Wolf hurried her into his arms and rubbed her back to send warmth through her. He felt it when his hand rubbed her shoulder—a scar. She stiffened and he grew angry thinking of how she must have suffered.
“Scars are the sign of a brave warrior,” he said, hoping to ease her worry.
“I haven’t noticed any on you,” she said, raising her head to look at him.
He released her and stepped back, spreading his legs and pointing to a spot on his right inner thigh.
Raven did her best to ignore his protruding shaft, though it was impressive, and she couldn’t help but smile when she saw the scar on his leg, not far from his groin. “A dissatisfied lover?”
He chuckled, then teased playfully, “You can judge that for yourself soon enough.” He grew serious when he explained, “I got the wound saving Trevor from a deadly blow.”
Raven looked down, her hand going to her left side just above her waist to rub the scar there.
Wolf stepped closer to her, easing her hand away to touch the puckered flesh while taking in the slimness of her waist, the gentle curve of her hips, and the dark thatch of hair that hid her treasure.
Knowing his curiosity would have him asking, she said, “Death almost claimed me with this one, but I had no choice. I had to help Iver or he would have died.”
Wolf’s fingers brushed across the scar as if he could make it disappear. “Iver owes you his life.”
“He owes me nothing. We are family,” she insisted.
He spotted another scar just above one of her breasts and his hand went to it. He didn’t have to ask, he knew the danger of a wound there, but he asked anyway, “This one could have proved deadly.”
“It almost did,” she confessed.
“Who did you save this time?” he asked, understanding what Clive had meant when he said she had earned their respect and obviously their loyalty.
“Fyn,” she said, though offered no more and was glad he didn’t ask for more.
Wolf ran his hands down along her sides to rest at her waist and looked down at the small scar he felt on her right side. He turned her slightly to have a look and though it was small, he could see by the look in her eyes that it was the scar that pained her the most.
“Did you get this one saving the man you loved?”
Raven shook her head, lowering it as she whispered, “I couldn’t save him.”
He slipped his hand beneath her chin and raised her head. “Those scars cause the most pain, a pain that never leaves us. My most painful scar can’t be seen, but it remains never-ending.”
“Tell me,” Raven urged, wanting him to share it with her so she would be more comfortable sharing her pain with him.
“Later,” he said. “Now is not the time to recall sorrows. I want this night to be memorable for the both of us.” He lifted her in his arms, her flesh cool against his warmth and he walked to the bed.
She slipped her arms around his neck just before they reached the bed. “Wolf.”
He rested his brow to hers. “I know, wife. You’ve never laid with a man.”
“You do believe me,” she said, startled.
“I do and I feel the fool for not realizing it sooner, since I’ve lost precious time in making love to you.”
That he actually admitted to feeling a fool stole a bit of her heart and brought her a strange sense of comfort, but that he regretted not making love, not simply coupling, but making love to her sooner stirred her passion.
“We begin anew?’ she asked with hope. Hope that they could share a decent life together regardless of the past.
“Aye, wife, we begin anew,” he agreed and she brought her lips to his.
“Let it be so,” she whispered before sealing their agreement with a kiss.
Wolf placed her on the bed and followed down to lie beside her. He ran his hand with a feather-like touch over her shoulder and down along her arm, and loved that her skin prickled with gooseflesh from his teasing touch. “I thought of this moment many times.” His hand roamed over one of her breasts, cupping it. It weighed firm in his hand and he ran his thumb over her hard nipple, sending a shiver through her. “I wondered if you would submit or refuse me, but never did I imagine I would favor you, want you with a raging passion that pains my shaft.”
Raven’s hand went to rest on his hand that squeezed her breast gently. “I don’t want to submit—I want to share this night with you.”
“And all the days and nights to come?” he asked as if it were a vow he asked of her.
“And all the days and nights to come,” she repeated, his intimate touches sending a flurry of tingles rushing through her.
How was it his touch could awaken passion so quickly in her? How was it that she actually ached for his touch and his kiss? And how was it that it felt so right and not at all like she surrendered?
Love!
No, she couldn’t love him. It wasn’t possible. It was a need she felt, like the need her men had spoken about. She had never felt a need before Wolf’s touch. She had never let a man near her, not after the fright she had suffered at the hands of a stranger. But this was different. She wanted Wolf to touch her.
Love strikes at the strangest times and in the strangest ways. That was what the old man had told her. Could love have sparked between them?
“Where do your thoughts go?” Wolf asked, seeing she had drifted away from him and thinking another man had come to haunt her thoughts and interfere with their night together.
She moved her hand off his to run her fingers over his cheek and down into his beard and along his strong jawline. She faintly rested her fingers along his lips, amazed at how perfectly they were shaped. They weren’t too full or too slim. They were perfect to kiss.
Her delicate touch played havoc with his passion. He ached to slip one of her fingers in his mouth to nip and suckle, but first he wanted a response from her, and he demanded, “Truth, wife.”
She turned a slightly confused look on him, having not believed where her own thoughts had drifted. “Love. I was thinking about love.”
“With another man?” he demanded again, though this time none too gently.
She shook her head, confusion still evident in the slight scrunch of her eyes. “No, I wondered if love would ever be possible between us.”
“Once again we think the same, wife,” he said, glad another man would not come between them tonight. And he couldn’t wait any longer to do what he’d ached to do. His mouth captured one of her fingers, drawing it into his mouth, nipping at it with his teeth and suckling at it with a teasing slowness.
He was pleased to feel an intense shudder rock her body and a soft moan spill from her lips, lips that were in desperate need of a kiss. He released her finger with one last nip and claimed her lips with his.
Wolf never imagined he’d be more than eager to kiss and intimately touch Raven, but he couldn’t deny the exquisite pleasure it brought him. Touching her silky soft skin was like tasting fine wine and not being able to get enough of it. He had to explore every inch of her, touch all of her, taste all of her, claim all of her.
His lips followed his hands, nibbling, tasting, kissing her delectable skin, and that he had elicited moans of pleasure from her made it all the more enjoyable. His touch grew more intimate, his fingers making their way to the little nub of pleasure that nestled in her dark thatch of hair, and she gasped when his fingers began to play with it.
Raven couldn’t quite comprehend it all. His hand, mouth, tongue did things to her that sent sensations through her that she never knew existed or even thought possible. She thought she had had a good understanding of what went on between a man and a woman. Not so, she was a complete novice when it came to coupling. A quick decision had her doing what she always did when she wasn’t quite sure of something. She allowed her instincts to rule. Or was it her passion that took charge and had her reaching out to touch her husband?
With his mouth doing deliriously wonderful things to her nipple, she ran her
hands through his hair, grasping his head. The more he pleasured her the more she ached to do the same to him. When she finally got the chance to take hold of his rock-hard shaft and feel the power pulsating through it—he grabbed hold of her wrist.
“Not tonight. It will be over much too soon and I want us to linger in pleasure.” He hated to see disappointment in her eyes, though his pleasure grew knowing how much she ached to touch him. “Another time, I promise,” he assured her and himself.
Her disappointment soon faded as he continued to work his magic on her and she was soon lost in a haze of pure pleasure. Her skin prickled with a maddening desire, her nipples were so taut they ached, the spot her husband had tormented with his touch and mouth throbbed unmercifully and the ache between her legs was just as relentless and made her want to plead with her husband.
Instead, she threatened, “NOW! NOW, husband or I will take my dagger to you.”
Wolf rose up, stretching over the length of her, laughing. “You’d cut off the appendage of mine that would bring you the greatest pleasure?”
She scowled. “You would torment your wife senseless?”
He lowered his face to hers, his hands braced to either side of her, and kept himself just hovering over her. “I intend to pleasure my wife senseless so I may linger in the joys of her moans that grow me harder and harder.”
Raven’s scowl disappeared. “I have that power over you?”
He brought his lips down near hers. “You’ll not use it against me, wife.”
She grinned. “Of course not, husband.” She grabbed his face, her fingers settling in his beard and loving the feel of the mixture of roughness and softness, then she kissed him.
Her passion-filled kiss pushed Wolf to the edge and he tore his mouth off hers. “Hold on to me,” he ordered.
Raven clamped her hands on his arms and instinctively spread her legs. She wiggled her bottom to meet his shaft that probed at her entrance.
“This is it, wife. This makes you mine,” he said as if giving her one last chance to deny him.
“It makes us one,” she corrected.
His heart swelled with a joy that was foreign to him, a joy he had never felt. “Aye wife—one.”
He entered her slowly, careful not to hurt her. Her sheath was snug and it hugged him tight as he slipped his thick shaft deeper into her. Her moans grew as did the way she moved beneath him, arching up, seeking more of him.
She gave a sudden thrust that had him instinctively plunging into her and he came to an abrupt halt when she gasped in pain.
“Good God, don’t stop now,” she cried out.
He smiled and did as she ordered, keeping his eyes focused on hers as he did, enjoying the passion that struck like lightning in her brilliant blue eyes.
Raven had felt a moment of pain that had passed quickly. All she cared about was the intense pleasure of his mighty thrusts and she matched each one with the thrusts of her hips while keeping her eyes locked with his.
She bit at her lower lip as an intense sensation grew far more powerful than she felt she could contain. Her moans grew as well and she feared they would soon turn to screams. She was going to explode, she wanted to explode.
“Wolf!” she cried out, slamming her hips against him again and again.
“Let go, wife!” he commanded.
And she did, screaming out his name as she burst in pure pleasure.
Her screams as she climaxed finished him, sending him hurtling over the edge and erupting in a climax with a forcefulness he had never experienced with any woman. And he let loose with a powerful groan.
Wolf was left so spent that he dropped off her to lay flat on his back, fearful if he didn’t he’d collapse on top of her. His breathing was as laborious as hers and they both laid side by side in the aftermath of an exceptional climax.
When he was finally able to speak, he turned on his side toward her and hurried a blanket over them both, worried she would suffer a chill like she often did. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? I saw the pain in your eyes and—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips, silencing him. “It was nothing.” She smiled. “Everything else was—amazing.” She tapped his chest. “And so you know, I won’t mind doing it as often as you’d like.”
Wolf laughed and kissed her quick. “Often. I’d like to do it often.” His laughter faded, along with his smile and he dropped down on his back.
Raven turned on her side toward him this time. “I know what you want to ask, but you don’t want to spoil this moment, this new start, between us.”
Wolf turned on his side to face her. “It shouldn’t matter and yet it plagues me. What man would love a woman so strongly and yet not want to make love with her?” His brow shot up. “Unless he didn’t love you in return.”
“Or he loved me… like a father loves a daughter,” Raven said.
He shook his head, feeling a fool. “I never gave that thought.”
“I suppose I didn’t make it sound that way,” she said, knowing he wasn’t all to blame for the misunderstanding. “I am grateful every day for Charles finding me when he did. He came upon me as a man was forcing himself on me. I fought, but the man was large and bulky, and I was weak from lack of food and the cold. I didn’t have the strength to fight him off.”
Wolf grew enraged at the thought. “Please tell me Charles killed him, or I will hunt him down and kill him myself and none too quickly.”
The anger in her husband’s dark eyes left no doubt he would and she realized then what a staunch champion he would be for her.
Raven nodded. “He did, and then he told me he would teach me how to protect myself so no man could ever force himself on me again.”
“The reason you are so skilled with a knife.”
“Aye, Charles taught me well.”
Wolf ran his hand tenderly along her cheek. “I like Charles.”
Raven sighed softly, glad for his touch. “He was a good man, an honest man. He lost his wife and son to an illness that swept through the clan he belonged to, leaving few survivors. He had only his daughter left, and from what Charles said she was far too sweet and caring. A new chieftain arrived and he was a mean man. Unfortunately, he favored Charles’s daughter.” Sadness filled Raven’s every word. “Charles made plans to leave with his daughter but the chieftain found out and locked Charles away in a cell. When he was freed, it was to bury his daughter. She had died at the hands of the chieftain. Charles left and having nothing, he became a thief and planned his revenge.”
“Tell me he got his revenge,” Wolf said, anger brewing in him for what the man had suffered.
She shook her head, her sadness growing, her hand going to the small scar at her side. “I was too late to help him when a band of evil thieves hit us. He died from his wound, but before he did I pledged my word to him that I would see it done. That nothing would stop me.”
“I can see to that done for you, wife,” Wolf said, not taking the chance of letting her do something so dangerous.
Her blue eyes darkened and a sinister look crossed over her lovely face. “I already did and I made the chieftain well aware of why he was about to die.”
“If there is anyone else you must avenge, you will leave it to me,” he ordered, just the thought of the chance she had taken sent a fright through him he felt clear down to his bones. “And don’t bother to tell me you can see to it yourself. I’ll not have you taking such dangerous chances.”
“We can discuss it,” she said.
“There is nothing to discuss. You will obey me on this,” he ordered once again and braced himself for her protest.
“I told you about Charles. Now tell me of this scar that pains you that no one can see.”
That she ignored his order and changed the subject told him she had no intentions of obeying him. He’d let her think that for now.
“It’s my fault Oria was taken from our family,” he said, something he had never told anyone.
“What do you mean? You
could have only been a young lad yourself.”
“Near seven years and tasked with seeing to staying with the slave who watched over Oria that day. I was impatient. I wanted to join the other young lads on the practice field. The slave told me to go, that she didn’t need my help. I left and gave her the opportunity she needed to abduct my sister. I thought only of myself and my sister paid dearly for my selfishness.”
“You did what any young lad would have done. If the woman hadn’t abducted her that day she would have found another day to do it. She’d probably been planning it and she took advantage of the moment and your vulnerability. This scar is not for you to carry. But I would share that with Oria. She should know how you feel. It will make a difference in how she feels about you.”
“I don’t know if I would agree with that,” he said and heard his wife’s stomach grumble. “You’re hungry.”
Raven wasn’t about to deny it. “I am.”
“I’ll have Ida bring food to us,” he said and turned to leave the bed.
“Wolf,” she said softly and he turned. “I can’t be someone I’m not.”
He didn’t respond. He got out of bed, partially dressed, and left the room to find Ida, the question she didn’t ask echoing loudly in his head.
Can you ever accept me for who I am?
How did he accept her independent, spirited nature that was sure to get her into endless trouble and that would drive him completely mad with worry?
He stopped abruptly when a response resonated in his head.
Love her. Simply love her.
Chapter 17
Raven stood by the hearth in her shirt, staring at her sleeping husband. She had become accustomed to every little sound waking her. It was how one stayed alive while traveling the dangerous roads. If one slept too soundly, you could wake to find a knife at your throat or what little belongings you had gone.
She turned her eyes to the flames in the hearth. The wind whipping around the longhouse had been responsible for waking her. Though it hadn’t startled her awake like most sounds had done. Instead it had poked at her sleep until she woke in the warmth and comfort of her husband’s arms. A smile woke along with her, recalling last night and the three times they had coupled. The two quick ones had been as enjoyable as the lingering one. Even now she felt ready to couple with her husband again. She feared she would never get enough of him. But first there were some things they needed to discuss. If this was to work between them, trust and truth were essential.
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