with muscles that felt like rock under his satin-smooth skin. Her hands glided down over his buttocks, cupping the hard, round globes. Yet rather than satisfying her, the movement of her hands over his body only increased her need.
She wanted to urge his hips forward with her hold on his backside, but when she tried, he did not move. His stubborn strength spoke a silent message of control that both frustrated and delighted her.
His possession of her mouth did not abate and his body moved over hers while she writhed under his weight.
But none of it was enough.
And yet, it was almost too much. She wanted more. She wanted to stop. Her mind warred with her body while her heart sang a song she tried to tune out. One thing they all agreed on: she craved deeper connection. And yet the connection she felt already scared her stupid.
She tried not to think as she moved her hands up his body and then traced the lines of his face with her fingertips. It was an intimacy as profound as the feel of his hardened male flesh pressing like a stone against her thigh.
At the first soft brush of her fingertips along his jaw, Talorc’s body went rigid with the need to claim Abigail fully. He did not understand why that simple touch acted as such a siren’s call to his feral nature when a similar caress along his flank had only fed the fire of his sexual need. It had not turned his desire into an inferno he was in danger of not controlling.
However, control it he must.
He would not hurt his sweet wife. Despite his wolf’s nature, he was no beast to take what he wanted without thought or consideration. The Chrechte were not animals, but humans with the enhancement of animal natures. Nevertheless, it was easier to mate in kind. Humans were often too weak to face a Chrechte’s full passion.
Abigail was more gentle than most, definitely too gentle for his wolf, but she responded to him blithely oblivious to her peril. She touched him with wanton carnality he would never have believed a gently bred Englishwoman capable of. While he could not read her thoughts, she broadcast her need with every move of her small, silky body.
And she kissed with the hunger of a Chrechte woman claiming her mate.
As soon as the thought formed, he banished it with an angry growl. For all that she looked like an angel right out of Heaven, she was human. She had been born and raised English. She was not his mate, but she was his wife.
This night their bodies would consummate that truth.
He grabbed both her wrists and placed them by her head. “Keep them there.”
Her soft brown gaze was dark with desire, and she dared shake her head at him.
“Obey me.”
This time it was her eyes that spoke denial, though her lips remained immobile.
“I mean it.” He caressed her wrists with his thumbs. “Your hands are to remain in this exact position.”
Her sensuous, bow-shaped lips twisted in mutiny. “I would touch.”
“Your touch incites my lust, angel.”
“Is that wrong?” She paused, looking at him with an unfathomable expression. “Between a husband and wife?”
“If it is the wife’s first time to hold him within her body, it is dangerous. I would not hurt you.”
“I know you will not.” Again a pause as if she searched for words. “At least not more than necessary. Some pain is inevitable.”
He wished he could deny it, but she spoke truth. Nevertheless, there was a difference between carefully breaking her maidenhead and rutting on her like a beast. Which he was in danger of doing if he did not maintain control. “Obey me,” he repeated.
“What will you do if I do not?”
He could not believe his shy wife had the temerity to ask that question. He glared down at her, his passion making him more ferocious. “I will assure compliance.”
She licked her lips, her eyes dilating with increased arousal, but she did not reply.
There was no need. Her reaction was as clear as his favorite loch. His angel liked the idea!
Without thought, he stretched her hands above her head and grasped both small wrists together with his left hand. His wolf howled in approval while Abigail gasped and then moaned, her eyelids dropping to half-mast.
He spent no time wondering why they should both enjoy him mastering her in this way so much. He was a warrior, not a philosopher. He knew only that the delicate bones of her wrists felt all too right in the grasp of his hand.
He lowered his head and kissed her again. Within seconds she was writhing as before, only with utter abandon. The movement of her pelvis would have thrown him off her body if he was not so strong. And yet he knew that was not her intention.
If the glazed expression on her beautiful heart-shaped face was any indication, she was not thinking at all. Certainly not enough to have conscious intentions.
Her instinctual responses were devastating enough. She spread her legs just enough to make the invitation clear, and yet, he was sure she was unaware of extending the offer. He rolled off her to lie on his side. Keeping grasp of her wrists, the position still left him the freedom he needed to touch her body and make her ready for the physical claiming.
She mewled at the loss of his weight and began to thrash her legs, undulating her body in beautiful, abandoned need. He had to throw one thigh over hers to keep her in place beside him.
Then he set about ensuring her arousal reached a fever pitch through which she would be only marginally aware of the pain that breaching her maidenhead would inevitably cause. He kneaded her breasts, teasing her nipples until she cried out in mindless desire.
He had touched every inch of her silken skin in the hot springs and he wanted to do so again, but both their need called out to him with too much urgency. He allowed his hand to slide down to the juncture of her thighs, sliding his middle finger between her swollen, wet labia.
He had not breached her vaginal opening beyond a fingertip during his nightly explorations of her body in their tent, but now he allowed himself to press deeper. He stopped only when he felt the supple barrier of her virginity.
She made a small, pained sound and he comforted her with small tender kisses on her face and neck. He whispered promises and compliments she did not respond to. The part of his brain that still functioned on a fully human level was grateful she was so lost to her desire she wasn’t making sense of his words.
He would feel like an idiot later for saying them otherwise.
He did not pull his finger out, but massaged the thin barrier inside her body, that which proved she had not played love games as he heard many in the English Court indulged in. He had been told that the English Court actually revered love between parties married or promised to others as some sort of romantic ideal.
Both he and his wolf found the concept utterly distasteful.
And his beautiful, sensual bride was clearly not a practicing participant in such ludicrous games. She was wholly innocent and deserving of all his consideration for their first claiming.
With that thought in mind, he brushed his thumb over the nub of her pleasure. Her body jolted and he smiled to himself. He continued his ministrations, massaging her maidenhead in preparation to breaching it and her clitoris in preparation to her pleasure.
Only when his angel begged for more with both her body and broken little words barely whispered past her parted lips, did he move over her and fit his cock to her opening. He slid inside a mere inch, causing himself untold pleasure and her a level of shock.
“You are inside me.” Awe laced each syllable.
He thrust gently with his hips, both he and his wolf working together to control the urge to take her quickly and without remorse. “I will be so deep inside you—”
“You will touch my soul,” she completed and then tears spilled over her eyes.
Her body did not speak of pain; his wolf senses confirmed she was not in distress. The tears were some women’s reaction to the claiming.
