Chapter 12 #3
“Yes, I had lost my wife. That I was grieving doesn’t mean other people were not in trouble as well.
As to my sons, they already knew you and trusted you, I should have listened to them.
And you were perfect with them, patient and loving.
I should have given you a chance. I didn’t. I did everything wrong. I…”
He had used her body most shamefully in the tree house, threatening her, telling her he would not worry about her pleasure. How could he bear the idea, now that he knew what Godfrid had done?
“You have nothing to blame yourself for. I was the one who burst in on you at the worst possible moment,” she insisted.
“No. Don’t make this your fault when it is not,” he growled. She was berating herself for having interrupted his life, when her presence had actually given him a sense of purpose, helped Rothgar, and prevented him from drowning in self-pity. It was unbearable, and he could not let her do it.
“I’m not saying I did anything wrong. But I understand that you reacted to my arrival in the only way you could.
It was the wrong time for you.” Her voice started to waver.
“And yet you came back for me. You came without knowing I was in danger, and you arrived in time. I’m more grateful than I can express. ”
Steinar winced. She made it sound as if he’d gone to her because he felt guilty about having sent her away.
He had not. To his shame, it had taken someone else to make him see sense.
Well, at least he would not make the same mistakes again.
He nodded, and asked the question that had been bothering him since she’d made her confession.
“Were you a virgin before Godfrid raped you?”
He hoped she had at least had one lover of her choice before the assaults began, so that she knew what lovemaking was supposed to be. His hopes were crushed as soon as she opened her mouth.
“Yes. Looking after my ailing father didn’t leave me much opportunity to get out, and men didn’t seem interested in a woman who had no time for them and no experience whatsoever.”
He should not be surprised. The man at the market hall had said that she lived a chaste life, despite being a sweet girl.
Steinar saw how it was now. Cwenthryth had sacrificed her youth for her father.
And then Godfrid had taken advantage of her devotion to the old man, destroyed her innocence.
By the gods, but he deserved to die ten times over for what he’d done.
Steinar hoped the man was even now burning in his Saxon hell.
“I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened like that. You should have been able to see that lying with a man is supposed to give you pleasure.”
“I knew that. My friend Eahlswith had told me about it and I had been kissed a few times. It was… nice.” She flushed, as if embarrassed to admit as much. “In any case, thanks to you, I now know what pleasure is.”
His shaft went hard as stone in the blink of an eye. Placed where she was, Cwenthryth would probably be able to feel it but he didn’t move. He needed to have her against him. Besides, he trusted her to know he would not hurt her. No matter what his body felt, he would never make her ill at ease.
“Lie down,” he said after a while, forcing himself to reason. If he didn’t let her go, his erection might never go down.
“Why?”
“I want to lie next to you. If I may,” he added, realizing he had no right to request such a thing from her, after the way he’d behaved. Would she refuse him?
Her answer was the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard.
“Yes, please. I want you to lie next to me.”
“Are you asleep?”
Cwenthryth kept her voice low and tentative in case Steinar had indeed fallen asleep. He had been silent for a very long time, from the moment he had stretched his long limbs next to her on the pallet, and it was very late.
“No. I don’t see how I could possibly sleep when all I can think about is that I am a bastard.” His voice was soft in the darkness, but there was no mistaking the self-loathing.
Cwenthryth turned his head to look at him, shocked by the bitterness in his tone as well as the use of the word. Steinar was staring at the ceiling, his hands folded over his chest, as still as a stone carving.
“I’m sorry?” She didn’t think for a moment he wasn’t Wolf’s natural son, so he had to mean he thought he was a bad man.
“The day you came to the village, to my hut, hoping to find help and security, I barked at you like a rabid dog, causing you to faint in terror.”
“It’s not quite what—”
He cut her off before she could point out that terror had not been responsible for the fainting, but rather exhaustion and the recent loss of blood.
“Then I threw you out for doing nothing more than being the most selfless, loving, and helpful person I’ve ever met, and giving my sons a bit of the peace they had lost at the death of their mother.
When I discovered you in the tree house where the boys had had the generosity to offer, instead of being ashamed at my lack of compassion, I used you in the most—”
He stopped, evidently thinking that he had been unforgivably selfish and violent with her, using her like Godfrid once had. But it had been nothing like that. He had seen to her pleasure—twice—and he had not even entered her. He’d been gentle, even cradling her afterward.
“You didn’t—” Once again she tried to protest, once again he spoke before she could.
“Then I accused you of being the most shameful wanton for doing nothing more than speaking to Haakon and I allowed you to leave unescorted the following morning without even asking where you were headed. How you didn’t send me to hell after all that I will never know.”
Hell. Again. If he mentioned it, then order was restored. A smile tugged at Cwenthryth’s lips. Really his obsession with the place was most endearing. “I already told you. I would never send someone to hell.”
“No. Not when you know too well what it’s like.” His voice was as rough as it had ever been. Her attempt at levity had failed. He was silent another long moment. When he spoke, his question surprised her. “Can I stay here, sleep next to you tonight?”
This time the smile teasing her lips broke through. “You sound just like Rothgar, you know.”
A growl answered her. Dear, oh dear, he did behave just like a wolf when he wanted to. And she loved it.
“Do I?” he whispered turning to his side to look at her. “Do I really sound like an innocent little child, Cwenthryth?”
Well, no. Put like that, he did not. More like a virile beast of a man, one capable of making her shiver with desire.
A true wolf. “You don’t,” she murmured, barely resisting the urge to nestle herself into his warmth and pet him like she would the furry animals if they could be trusted not to hurt humans in search of comfort.
“So, will you deny me what you allow my son to do?”
“No.”
With those words, she turned her back to him, indicating he was welcome to wrap himself around her.
Accepting the unspoken invitation, he settled himself behind her, just like his son liked to do.
Except that having his big arms enfold her and his broad chest walling her in safety was nothing like having a frail boy holding on to her.
Cwenthryth took in a deep breath, feeling safe for the first time since…
. Well, if she’d had to be honest, she had never felt that safe in her life.
“All right?”
“More than all right.”
She closed her eyes. At last, she had found the refuge she’d hoped to find in the Norsemen village.