you’ll recall.”
Selik chuckled, tracing a forefinger along the curve of her shoulder. Rain shuddered with the sheer sweetness of pleasure that swept her, so intense it was almost unbearable. “Ah, well, ’tis a well-known fact that I have a fondness for horses and stately trees.”
She turned to poke him for his teasing. A big mistake! Her breast grazed his arm, and he inhaled sharply at the electrifying contact. Rain immediately turned over and away from him toward the fire to hide the effect of just that brief touch on her sensitive nipples.
Suddenly, Rain could not help the silent tears that streamed down her face. She wanted Selik so badly, and she wearied of fighting the battle with herself.
“Rain, why do you weep? I will not make love to you if you do not wish it.”
You silly man, don’t you know that’s just what I want you to do?
He ran a hand caressingly along the length of her arm, sending shivers to every erotic part of her body.
“Are you afeard of getting with child? I assure you that you will not carry my seed,” he offered softly as he kissed the line of her shoulder over to the nape of her neck. With every rhythmic breath he took, the tip of his penis grazed the cleft between her buttocks.
Rain laughed shakily. “Now that’s an original line. How do you plan on guaranteeing that? Do you have a condom?”
“Nay, I use none of those ridiculous sheaths your mother mentioned.” She felt him smile against her neck. “I follow the method of your Biblical Onan—spilling the seed outside the body.” When she snorted with disbelief, he laughed. “Are you about to preach me a birth-control lecture, as your mother did to King Sigtrygg’s ladies?”
“My mother did what?” Rain exclaimed, turning to look at his grinning face. “Oh, never mind.” Really, she had heard more than enough of her mother’s outrageous conduct. “But I don’t see how you can be sure you have never fathered any children…using that method, I mean.”
“I assure you, lady, I have no live children.”
“Well, perhaps that’s true, but it’s only luck that you haven’t if you practice pulling out before climax.”
Selik make a choking sound of disbelief. “What kind of woman are you to speak so bluntly?”
“I’m a doctor, for heaven’s sake. And I’m telling you, Selik, that a few moments ago you had a bead of semen on the end of your penis—”
Selik made an inarticulate sound deep in his throat, and his eyebrows arched in wonder, probably at her attention to detail.
“Anyhow, if you made love with a woman then, even if you withdrew early and climaxed outside the woman’s body, she still could have gotten pregnant.”
“I assume that see-man and peen-yes mean what I think they do?” he asked dryly. At her nod, he went on. “But how could conception take place if the seed spills outside the body?”
“Because, you fool, just that tiny drop of semen inserted in a woman’s body is enough to make a female pregnant.”
“You make these stories up as you go along. ’Tis not true.”
“Yes, it is, Selik. As a doctor, I’m telling you, I’ve seen evidence of it over and over.”
Horrified, he stared at her with disbelief, which soon blossomed into alarm. “I never knew,” he whispered, concluding with disgust, “’Tis just luck then that I have bred no more babes.”
To Rain’s chagrin, Selik turned away from her then.
Chapter Eight
“Attend me well, Rain. You will stay here at Ravenshire with Tykir ’til I return,” Selik commanded the next morning in his bedchamber as he was packing a leather bag.
Rain rebelled, not in a good mood after a restless night of poor sleep—prompted, no doubt, by sexual frustration, a problem Rain had never experienced before. And it annoyed her to hear Selik speaking so calmly, his demeanor so unaffected as he gathered his belongings.
Wearing only a brynja, the padded undertunic which would protect his chest from chafing under metal armor, and a pair of heavy wool braies that clung to his muscled thighs, Selik tried to ignore her.
“Why? Why must I stay here? Where are you going? When will you come back? Hey, you’re not thinking of dumping me here, are you? No way!”
Selik put both hands to his ears in disgust. “Freya’s tit! You have turned shrewish with your endless questions. Just accept my orders and be biddable, for once.”
“Me? Shrewish? Hah! And, by the way, I don’t appreciate those crude Viking expressions of yours. Not one bit.”
Selik’s gray eyes widened with exaggerated surprise. “You take exception to my crude words when you told me just a few days ago, in a vulgar fashion even for me, exactly what I could do to myself? As I recall, you very clearly directed me to scr—”
“You don’t have to throw my words back in my face like a damn parrot.” Rain lifted her chin defiantly and tried to pretend that the warm skin on her face was not a blush, that she was not embarrassed by her increasingly sharp, and sometimes vulgar, tongue. Good Lord! She was turning into a woman she no longer recognized. “Well, you provoked me.” Her excuse sounded weak even to her ears.
“You have an answer for everything, wench.”
Not everything, Rain thought bleakly. She watched forlornly as Selik folded several of the strips of fabric he wore as loincloths. Suddenly, an image flickered in her head—an enticing image—of Selik in a pair of men’s bikini underwear. Hey, Selik in boxer shorts wouldn’t be so bad, either, Rain thought.
“Why are you grinning? Do you plot some other mischief to muddle my life?”
“No,” Rain said with a smile. “I was just picturing you in modern underwear, the kind men in my country wear.” She described all the different kinds to Selik, but he wasn’t impressed.
“Why would men care whether they wear silk or linen loincloths? Or whether they had ‘designer labels’ by that Calvin person?” he scoffed.
“Because they want to impress women.”
“’Tis what is inside the loincloth that matters more, wench,” Selik asserted, winking at her with supreme arrogance.
“Yeah, well, I still say you’d look better than Jim Palmer in those jockey shorts ads. Hey, better yet,” she added, fanning her face dramatically, “in a pair of edible underwear.”
Selik stopped his packing completely and turned to stare at her. She had his full attention. “Now I know you jest with me. People eating underwear?”
“Use your imagination, Selik. You, the supposed sex god of the Dark Ages, should have an idea how they would be used.”
Rain knew the moment Selik understood. His neck colored and the flush moved slowly up his face. She loved it! Then his lips tilted in a boyish grin.
“A sex god! I ne’er claimed to be such.”
“Anyhow, I’ve never tried edible underwear myself, but I understand that it comes in different flavors, like strawberry or lemon. I’ll bet there’s even some that tastes like cherry Lifesavers.”
“Really?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she asked with a laugh.
Selik shook his head from side to side, convinced now that she was fibbing. “Truly, you amaze me, woman. Do you stay up all night inventing these outrageous tales to scandalize me?”
“Are you scandalized?”
“Nay. You disconcert me, and that is, no doubt, your purpose. I will not allow you to divert me
, however. Heed me well on this one thing. You swore not to escape, and I hold you to your vow. Stay at Ravenshire with Tykir.”
“Will you return?”
Selik scowled at her, refusing to answer.
“But where—”
“Where I go and if I return is my concern. Just follow my orders. And stay near the keep. There are Saxons about, I wager, and the bastards would lop off your winsome head in a trice, never stopping to ask why you traveled with The Outlaw. Tis enough that they think I favor your company. T have assigned Gorm to watch over you—”
“You wouldn’t dare. I don’t want that slimebucket within a mile of me.”
Selik’s face stiffened with menace. “All my men have orders to protect you. Has Gorm done aught to harm you? On my oath, I will skin the misbegotten cur alive if he has touched even a hair on your fair body.”
Fair? Rain honed in irrelevantly on his inadvertent compliment. Selik had called her beautiful last night, but she had doubted his sincerity. Was it possible it hadn’t been a line? Could he care for her? Was the emotion he displayed just now a sign of deeper feelings?
But then Rain’s heart sunk as his other words sunk in, I will skin the man alive. “Selik, please tell me you don’t skin people.”
He grinned. “It was just an expression, sweetling. Even I draw the line somewhere.”
She laughed shakily. “Well, I knew that.”
He shot her a look of amused disbelief. “Do you ever admit being wrong?”
A short time later, Rain watched with dismay from the steps leading up to the great hall as Selik mounted Fury. This was the Selik of the battlefield, the warrior of the Brunanburh painting, the man who had haunted her nightmares for years, drawing her back through the tunnel of time.
Wearing a thigh-length tunic of flexible chain mail over a wool hauberk and tight leggings, Selik expertly maneuvered the reins of the horse as it pranced nervously about the bailey awaiting the half-dozen men who would travel with him. He sheathed his lethal sword, Wrath, at his side, and hung his pike and helmet from special saddle hooks.