Page 24 of The Outlaw Viking

She stood angrily and glared at him as he gawked at her across the fire, open-mouthed and incredulous. Obviously, he hadn’t said a blasted word.

“I must have been mistaken,” she muttered as she stomped away from the fire, then turned abruptly and came back. “Where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”

He shrugged. “In my lord’s tent, of course.”

“Humph! He’d better not get any ideas. In fact, if you see him before I do, tell him to spread his sleeping furs out here by the fire. I have no intention of sharing his bed again.”

“But why?” Ubbi asked, apparently stunned that any woman would consider it less than an honor to share Selik’s bed.

“I never sleep with married men.”

Ubbi tilted his head to the side as if trying to understand her foreign words. “Married men? But who…Mistress, methinks you misunderstood me words afore.”

“Oh, I understood all right, but don’t you worry about it. This is my problem, and you can be sure I will straighten it out.”

“But you want me ter tell me master to sleep out here on the ground?” he asked with utter amazement, then scoffed, “He would flatten me with his shield fer such a suggestion.”

“I’ll talk to him about it in the morning,” she assured him, “but in the meantime, just tell him”—she waved her hand in the air, searching for the right words—“oh, just say he snores too much and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

She turned once again, smiling, despite herself, at the small choking sound Ubbi made behind her as she walked to the tent.

A soldier told her about a small spring-fed pond at the far end of the clearing, about a quarter-mile away. She rummaged in Selik’s chest until she found a clean tunic of worn green wool, some soap, and linen cloths that would do for towels. A half hour later, despite the chilly air and water, she sat soaking ecstatically in the knee-high water, having soaped and rinsed her hair and body several times and washed her underwear, slacks and blouse. After she dried, she put a few dabs of Passion from a small sample bottle in her carrybag behind her ears and at the base of her throat. It was amazing what a good perfume could do for a woman’s self-esteem. And it was a link with the future she somehow needed right now.

When she got back to Selik’s tent, he still hadn’t returned. She bit her bottom lip worriedly as she laid her wet clothes across his wooden chest. She fussed around the small tent, picking up articles, stacking others, hoping her outlaw Viking would return.

Finally, she yawned widely and decided it was foolish to wait any longer. She removed Selik’s warm tunic and folded it carefully near the bed furs, donning her wispy bra and briefs, which had already dried. Sliding sensuously between the furs, she fell fast asleep within seconds.

As she had the night before, she slept deeply. No primitive warriors waged violent battles in her dreams, but her sleep soon turned troubled just the same.

Like a Michael Jackson video in which the faces blended creatively from one identity to another, the hero of Rain’s dreams alternately had the faces of Daniel Day-Lewis, Kevin Costner, and Selik. Mostly, Selik’s image kept recurring, but it was a Selik she had yet to see.

No scars or broken nose marred the purity of his facial features. Gone were the lines that pain and rage had etched mercilessly at the corners of his sensuously full mouth and silver-flecked eyes. This was the godly handsome Viking her mother had described before the tragedies of his life had transformed him.

In her dream, the Daniel/Kevin/Selik man knelt on the dirt floor at the side of the fur pallet, wearing nothing more than a primitive loin cloth. He leaned over her, whispering soft words, and she was strangely unable to move, her arms immobilized at her sides. In slow motion, he bent and his long blond hair, like a veil of gossamer cobwebs, brushed across her bare arm. She shivered with the electric shock of just that barest of caresses.

“So beautiful,” he whispered as the calloused fingers of his strong hands skimmed over her arms, from the wrists to the shoulders.

All the faces and bodies blended together in that instant and became one—her outlaw Viking.

Rain made a small purring sound, which drew a warm smile of approval from her lover. She did feel beautiful then, probably for the first time in her life. Not too tall or big-boned or unfeminine. Just perfect. She could see appreciation, and so much more, in Selik’s smoldering eyes when they locked with hers for one breathless heartbeat. The earth tilted for her then and seemed to stand still.

His fingertips brushed the delicate edge of her collarbone, ever so gently, then moved up to trace the outline of her parted lips. She yearned to lean up and kiss the firm, sensual lips of the ethereal, constantly shifting being above her, but she could not move. Only feel.

He drew his hand away slightly and Rain whimpered, “Please. Don’t leave me.”

His gray eyes filled with tenderness, and in a voice that seemed to come from far off, he whispered softly, “Never. ’Til the end of time, my love.”

The skin of her dream lover shone with pale gold undertones in the shimmering candlelight. Muscles rippled across his powerful shoulders and chest as he moved his hands to explore her taut body. And, oh, dear Lord, blood rushed to every spot he touched with feathery strokes, igniting small fires of longing in their wake.

His hands slid from her face, down her neck, through the valley between her breasts in the lacy, flesh-colored bra, searing a path down to her abdomen. The open palms of his big hand caressed the flat planes of her belly, drawing invisible circular patterns of spiraling pleasure.

Then he backtracked upward, ever so slowly, and lightly touched her hardening nipples, bringing them to crested peaks of such intense pleasure that she cried aloud.

“Shhh, Sweetling. Slowly. Slowly.”

But Rain was beyond rational thought, beyond putting a brake on her racing arousal, beyond everything she had ever experienced or thought possible in feminine response. With a few whispery caresses, this man—this dream Viking, this outlaw warrior—had reduced her to a writhing, whimpering mass of flesh desperate for their joining.

She looked down and saw his erection through the loin cloth. And his eagerness for her excited Rain even more. She ached to touch him, but her arms remained locked at her sides in her dream state.