Chapter Nineteen #3
He growled low and heard her release an answering cry of pleasure. Then she threw her head back, her hair spilling over his knees, and he groaned again. She was a fever in his blood, and he had to have her, needed her, wanted her—each time more powerfully than before.
Buried full inside her, he did not stir, but grabbed a fistful of her dark mane and bade her look at him, made her see the promise implicit in his gaze, along with the yielding of his heart.
“Ride me, wren,” he whispered, and she trembled in reply. His eyes were still locked with hers, his fingers dragging through her tumbling locks, when she began to rock in a gentle rhythm wholly unlike his usual fierce possession.
Although he found the difference exotic, he was soon frantic for a fiercer union, and even the wren could not keep to such a timid pace. As she began to move faster, Dunstan grunted and ground her hips to his furiously until his hoarse shout and her wild cries blended together in perfect harmony.
* * *
Marion lay across her husband’s chest, thoroughly content and bemused.
She should have known that despite his injury, Dunstan would find a way to join with her, for he would never be denied.
As his wife, she might as well accept that truth.
He might make her angry or exasperate her; he might frown and shout and argue, and sometimes he might even give in. But he would never be denied.
When she found the strength, Marion slid from his lap and fussed over him, checking his bindings and removing some of the pillows that had propped his back.
She made sure he was comfortable before she blew out the candles and curled up beside him.
Then she laid a hand over his heart, thankful to feel its strong beats, and closed her eyes.
Snuggling closer to his warmth, Marion listened to his breathing slow and even out.
Usually Dunstan went to sleep with the promptness of a trained soldier.
Sometimes he even snored, but she did not mind.
Marion found the strangely intimate sound endearing, especially after what had happened in the hall tonight.
She had been so terrified by the sight of him, covered with blood and staggering…. Marion squeezed her eyes shut against the memory of those long, horrible moments when she thought she might lose him. She had known then that she could never again entertain thoughts of leaving her husband.
No matter what the future held, she would cleave to the Wolf.
If he never spoke one word of affection, or learned any tender arts, she was content, for she knew, deep in her heart, that he cared for her.
The Wolf might never admit as much, but the evidence was there in his eyes and his gruff behavior—if one knew him well enough to look.
And she did. Dunstan was a man of few words, a man who found it difficult to talk about his feelings, yet he showed her in a myriad tiny ways what was going on inside him.
Marion had been slow to realize just how much until her uncle’s hateful words had rung out in the hall.
No, she did not believe that she had tamed the Wolf with her money, as Peasely had claimed, for Dunstan was not greedy. But he had changed.
Dunstan did seek her out, and he did attend her, and no matter how he might scoff at her romantic notions, his actions were those of a man who cared for his wife.
Marion smiled sleepily. She realized that she would always have to pay attention to all the little ways in which the Wolf spoke to her for the rest of their days.
And if he never mentioned words of love, she had only to look toward his deeds to find what she sought.
“Wren?” Thinking him asleep, Marion was surprised to feel Dunstan touch her gently. He entwined his large fingers with her smaller ones and brought her palm to his lips in an unusually sweet gesture.
“Hmm?” Marion murmured. She rubbed her thumb against his skin, envisioning in the darkness the hand that she had come to know so well. It was just as beautiful and powerfully stimulating today as the first time she had seen it, the back dusted with his dark hair….
“I love you.” His words were a harsh whisper, startling in their simplicity, and so unexpected that Marion froze for a moment, stunned to hear them spoken aloud.
She felt the foolish pressure of tears, along with a thickness in her throat that forced her to swallow hard before she could reply. “I know,” she said softly. “But ‘tis good to listen to you say it.”
Dunstan grunted then, one of those indecipherable noises that she had come to accept so readily, and Marion closed her eyes again, warm and safe in the knowledge of her husband’s love.
“Wren?” This time his voice held an edge of roughness that hinted at his displeasure.
“Hmm?” Marion answered, rousing herself again from the edge of sleep.
“I would hear you speak of this,” Dunstan said gruffly.
Hiding her wide smile in the darkness, Marion leaned close to kiss his mouth. “I love you, Dunstan de Burgh,” she whispered.
With a growl of satisfaction, the Wolf wrapped one heavy arm around her, anchoring her to him, and soon she heard the slow, even sound of his breathing as he sank into slumber, content.