“A bard’s tale,” I scoff. “Shall we tell of the great warrior who left flowers on the stable door and hid behind the hay cart when Father came out?”
“I was not hiding. I was inspecting the cart.”
“For an hour?”
“It was a thorough inspection.”
I laugh, muffling it quickly against my hand with a glance toward the bedroom door. “Or shall we tell of the time you stood in the rain through the whole of the harvest dance because I was inside dancing with the miller’s son?”
I don’t know what possessed me to do as much. A feminine urge to test a certain alpha’s resolve, maybe? A dangerous game on reflection.
“Aye, and I’d stand there again.” No shame at all in his voice. Only a low, rumbling satisfaction. “The miller’s son walked you home the long way round, right past the west wall where I happened to be standing my watch. One look at me, and he knew he’d overstepped his mark. Never seen a lad so keen to be somewhere else in all my life.”
“You growled at him.”
“I greeted him.”
“He did not court me again.”
“Then my greeting worked.”
“Fine, I knew from the first glance, too,” I say with a smile.
“I’ll let you in on a secret.” He nips at my earlobe. And then slides his lips down until his teeth are poised over the claiming mark. He’s teasing me. Taunting me. I know that before he’s done with me, he will bite me there. It will sting—the good kind—one that amplifies the pleasure as his knot stretches me. “I could smell your lust on the first damn day. An alpha alwaysknows. And he is a determined beast when he finds his one. I’d have waited ten years… a lifetime, were it necessary.”
Tears spring in the back of my eyes at his fierce declaration. “A lifetime without you would have been a wasted one,” I say softly.
“Damn right.”
The claiming mark tingles, as if it remembers too. Two years ago, on those battlements, with his knot buried inside me and his teeth poised over my throat, he had asked me. Even then, even wild with rut, he had asked.Say it, lass. Say you are mine, or I let you go home unmarked.And I had pressed my throat harder against his mouth and made my oath into the night air, and his bite had turned the words into something that lives under my skin still.
He takes a fistful of my hair, holding me with just the right amount of bite that belies the gentleness he can also possess, before he spins me around.
We stare at one another before his eyes lower to my lips.
His mouth slants over mine. I open joyfully, a sigh escaping me at the very first touch. Our tongues tangle, creating a rush inside me, a fluttery, jittery sensation like we are touching for the very first time.
Will it always be like this?
Will the feel of his silken hair under my fingers forever create a sense of home?
Will the cage of his arms as he holds me to him—lifts me from the floor until my feet dangle—always be my safe place?
I believe so, for this feeling is addictive and as necessary as air.
His lips lift from mine, and we share a gusty breath. Then my ass hits the tabletop. A clatter follows, one that makes me giggle as he thrusts my bowl of rising dough aside. The table iscovered in flour. The state of my dress presents but a fleeting consideration—one I’m too impatient to care about.
“Hurry,” I whisper.
He growls, hand at the back of my neck, lowering me until my back makes contact with the hard wooden surface. “These fucking tits will forever be a test,” he rumbles and buries his face between them.
Fingers impatient now, he tugs my bodice down and slides his lips over to the left before greedily suckling on my nipple.
My back arches, and I must clamp my hand over my mouth, lest I let the whimper out.
He sucks sharp and hard. Squeezing my breast with his fingers as if to work even more of my flesh into his mouth.
He sucks hard once, twice, more, and then his lips pop off, and he slides over to the twin, where he performs the same magic. Making it good and sore.
