Thayer finally eased the intimacy of their embrace. Rolling onto his side, he held her tightly against him, nuzzling his face in her hair. The fire within her could still burn for him. Even in his frenzy he had felt it. All had not died as he had feared it would.
“Ah, Gytha,” he murmured, his voice not quite steady, “I feared that you would turn cold here as well.”
“Nay.” She idly threaded her fingers through the red curls on his chest. “Though if all that needed to be said had not been, I might have grown so. All the time we were apart, I thought on the matter. I felt I understood, but I needed it to be said or the wound could fester as I feared. We had to speak out on this before it could all be set aside.”
“Aye. I had hoped to simply set it all behind us, then never look at it again.”
“So I feared.” She blushed a little, assailed by a touch of guilt over her ploys.
Studying her high color, he wondered if the thought taking shape in his mind was too wild, then murmured, “But anger freed my tongue.”
“I have noticed that it can do that.”
Slowly, he moved so that she lay beneath him, narrowing his eyes as he recognized the touch of guilt in her lovely eyes. “You sought to put me into a rage.”
“Now, Thayer…” she began and faltered, seeking to deny all yet unable to lie.
“You did.” He shook his head. “Did you not consider that I might grow too angry?”
“I knew you would never strike me.”
The confidence behind her words touched him deeply. “T’was very near.”
“Near does not hurt.”
“Can a man never be free of women and their ploys?” He sighed as he rested his head upon her breasts.
“Wretched man.” She smiled a little at his teasing. “We needed to speak on the matter.”
“Aye, we did.” He circled the tip of her breast with his finger, his gaze fixed upon the hardening nipple.
“Where were you wounded? I found naught but what was there before, yet I may have missed it.”
“I was not wounded.” Turning his head, he repeated his finger play upon her other breast.
“Not wounded?” She stared at him for a moment in speechless surprise. “And you dare to complain of women’s ploys?”
“Ah, well, I recalled how you were when I was cut that time. I had hoped to stir a little response. I meant to break through that wall you had built between us—or leastwise, to put a chink in it.”
“T’was but a little wall, not built to last. Ah, Thayer.” She sighed with pleasure as he slid his tongue over the tip of her breast.
“I spent each night recalling the taste of you. Sweet. Silken honey against my tongue.”
Burying her fingers in his hair, she tightened her grip as he toyed with the hardened tips of her breasts with his tongue. “Again? So soon?”
“Aye, but slowly this time. I mean to savor you as one does a fine wine.”
She cried out, arching against him, when he took the point of her breast into his mouth, drawing upon it slowly. He grazed her tender skin with his teeth as he nibbled her gently, then soothed that pleasurable sting with curling strokes of his tongue. When he began to suckle lazily, she gasped. He savored first one, then the other breast, stroking her body with his hands to further stoke her desire.
“A wine, am I?”
“The finest I have ever sipped. None can compare.”
“Such flattery.”
He frowned a little when he encircled her waist with his hands. “You have gained some weight, it would seem.”
“It would seem so because I have.”
