Page 75 of Blood of Wolves

He licked and sucked at her, brought her off that way, until his chin was dripping, and he could marvel at the way she clenched around his fingers.

He pulled her thighs around his hips, and she clamped down. Reached for him, clutching at his arms as he pressed in close, and finally got to tease his cock along her sex. He bit down hard on his lip, afraid he’d come right then.

“Rune…Rune, I’m ready. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

It was everything and nothing like his first time. It was that incredibly wet heat gripping him tight. But it was Tessa’s head pressed back into the pillow, her blue eyes slumbrous with pleasure. It was her mouth that he kissed, and kissed, as his hips found that old, inexorable, animal rhythm.

She raked his back with her nails, marks he would wear gladly, and she cried his name when she came again.

~*~

Tessa woke with a start to find the room black with night, the candles and fire all burnt out. The war. The Sels. What was happening? What was–

When she stirred, the warm body behind her did as well, a heavy arm shifting where it lay draped across her waist. She subsided with a sigh, settling back against Rune’s strong chest.

“Tess?” he inquired sleepily.

She stroked the back of his arm, petting through dark hair. “It’s nothing. I was only wondering how much longer until…” She swallowed hard. Until the dawn; until battle started; until they had to dress and dive back into the controlled chaos of warfare.

He hummed and shifted closer, nosing at the back of her neck. “I don’t know. It’s still dark.”

“Mmhm.”

He stroked her stomach, gentle sweeps that skimmed up lazily over her breasts. She shivered, and when her nipples pebbled, they were sore from his mouth, earlier, all of her tender in the most pleasant way.

He shifted in closer, so she could feel the hard line of his cock against her backside. His hand trailed lower, and she adjusted automatically, welcoming his questing touch down her belly, between her thighs, where she was still sticky and puffy.

“Are you sore?” he whispered, and pressed in with a fingertip.

She pressed her head back onto his shoulder. “Not too sore, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He pushed up far enough to fasten his lips to her throat, and his touch grew bolder against her sex. She was sore, but her body knew his now, eager for his touch again.

Like this, for a little while, the war could wait.

15

Rune woke in the gleaming silver of pre-dawn, head turned toward the window – and toward the head resting on his shoulder. He’d just come out of an ugly dream full of smoke, and blood, and screams, but it evaporated at sight of Tessa’s shadowed, sleeping face, and a smile pulled at his mouth. Her hair lay in silk ribbons over his arm, his chest, his stomach. Her hand, small and clean, with a few new calluses starting to form thanks to her insistence on learning to wield sword and bow, rested over his heart, tiny and pale against his furred chest.

Slowly, not intending to wake her, he laid his hand over hers. His other arm was around her waist, and he stroked the impossibly soft skin of her naked hip with his fingertips. The fire had died out, and frost rimed the diamond window panes; his breath plumed white in the dim room, but it was warm where they were tangled, skin on skin.

He was sore, a little, pleasantly so; muscles he didn’t normally use pulling as he snagged a fur with his toes and maneuvered it up over both of them. A twinge at his wound left his teeth gritted, but it eased once he was settled again. That was still a worry: if sex had it flaring and sensitive again, what would fighting do? How many arrows could he loose before the pain began throwing off his aim? Slowing him down?

And just like that, his stolen bit of peace dissolved, and he was no longer a content, happy lover, but a prince expected on the ramparts at dawn.

He extricated himself from bed as carefully as he could. He lifted Tessa by the shoulders and eased her into the warm place he’d abandoned on the pillow, tucked the fur over her shoulders.

She stirred, lashes fluttering. “Rune…?” Voice thick and groggy.

“Shh, love.” He smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead, simple gestures that left his chest aching. All he wanted was to climb back under the covers with her. “Go back to sleep.”

“But…” she protested. But her lashes lowered, and after he’d stroked her hair a few times, she drifted off again, breaths deep and even.

He washed with last night’s water, a thin film of ice on top of the ewer, and the cold of it woke him the rest of the way up. He braided his hair in a tight, simple tail to keep it off his face, then dressed, and fastened on his armor. He debated wearing Erik’s cloak – but, no, that was for ceremony. He drew on his own simple, functional brown one instead, buckled on his sword, and took one last, lingering look at Tessa.

She looked tiny in his bed, all swallowed up in quilts, and furs, and plush cream pillows. She looked like she belonged there.

With a deep breath that tasted like regret, he slipped silently from the room and down the hall.

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