Chapter 4 #2
“My name is Merewen.” Suddenly she wanted him to know it, wanted to be a real person to him, not just a woman he had bought like an object, someone without even a name.
Now that she believed he did not mean to keep her as a slave, he ought to be able to call her something other than ‘woman’.
Her real name was the best option. She didn’t want to hide under a flower or anything else.
“Merewen. It’s beautiful,” he surprised her by saying. Receiving a compliment when she had been ready for a cutting remark for how easily she had given in rendered her speechless.
As if he thought he had better take advantage of her unusual passivity, Wolf placed his two hands flat on the table opposite her and leaned in, stopping only when their foreheads were almost touching. In that moment she had the absurd notion that he was about to kiss her.
Her heart started to beat wildly.
How many times had she dreamed of such a moment? Of seeing desire in a man’s eyes when he looked at her and knowing he felt the same longing for her as she did for him? Why it had to happen now with a man who had bought her and not with a man who loved and respected her was beyond her.
Although, perhaps it was not so odd, seeing as she had yet to meet a man who loved and respected her.
After her mother’s death Merewen had been the one looking after Leofric, and the task had left little time for herself or dalliances.
At the age where a young woman should have known her first flirtations, she had been confined to a role resembling more that of a mother or a nurse and all but cooped indoors.
She hadn’t minded it but, undeniably, it had taken a toll on her personal life.
The few men who had taken an interest in her had quickly grown tired of seeing her run to her brother’s sickbed dozens of times a day.
As a consequence, not only had she never been considered as a potential conquest, but she had never even been kissed. Either her suitors had not been brazen enough to take the liberty or they had been interrupted before they could act on the impulse.
There had been no other choice but to take refuge in her imagination, and invent what real life did not provide her.
In her increasingly more vivid dreams, men looked at her as if they wanted nothing more than to devour her, they kissed her with all the force of their pent up passion, and they made love with equal fire.
She had always thought that nothing could ever come close to these wild imaginings.
Until she had met Wolf…
Right now he was looking at her with that look of hunger she had imagined a thousand times and she suddenly wondered if she had not bitten off more than she could chew by wishing to be ravished by an untamed man. Being stared at by a real wolf about to pounce would not feel more disturbing.
Should he kiss Merewen, Wolf wondered for the second time in as many days?
It was a very bad idea, just as it had been yesterday.
They seemed to have reached an agreement of sorts.
He did not want to compromise it by acting too rashly too soon.
If he kissed her now, it would be a fiery, uncompromising kiss that would scare her.
As she was untouched, it was reasonable to imagine that she had never been kissed either, or if she had, he doubted it was by a man half-crazed with need, who already knew the taste of her nipple and the heat of her core.
If he kissed her there would be no stopping him from devouring the rest of her and she was not ready for such shocking intimacy. He had already taken what he had no right to take once, and felt guilty enough about it. He could not do so again.
She was a virgin. Making love would have more serious consequence to her than to a widow used to having lovers. Worse, she might start expecting things from him he would never be able—or willing—to give her.
What a fool he really was! He had refused to bring any of his conquests in the hut even for one night for fear of giving them false hope and now he had brought in a woman who had nowhere else to go, whom he could not send away.
Was he determined to make things harder for himself than they already were?
Gritting his teeth, he took a step back, then another.
Why had he come so close to her? What did he hope to gain by playing with fire so?
Did he really think she would throw herself into his arms?
He needed to focus on something other than her luscious lips and liquid heat if he was to regain some mastery over his body.
Sewing. Yes. That ought to do it.
“I almost forgot,” he told her, reaching to the bag hanging from his belt. “Sigurd lent me this this morning.”
Merewen was thrown off by the sudden change in Wolf’s demeanour. In the blink of an eye he had gone from burning hot to coolly detached. Evidently kissing had been the last thing on his mind. She had been the only one affected by their unseemly proximity.
Swallowing her disappointment, she took the leather pouch he was handing her. In it she found two needles and some thread. Before she could ask why his friend had lent him such a feminine item, he took out a tunic from the chest by the door.
“You expect me to mend your clothes?” she cried out, as understanding dawned.
What a return to reality! He hadn’t meant to kiss her at all, only thought to flatter her by telling her her name was beautiful, to mollify her so he could start making demands! That certainly never happened in her dreams! Men did not hand her tools when she had been expecting passionate embraces!
Wolf arched an eyebrow. “I have no intention of asking you to mend my clothes but even if I did, I do not see how it would be such a slight to presume that you would do a better job than me, who can barely hold delicate needles.”
He looked genuinely puzzled by her reaction, as if he had meant no offence and in truth she knew that her reaction had been motivated more by the humiliation she’d just suffered than any wrong doing on his part.
One moment he had looked as if he wanted nothing more than to ravish her on the spot and now they were discussing the mending of his clothes… No wonder she had been disconcerted.
“So what is the shirt for, if not for mending?” she asked more calmly.
“It is for you to put on while you sew the front of your shift,” he explained.
“I thought you would feel more comfortable if you weren’t naked while you did it.
There is no other choice but to mend it for I could not find a shift your size that did not reek of tallow or onions and besides, yours is too fine to be wasted. ”
Merewen was so stunned by his answer that when he threw her the undershirt she didn’t catch it in time.
He had hunted around for clothes to replace her damaged ones and he was now offering her the means of repairing her shift, the only item of her old life left to her.
Tears burned her eyes and she feared for a moment that she would start crying.
It suddenly seemed the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for her.
“Thank you,” she said slowly, picking the shirt from the floor. “While I am at it, do you have anything that requires sewing?”
Something like satisfaction gleamed in the blue eyes. “Actually I think there’s a rip in the sleeve of the tunic you’re holding. Perhaps you could see to it. Do you know, I could get used to having someone cook and mend my clothes for me during the day.”
And warm my bed at night.
Though he did not actually say the words, devastating desire had replaced amusement in his eyes. Heat instantly flooded her body.
Oh! Was there ever a more insufferable man! Why could he not just answer her and be done with it! Why did he have to reduce her insides to a puddle with a well-aimed glance?
“Forget it!” she snapped, throwing him the tunic. “I will wear my dress while I sew the shift. It will do just as well.”
If he was going to be such a rogue, then he could mend his own clothes with his own massive, clumsy hands.