Chapter 13 #2
Merewen lifted her head to him and in that moment Wolf knew she wanted to kiss him. Her tongue darted out to moisten the corner of her lips and his reaction was so strong that he could have sworn she had just licked the tip of his throbbing shaft.
A low groan of male satisfaction rumbled in his chest and his hands tightened around her waist. Surely even if she was wary of lovemaking she would not refuse to be given pleasure?
He was desperate to taste her honey and at least that way he could guarantee she was not hurt.
Could he offer to do that for her? Was she aware that such a thing was done?
Would she not be too shocked? The last thing he wanted was upset her.
He drew away, desperate to do the right thing. “We will sleep together tonight, little one,” he said, his mouth at her temple.
And he privately vowed she would not leave his pallet without having experienced the pleasure he wanted to lavish on her.
But when he released her she didn’t move away. Instead she started squirming against him, letting out small sighs and moans that tested his endurance almost past what he was capable of enduring. If she carried on like this there would be no helping it, he would tumble her onto the furs.
“What’s the matter?” he asked through clenched teeth. Did she have no idea what she was doing to him, rubbing her soft stomach against his throbbing manhood? “Are you in pain?”
It almost sounded like it.
He held her out at arms’ length so he could look into her face. In the late afternoon light, she looked flustered, unsettled, almost… guilty. His heart started racing.
“What is it? he repeated, alarm replacing desire.
“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head, refusing to meet his eye.
“Don’t lie. You’re different all of a sudden.”
Oh, if only that was the case, Merewen thought, if only her unwomanly cravings were a new phenomenon, and not the bane of her life!
But Wolf was mistaken. She wasn’t different.
She was being her usual wanton, sensual self.
As if it weren’t bad enough to dream day and night about such forbidden things, every month between her courses her craving for a man’s touch grew even worse.
From the way her body had heated at his proximity, she guessed that she was now in this most propitious period and if Wolf were to touch her intimately, he would feel it.
She squeezed her thighs together, mortified.
It had been a constant struggle to hide this side of her she couldn’t control from the world.
Today it was a hundred times worse because she was in the arms of a man of flesh and blood, a man she craved and who craved her.
Up until now her dark desires had not centered around anyone in particular.
They had just been a way of escaping her dreary life and compensate for the lack of excitement in it.
All that had changed from the moment she had met Wolf.
Now her lustful thoughts most definitely revolved around one man, the man holding her tight against his hard body, the man who had married her and was waiting for her agreement before taking her to bed, thinking her afraid of lovemaking.
Suddenly she couldn’t lie anymore, she needed to admit out loud who she was, to free herself of the burden she had been carrying for so long. Perhaps Wolf’s reaction would bring some sense into her. Perhaps if he recoiled in horror it would give her the shock she needed to put it all behind her.
And if he did not shrink away, then she might finally start to accept this side of her, accept these shameful feelings, and stop living in dread of Wolf knowing the truth about the kind of woman he had married.
Right now she was positively on fire, desperate for his touch, so there would never be a better time to open up.
“There’s something wrong with me,” she whimpered, hoping she was not making a fatal mistake.
He stared at her, worry in his eyes. “I knew it. You were more hurt than you led me to believe the other day!”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” She hid her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his delicious smell of cut wood. “But I have these desires… This need deep inside of me… They have plagued me for years.”
It had been all part of the guilt she had carried. Her brother had been a sickly child from birth, whereas she had always enjoyed a robust health and a voracious appetite, in all senses of the word.
While Leofric lay on his sick bed for days on end, she roamed the land from morn till dusk, while he nibbled at his food, she devoured entire pies and gorged on desserts, while he had never even looked at any girl with interest, she was constantly allowing her eye to wander over the male guests their father received.
After his death, it had all become worse.
Unable to keep up with her active lifestyle, constantly at Leofric’s bedside, starved of visitors, she had taken refuge in her imagination.
And it had all become too much to handle because now she wasn’t content with dreaming about making love to a man anymore, she wanted to experience the real thing.
“I cannot bear it.”
“Why? There’s nothing wrong with having desires and needs,” Wolf answered gently.
Far from being horrified, he sounded almost…
amused. “Look at me, Merewen,” he said, lifting her chin when she wanted to disappear into the ground.
“I have the same desires, the same needs. And since I met you it’s been a hundred times worse.
I’m hard for you, have been for days. Yet I never thought for one moment that there was anything wrong with me,” he purred.
“You’re a beautiful woman. It is normal I should respond to you. ”
She wasn’t appeased by this reassurance. “I suspect it is different for men. It is accepted that they would be lusty, but women are not supposed to…” She shook her head.
“Mayhap it is not discussed or even acknowledged because, unlike with men, there is not obvious physical manifestation of their inner desire, but I doubt you are the first or only woman to experience such needs. Believe me, there is nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing more normal than what you are experiencing.
You need a man, that’s all. You want pleasure.
” He gave a growl that resonated all the way to her core.
“Let me be that man, let me give you that pleasure. I want nothing more. If it helps to assuage your guilt, remember that we are married. No one will judge you for bedding your husband, least of all me. I’m bursting with the need to finally make you mine. ”
Her insides became liquid with longing. He wanted her still, he wasn’t disgusted, he was even begging her to make love to him! And she had thought he would be horrified, appalled at her wantonness! She couldn’t have been more wrong. Relief washed through her.
Her husband desired her.
Desperately.
“You are… bursting?” she whispered. “For me?”
“I am.” He frowned, as if worried his answer would frighten her. It did not. It was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard. “But I will be gentle, I swear. I won’t hurt you.”
“No, I know that.” Even unintentionally, even in anger, he had never caused her any pain. And now he wanted to pleasure her… That’s what he’d said. He had made it sound as if this would all be for her benefit. “I am not afraid being taken, rather, I’m desperate for it.”
There. It could not be clearer.
“Then please, Merewen, let me fill your body, let me be the one to give you what you crave,” he murmured in her ear. “Let me make you my wife in deed as well as in name. At least allow me to convince you I can bring you the pleasure you deserve.”
“Yes.”
In the blink of an eye, she was on her back on the pallet, with the bodice of her dress open.
Without warning, Wolf dipped his head and bit at her nipple though the fabric of her shift. Her body gave an almighty jerk at the incredible sensation. He tugged again, and she moaned, unable to resist. Her hands came to cradle his head to keep him close.
She inhaled sharply, delirious with anticipation. This was it.
Finally.
While he suckled her, Wolf closed his hand on Merewen’s other breast, growling at the indescribable softness of her.
Finally he was about to do what he had been aching to do for days.
Seeing that she wasn’t protesting, quite the opposite, he brought his hand between her legs.
She gave a cry and immediately started to squirm against him.
By the gods, but the woman was so responsive, so hot, so wild!
Contrary to what he’d thought, she was not afraid of being deflowered.
She had merely been ashamed to reveal what she considered a shamefully wanton disposition.
As if he would take issue with that! Didn’t she know what it would do to a man to know that the woman in his arms was desperate to discover pleasure and eager to bed him?
It was the greatest gift he had ever received.
What he had he done to deserve to be married to such a woman?
When he stole his hand under the hem of her skirts, Merewen let out a moan charged with such longing that flames started to course down his veins and he knew he wouldn’t stop until he had convinced her to surrender to him, until she had allowed him to give her what she needed, what they both needed.
But mercifully, she seemed to have at last realized that denial was futile.
She wanted him and she was begging for more.
Her actions made that clear, even if she had not uttered a single plea.
He lowered the shift and placed his mouth on her bared nipple, sucking it deep into his mouth, savoring the feel of it hardening under his tongue, the taste of her soft skin.
He could have come just from the heavenly sensation, from the knowledge that he was just moments away from having her, of finally giving her what she had been craving all this time.
“Ah, you’re so wet,” he growled, brushing her inner thigh.