“No!” Marion protested, alarmed.
“Yes. Yes, take all of me, wren.” The speech seemed torn from his throat, then he surged forward, and pain seared through her like a hot lance. Marion cried out with the force of it, sure that he had rent her asunder.
“Day of God,” Dunstan muttered. As she stared up at him in mute horror, he opened his eyes and met her accusing gaze. “Ah, wren, do not look at me like that. I would make you tremble again.” He lifted a handful of her hair and ran his fingers through its thickness. “Iwillmake you tremble again for me. Only me.”
Growling out the promise, Dunstan moved inside of her, and Marion would have balked but for the rapturous expression on his face. Small beads of sweat formed on his brow as he withdrew and then thrust, slowly at first, and then faster. He made wonderful sounds that made her feel all weak and warm inside, and yet she sensed the Wolf was tightly reined. Then, abruptly, he slid a big hand to her buttocks and lifted her to meet him, straining, in a gesture of fierce possession.
He would devour her. Marion felt again that thin thread of alarm at his ferocious plundering, but her body knew no fear. It rose to greet him, and passion returned with a vengeance. Suddenly, she was as wild and desperate as the Wolf himself. When his fingers dug into her, forcing her closer while he thrust deeper, Marion answered by sobbing his name.
“Dunstan!” she screamed as piercing pleasure so sharp as to be painful shattered her, and then, as if through a haze, she saw the Wolf’s great body shudder violently before it fell heavily on top of her. She was nearly crushed for a moment before he seemed to come back to his senses and rolled to the side, taking her with him.
“Ah, wren, so good. So good…” he whispered against the top of her head.
Marion tried to reply, but she could find no words to describe what had happened between them, the passion and the glory and the wonder….I love you, Dunstan de Burgh,she wanted to say, but instead she blinked back tears and snuggled closer to the amazing heat of him.
For once, Marion did not worry about tomorrow or escape or Baddersly. She thought only of Dunstan, and she let the even sound of his breathing lull her to sleep.
* * *
Marion was dreaming of butterflies. They fluttered across her skin as she lay naked in the sun, blessedly warm and fascinated by the sensation of their wings touching her bare flesh. Bare flesh? Confused, Marion felt the dream fade, to be replaced by a reality even more delightful: tender, moist kisses were being placed all over her body.
She opened her eyes, startled to see the dark head of Dunstan de Burgh poised over her until remembrance flooded back, heating her blood and her cheeks. The fire cast his features in gold and shadow, making him look fierce, as usual, but Marion was surprised to see his green eyes were narrowed and his jaw clenched.
“I did that,” he said. Marion was at a loss as to his meaning until she followed his intent gaze to her upper arms, marked with bruises that were of his making.
“Not…recently,” she whispered, her face flushing crimson.
He grunted in response, and Marion would have admitted that her skin bruised easily, but the words stopped in her throat. As she watched, the Wolf lowered his head and placed his lips to the discolored flesh. His kiss was utterly gentle, warm and tantalizing, and then she felt the slow sweep of sensation when he touched his tongue to her.
Marion sighed as all her senses reawakened, clamoring to life for the Wolf. He lavished his attention first on one arm, then the other, and then he returned to hover over her chest, a secretive smile, full of dark promise, curving his lips before he leaned forward and put his mouth to her breast.
She shivered, although her body was aflame, alive and wanting. Dunstan growled in triumph, his tongue darting out to taste her, and its touch seemed to delve beyond the surface of her skin to reach deep inside of her. Helplessly, Marion entwined her fingers in his hair and arched upward until he took her nipple into his mouth, suckling her like an infant.
Just when she thought she could stand no more, he took her other breast, and Marion moved against him restlessly, hungry for the surcease she had known before. If all this was designed to make her want him inside of her again, it was working, she thought, for she wanted him, needed him, had to have him….
When his lips left her breast, Marion was bereft, but he moved down her stomach, teasing her flesh, fueling her desire. She felt him part her legs, and he kissed the inside of her thighs, drifting closer and closer to the apex. And then he took her bottom in his big hands and lifted her to his mouth.
Marion gasped when his tongue touched her so intimately. It stroked her, flicking against her secrets and making forays inside her until she was shivering uncontrollably at this strange, new torment. “Mercy!” she cried, breathlessly.
“Yes, love,yes!Tremble for me,” Dunstan whispered heatedly. The rough stubble of his cheeks rasped against her skin wickedly as he spoke, and his fingers tightened upon her buttocks. He lifted his head to look at her, and Marion, through the dark mane of his hair, saw his eyes glinting with a feral light. His parted lips glistened with a sheen of moisture before he bent his head to her again.
Suddenly, everything seemed to converge in that spot between her legs: each breath, each beat of her heart, each drop of blood, each fiber of muscle. Closing her eyes, Marion threw back her head, and gasping wildly, pushed against the mouth that eagerly met her. Then she came apart, shattering into a million pieces even as she clutched at Dunstan and cried out at the unimaginable pleasure that rent her flesh.
Vaguely, Marion became aware of him nudging at her body, gaining entrance, and filling her with his great member as she became whole again. This time there was no pain, only a biting hot sensation of fullness, and then Dunstan was moving, sliding nearly out of her until she demanded his return and he buried himself deep again. It felt so good that Marion was soon wild, so consumed with new passion that she did not even know she had spoken aloud until Dunstan echoed her.
“Yes. So good, my wren.So good,” he growled. Wrapping a fist in her hair, he bent down to kiss her, his tongue plundering as she tasted herself upon his lips. He devoured her, eating her mouth in a fierce and frantic communion until finally, gasping, he loosed her to move faster and sink farther. “I shall never have my fill of you, wren,” he whispered hoarsely. “No matter how deep I go, ‘tis never enough.”
He slid a hand along her thigh, lifting it, and, because it seemed the thing to do, Marion wrapped her legs around him. He responded with another low growl and pushed harder, as if he truly could not reach his goal. His breathing was loud and ragged and he grunted his pleasure until the sound alone made Marion feverish and frantic.
She dug her nails into his muscles, wanting him to do something, anything, to ease the fires raging inside her. In response, she felt his palms slide down her arms to pin her hands against the mattress just as everything was coalescing. Entwining his fingers in hers, he thrust home, and Marion came apart again while he groaned and shuddered, spilling his seed into her.
This time, Dunstan said nothing in the aftermath of their union, but he again pulled her close, fitting her back to his massive chest and wrapping his strong arms around her until she felt as though she were in a cocoon, safe and blessedly warm. Marion was so accustomed to seeing him resting upright against a tree that this nestling position seemed strangely at odds with his usual behavior.
Perhaps he only curled up this way when he had a woman with him, Marion thought, and felt immediate regret at the notion. She did not want to imagine Dunstan de Burgh with any other female, but she could not fool herself. She knew from his reputation that he had known his share of ladies. And yet, maybe today had been different for him, Marion thought, with a glimmer of defiant hope. She had been amazed at the selfless way the Wolf had pleasured her this last time, and she colored to remember just how he had done so. He had seemed different somehow, more tender and giving.
Swallowing back a thickness in her throat, Marion listened to his even breathing, and then smiled when she heard him emit a low snore. Apparently, the man did sleep sometimes! The unguarded intimacy of the sound made her blink back tears. Foolishness, she knew, but how she loved him! The passion they had shared only made that love more wonderful, more powerful and…more painful. For no matter what she felt, they would part—and soon.
And now, when she knew that he well and truly slept, would be as good a time as any for her to make her escape. Marion realized that, and yet she could not force her limbs, still heavy with lethargy, to move. She wanted to stay in the heavenly heat of him forever.
