Hunter's Woman (14 page)

His body was as she had imagined, taut muscles everywhere she touched.  His skin was smooth and as soft was her own along his back but faintly abrasive on his chest and arms where hair grew.  She moved restlessly beneath him, enjoying the texture of his skin as it brushed hers, feeling her nipples harden into stiff, throbbing peaks. 

He broke the kiss, moving down to cover one hard peak with his mouth.  Aslyn gasped, groaned, and cupped his head to her.  Threading her fingers through his hair, she tugged, offering her other breast to him when he finally, reluctantly, released the nipple he had teased until she was writhing in mindless ecstasy, groaning as if she was dying. 

As heavenly as the suction of his mouth on her breast was, it was not nearly enough.  She wanted … needed more. 

She began to struggle against him and when he lifted slightly away, she kissed him as he had kissed her, exploring his body with her mouth.  He groaned, allowing her exploration, holding himself in check with an effort that made him tremble beneath her touch. 

The tremors running through him were echoed by her own body, a sense of urgency building within both of them until they reached a point where neither could wait longer to join their bodies.  Aslyn spread her legs for him, reaching for his throbbing male member to guide it inside her even as he moved to wedge his hips between her trembling thighs.  Looping an arm beneath one thigh, he lifted it as he pushed fully inside of her in one swift thrust.  Expecting the pain of having her maiden head breached, Aslyn gasped, tensed against a pain that was insignificant beside the pleasure of feeling his flesh become one with hers.  She nipped his shoulder, then sucked it to soothe, curling her other leg around him and arching her back to urge him on. 

He needed no more.  He was shaking with the effort to hold himself in check and at that began to thrust inside her in long, powerful strokes that fed the hunger in her belly for the caress of his man’s flesh.  She countered each stroke, tilting her hips to urge him deeper, meeting each thrust with a grind of her hips that drove them both to the edge within moments. 

He went still suddenly, squeezing his eyes shut, every muscle straining against giving into his body’s demand for release.  She cried out in frustration, thrusting her hips against him until he uttered a long, low growl and began to move again, hard and fast.  He bit down on her shoulder as his climax seized him, his body jerking against hers with his release.  The nip of his teeth sent her over the edge of pleasure.  It culminated in an explosion of ecstasy that ripped through her entire body, leaving lassitude in its wake. 

She went limp beneath him, barely conscious.  

Chapter Eleven

Minutes pass while they fought for breath.  Finally, he gathered himself and rolled off of her and onto his back beside her.  Aslyn found herself drifting in a hazy state of blissful repletion.  After a while, she realized, dimly, that she had not put up much of a fight to fend him off.  She had offered little in the way of maidenly objection.  She had certainly not behaved as a maiden when he had touched her.

She found she didn’t care. 

She should have.  What he thought of her was important to her.  She had never given herself to any man before and she feared her behavior might make him think otherwise, but in the end, she realized that nothing beyond the moment really mattered.  There was no future—not for her—not for them. 

It still bothered her.  They might have little time together, but she wanted it to be good between them.  She wanted warm memories to take with her.

She should be furious with him for his presumption that she would simply yield herself to him only because he had claimed her.  If she could rouse a healthy dose of outrage, she would be considerably more convincing as a maiden who’d been robbed of her virtue.

She could not seem to rouse any sense of outrage, however.  She could not, in fact, dismiss the urge growing inside of her to join with him again to see if it was as wonderful as the first time.

She rolled onto her side, studied him for a long moment, and then reached over and plucked gently on one of his chest hairs.  One corner of his lips twitched, threatening a smile.  She tugged a little harder.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed dutifully, and then spoiled it by chuckling.  “What was that for?”

Aslyn thought about it a moment, but she was in no mood to start a fight by pretending outrage she didn’t feel.  “Just checking,” she murmured and lay back down again.

“For what?”

“Life.”

Laughter rumbled from his chest.  He lifted his head, flicked his flaccid member, and collapsed again.  “For the moment, there is none.”

A gurgle of laughter escaped Aslyn before she could stop it.  “So much for ravishing me.”

Kale rolled onto his side, propping his head on his bent arm and staring down at her, his expression a cross between amusement and worry.  “I did not pleasure you?”

Aslyn tried to look despondent but failed.  “You know very well that you did.”

He grimaced.  “Actually, I was not altogether certain.  I lost control.”  He flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.  “I do seem to recall hearing something between a yodel and a yat screech.”

Aslyn punched him playfully and rolled over on top of him, smiling down at him.  “You can do it again, if you like.”

His lips twitched.  “With your permission?”

The sense of playfulness vanished as she studied his face and realized that the passion she felt for him was only a part of what she felt.  Her heart—her soul—was as deeply, irrevocably his as her body—as she had known it would be.  She wasn’t certain which had come first, or if it even mattered.  The two could not be separated. 

Small wonder it had cut her so deeply to think he cared only that he could use her to trap Algar.

She lowered her gaze, forcing a smile.  “With all my heart,” she said playfully, swallowing with some difficulty against the lump of misery that had risen from nowhere to lodge itself in her throat.

He caught her chin, forcing her to look up at him and she felt her smile fall a little flat.  “Forever?”

She looked away, forced a chuckle.  “For tonight at least,” she said flippantly, then, when he frowned, she reached down and cupped his male member.  “If I can rouse him from slumber.”

It hardened at her touch, grew to fill her hand to overflowing. 

He rolled onto his side so that she landed on the bed beside him.  Cupping her face in his hands, he lowered his head and kissed her with such tenderness she thought she would cry.  She found she could not bear his tenderness.  It made her feel as if her heart would break. 

She pulled away from him, nipped his shoulder and then his earlobe, running her hands over his chest, his arms and then reaching down to cup his erection.  His response was almost instantaneous, heated, aggressive.  He moved his mouth and hands over her, possessively, as if to claim every inch of her body as his own.

She pushed him onto his back and crawled atop him, spreading her thighs and rubbing her woman’s flesh against him.  He lifted her hips and thrust upward, impaling her to the hilt.  She cried out, ground her hips against him and finally leaned forward, pulling away slightly then pushing back again.

Before she had caught her rhythm, he surged upward, tipping her onto her back and thrusting into her again and again until she felt herself climbing toward the peak of pleasure once more, felt him striving to reach his own culmination. 

Abruptly, he pulled away, rolled her onto her stomach and lifted her hips for his thrust.  She groaned when he embedded his hard flesh deeply inside her, pushing back against him to feel him more deeply still.

Gripping her hips, he thrust again and again, setting a rhythm that was fast, hard, demanding.  She braced herself on her arms, arching her back, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as she felt her body tensing toward the ultimate release.  She screamed when it caught her, carrying her over the edge. 

He cried out as well, holding her tightly against him as his seed flooded her.

He groaned when he pulled away from her at last and lowered himself shakily to the bed, breathing harshly as he strove to catch his breath. 

Aslyn found she had little desire to move and no strength for it.  She was more than half asleep when he gathered her to him, pulling one of her legs over his hips and sliding one of his between her thighs.  She muttered a half-hearted complaint as he slid one arm beneath her head and wrapped his arms around her, but his arms tightened when she tried to pull away and she subsided, too tired to argue. 

He was studying her when she woke near dawn.  She blinked the blurriness from her vision, disconcerted.  “Did I oversleep?” she asked a little uncertainly.

He shook his head slightly, lifting a hand and brushing a tendril of hair from her cheek, then lifted a stray lock, studying it.  “It glows like fire.”

It was the bane of her existence, the main reason she rarely went outside without a hood to cover the brilliant beacon her auburn hair became the moment light touched it.   “It’s most unkind to remark upon it.”

He cocked an eyebrow.  “It’s beautiful.  Almost as beautiful as you are.”

Aslyn covered her face with her hand.  “Hardly.  I look like a monster with my face all swollen.”

He pulled her hand away.  “The swelling and bruising are almost gone.”

Aslyn frowned, certain he was only saying that to try to make her feel better.  To her surprise, however, she discovered her face felt almost normal … which was strange.  Surely, as badly battered as her face had been, it would have taken far longer to heal?  Or, had she simply lost all track of time?

She knew better, however, and finally decided it must have been the cold that had helped the swelling go down so quickly. 

Dismissing it, she glanced around the cottage.  “Where did all of this come from?”

He frowned, lay back against the mattress, staring at the ceiling.  “I brought them.  I would have caught up to you far sooner if it had not taken so long to haul it all here.  Then, too, I’d thought you had only gone out.  It only occurred to me after you’d been gone for hours that you’d … decided to leave.”

Aslyn grimaced, covering her face with the coverlet.  A very little thought assured her that there was nothing she could say that would make her actions any less offensive.  She could not recall ever feeling quite so horrid.  It didn’t matter that it had never occurred to her that Kale had left on her account, to shower her with gifts such as those that now adorned her humble cottage. 

She could always say she was sorry … but it was such an insignificant response to something so horrendous as what she’d done and could not convey the depth of her feelings on the matter.

Worse still, nothing had changed.  She could not stay, no matter how badly she might want to, and she could not explain to Kale why she could not stay.

“Were you so convinced I could not protect you from Algar that you thought you had to flee?”

Stunned, Aslyn snatched the covers down and stared at him.  “No!  That had nothing to do with it!”

“Then why?”

Unable to bear the censure in his gaze, Aslyn rolled onto her side, staring at the wall.  “I cannot explain.”

“Can’t?  Or won’t?”

“Either.”

He was silent for several moments.  “You left because of me.”

Aslyn sighed, wishing she had tried to come up with a convincing lie.  “I left because I had to … Because it was time … And … because I was afraid of wanting something I could not have.”

Kale came up on his side once more, facing her, a teasing light in his eyes.   “This is an intriguing statement.  Care to elaborate?”

Dismayed as she was that she’d said far too much, Aslyn couldn’t help but respond with a smile.  She reached for him.  “Why don’t I just show you?”

They had just gotten warmed up when there came a rap on the door.  The sound jolted Aslyn back to reality as effectively as an ice bath.  Kale was harder to convince.  Finally, however, Aslyn managed to slip away and crawled from the bed. 

Her gown and shift lay in tatters on the floor beside the bed.  She held them up, staring at them in consternation, and then turned to give Kale an admonishing glare.  He grinned, lifting his brows and wiggling them at her wickedly.  Aslyn suppressed a chuckle.

Dropping the useless garments, she went to the door. 

“Who’s there?”

“Jomares Baker.  Be this the house of the healer?”

Aslyn cursed under her breath.  “It is.  I’m not able to see anyone today unless it cannot wait.”

“It be bad.  I come yesterday, but you was gone.”

She bit her lip, but there was nothing for it.  Her clothing was in shreds.  Worse, she’d dropped her bundle when Kale had given chase and he had not retrieved it so she didn’t even have her spare.  She couldn’t invite him in wearing nothing but a torn shift, or wrapped in a bed sheet.  “If you could come back in an hour, I can see you.”

“An hour?”

“Yes.”

“All right then.”

He sounded more bemused than sullen, but Aslyn still felt uncomfortable about having to send the poor man to wait yet another hour. 

Shrugging it off, she returned to the alcove and took her shift and gown from the floor, looking around for her bag of healing potions, which contained her needle and threads.