Page 79 of The Outlaw Viking

Selik arched a brow and smiled wryly, his anger fading. “’Tis about time you recognized who is in authority here, wench. And, if you must know, I take you to the hospitium so you may find work to fill your days when I leave Jorvik. I suspect you would make Gyda’s life miserable confined to your chamber or helping her clean privies. Or as lady’s maid to Tyra.”

She started to tell him what she thought of her being lady’s maid to the spoiled Viking brat, but Selik put up a hand to halt her words before she had a chance to speak them. “Your prattling annoys me, and we linger overlong. Take off your shert so I can bind your breasts and put you in disguise.”

Rain made a sort of gurgling sound deep in her throat. “Why do I have to—”

“Nay, no more questions. ’Tis already late. You cannot go into the hospitium claiming to one and all that you are a woman doctor. Never would they grant you admittance.”

“Oh.”

Selik folded his arms across his chest, tapping his leather shoe impatiently as he waited for her to obey his orders.

Her face heated as she weighed her options—take off her blouse and let him bind her breasts so she could pretend to be a male, or stay imprisoned in Gyda’s home and miss seeing the hospitium. Deciding quickly, she began unbuttoning.

“What will you use for binding?”

Selik leaned down to a small wooden chest on the floor and rummaged around, finally pulling out a long, scarf-like strip of silk.

She turned her back on him and removed her blouse and bra, waiting. Her amber beads felt cool against her heated flesh.

“Hold out your arms.”

Selik took hold of both her hands and demonstrated how he wanted her to raise her arms to shoulder height. Feeling the air on her exposed breasts and the light touch of Selik’s fingers under her elbows, Rain almost let her knees buckle with the sudden rush of intense eroticism that rolled over her in waves. She closed her eyes briefly until she regained control of her emotions.

“Do not move,” Selik said huskily, then surprised her by stepping in front of her body.

She started to protest, but he seemed to be concentrating on his task, not her traitorous breasts, which had peaked at his first glance. In fact, he barely looked at her body as he deftly placed one end of the strip high up under her left arm, across and above the top of her breasts and around behind, never moving from his spot in front of her.

Twice, he repeated that motion, then proceeded to do the same in the area just below her breasts, which had developed an aching need to be touched. Each time he reached forward under her arms to stretch the cloth behind her, Rain felt his warm breath against her shoulder and choked back a groan of pleasure. Once, his knuckles brushed the underside of her right breast, and Rain felt the shock of the slight caress ricochet all the way to her toes.

When he was ready to bind the breasts themselves, he moved behind her. “I will have to pull hard. It may hurt.”

Rain thought the need to be touched was much more hurtful than any pressure from a flimsy cloth could be. When he carefully drew the strip across the middle of her breasts, he asked, softly, “Is that too tight?”

The tickle of Selik’s breath against the nape of her neck was Rain’s first clue that he was standing so close, peering over her shoulder.

“It must be tighter still, I see. The nipples are still visible.”

Rain inhaled sharply. “Is this necessary?”

“Yea, ’tis,” he said, jerking the cloth tighter, creating a delicious, quick, abrasive caress across her sensitized breasts. Rain could barely stifle a moan. Then he wrapped the cloth around her several more times, pulling painfully tight. Finally, he tied the ends together and moved around to the front of her, surveying the results. He made a soft clucking sound of dismay. “’Twill have to do, but are your nipples always so large?”

No, you fool, only when you are staring at them and pulling a scrap of silk across them so seductively.

She started to reply, then noticed the edges of his lips twitching with suppressed laughter as he lifted the amber beads in his hand, his knuckles grazing her chest. Apparently, he’d known all along how uncomfortable she was under his scrutiny and near-caresses. And he enjoyed it immensely. “Oh, you are a brute.” She reached for her blouse to put it back on, but Selik held her back.

“I have a priest’s robe and shoes for you as well.”

Somehow, Selik had found a smaller version of the same robe he wore. After she was fully clothed and had skinned back and braided her hair beneath the hood, she looked first at him, then at herself. With a soft giggle, she commented, “We look like Mutt and Jeff.”

Selik tilted a brow in question, but Rain just shook her head, knowing it would be impossible to explain the comic strip characters to the Viking. Rain had a sudden, enticing image in her head of Selik lying on her king-sized bed on a lazy Sunday afternoon, coffee in one hand and the comics in the other.

A few moments later, they were making their way through the busy streets of Jorvik. Because of the short distance, they walked. Besides, Selik feared that two priests riding horseback through the city would attract too much attention.

“Must you jiggle your arse so much?” he cautioned once. “Remember, you are supposed to be a monk, not a dockside tart.”

“I do not jiggle.”

“Hah! And stop touching my sleeve when you want to call my attention to every blessed everyday event happening in the streets. People will think us sodomites.”