Chapter 8 #3
He shook his head. “I am not thanking you for removing the splinters, even if it was a great help. I am thanking you because I think… I think that despite the way you came into my life, despite what I told you about my exile, you are considering giving me a chance.”
Before she could answer, he kissed her fingers one by one, lingering over the gesture, watching her fighting the urge to moan out loud. Hope swelled within him.
“What made you think I was?” she mewled, eyes fluttering under the caress.
“Because after what happened today, you’ve realized that you could trust me to look after you. And then… I think you want me like a woman wants a man.”
Unable to resist, he took her little finger between his teeth. So small, so soft! He groaned and sucked it deep into his eager mouth.
“Oh!”
Merewen sagged against him and he had to catch her by the waist before she collapsed like an empty sack of grain. No, definitely not indifferent, but positively melting. Oh, this was good. Things could be so good between them!
“Let me prove that I do not think of you as an animal or a possession but as a beautiful woman I want to hold in my arms.”
“I-I never really thought you saw me as a possession,” Merewen stammered, nestling into Wolf’s arms. She could not remember why she had ever thought that, even if she knew she had.
“Then let me show you how good it could be between us.”
Quick as a flash, he moved, and before she could take a breath, he kissed her with all the hunger she had hoped to provoke in a man.
The heat of his lips seared hers, and she would have gasped if she had been able to utter a sound.
Wolf infused all his passion into his kiss.
The same passion, wild and uncontrollable, made her raise her hands and weave her fingers through his hair to bring him even closer to her.
Desire spread through her veins, reaching all the way to the tip of her toes and the most innermost recesses of her body, filling her with warmth and energy.
He groaned, the sound so filled with masculine need that she instinctively opened her mouth, allowing him to deepen the kiss further, to stroke his tongue against hers in a sensual, carnal dance. His lips were soft but demanding, the hold around her firm but gentle.
Despite her very high expectations, this first kiss did not disappoint.
In fact, it quite overwhelmed her and she realized quite quickly that they had crossed the line from mere kissing into something else, something more akin to lovemaking.
Odd, what the contact of two mouths could do…
Usually what happened to one part of your body did not affect the others parts.
When you bit your tongue it did not make your belly spasm in pain, neither did it set your toes to curling.
But her insides had definitely gone liquid and it was not just her stomach and toes but every part of her that was writhing in heated pleasure right now.
Just when she thought he was about to tumble her into the bed, Wolf drew back. Eyes ablaze, body taut, he was a picture of desperate need.
“Say you will marry me,” he rasped, speaking against her lips.
Once again, an order, not a proposal.
Should she accept? Perhaps… Yes, perhaps she should accept his offer of marriage, odd though it was, frightening though it was.
He had proven he would not abandon her to fend for herself alone.
What he had just done made it clear. If he was prepared to come to her aid when she was nothing more than a vexing woman he had bought and who was refusing his hand, then he would not turn his back on her once she was his wife.
Merewen swallowed hard. Though she was well past the age of matrimony, no one had asked for her hand before.
Of course, Wolf had not exactly proposed, he had told her he had bought her to be his wife, which was not quite the same thing but still, if she accepted him they could married within the day and spend the rest of their lives together.
She took another glance at him, struck anew by his strength and beauty. She only had to say the word and this man would be her husband. The thought was dizzying, undeniably tempting.
Never more so than now that he had kissed any lingering doubts away and ignited a fire in her belly only he would be able to douse.
“I do not think you set off to buy yourself a wife that day,” she said, wanting to be sure his proposal had at least in some part been motivated by who she was, and not because any other woman would have done.
“You said that you only passed the market by accident, not on purpose. I think you bought me for a reason I cannot fathom and then decided that since you had bought me you might as well marry me.”
Wolf gave a slanted smile. He was still holding her tight against his body. “Why are you asking me this? Would it set your mind at ease to know I never meant to purchase myself a wife?”
Merewen was startled to see that he had read her mind so accurately.
“Yes, it would help me.”
“Well, then, you’re right. I had no idea I would propose to you when I carried you away from that pole,” he whispered. “In truth, it was the furthest thing from my mind. There, are you satisfied? Am I less of a monster in your eyes?” he asked slowly. “Less of a… predatory wolf, shall we say?”
“Taming a wolf doesn’t change the fact that he is a wild animal,” she pointed out, feeling weaker than ever. “He remains just as lethal, just as unpredictable.”
“Does he? Why don’t you try and see for yourself, try and tame this wolf?” he suggested. “I think you lack neither the courage nor the boldness to try.”
Wolf bared perfect white teeth that made the resemblance between him and the animal even more glaring.
Then she paused. No. She was being unfair.
His smile was not predatory, more a warning to people who did not know how to handle him that dangerous things lurked under its smooth surface.
But he had just hinted that she was not one of these people.
So did she dare take up the challenge? Did she want to tame him?
Yes.
The answer tore through her mind with the force of a clap of thunder. The idea of this beast of a man doing her bidding excited her beyond all reason.
“You want me. You have from the start, just like I have wanted you,” he purred in her ear, suddenly more cat than wolf. “So let’s go and get married, Merewen. You can have me then.”