Page 36 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

“Or…?” Wolf’s voice maintained that growling quality. For the first time in their acquaintance, she viewed the lupine creature within him. The animal magnetism that had kept the widows of the ton in alt these many years.

“I could leave it there. And you could join me…on the table.”

“You,” Drawing a ragged breath and suddenly the self-possessed gentleman she had known these last few years seemed to fracture before her, his practiced mask of aristocratic indifference failing him at last. “You would trust me to…” Wolf cleared his throat, his gaze dropping to the floor as a charming bashfulness she would have never ascribed to him crept across his features. Once again, Petra felt that stubborn, locked door within her chest rattle, the hinges yielding to a renewed and undeniable softening toward the man. She quickly forced that softness away. She needed to be the one in control this time.

“This is my terrain, you see,” she began, willing her hands to remain motionless even as the urge to intertwine her fingers in nervous anxiety threatened to betray her composure. This sanctuary was, after all, her own creation, a testament to an agency that existed quite apart from the machinations of the men who had sought to mold her. She stood now as a woman possessed of her own formidable power, fully prepared at last to articulate the nature of her own desires. Summoning a previously unknown boldness, she lustily drank in his nude form, including the very male and very alert part of him just before her. Riding that bravery, she stepped forward, forcing Wolf to retreat until he collided with the edge of the padded table with a muffled wince. Observing his measured swallow, Petra perceived a gentleman caught between an innate carnality and a vulnerability she had not seen when they were together in the library.

“You would trust me to touch you? You want to be touched, even after everything that has happened to you?” he asked, and that softness she had attempted to push away blossomed into something more profound inside her. Yes, she had been touched against her will before. But when it was her choice? There was power in that choice.

“Yes. I-I want that. As long as your stitches will allow…”

Something warred behind Wolf’s eyes, then the carnality seemed to win over as the striation in his eye pulsed again.

At that, he picked her up and set her on the table, sinking into a crouch before her. There was something unbearably erotic about being clothed above him and him almost kneeling naked before her.

“As you are a master with a needle, I believe my stitches will hold. You are sure you trust me?”

Petra nodded. “In this, yes.”

Wolf paused in reaching for her petticoat, his jaw tightening. She had not meant to sound cold but in truth, she did not yet completely trust him. Not with her heart. But she believed, after all they had shared that day, she could indeed trust him with her body.

Wolf considered this and proceeded to reach for her skirts. “Then I shall endeavor to earn that trust.” He rasped as he ever so slowly began to raise her petticoats, the path of his fingers sending erotic chills up her legs. Soon the scrape of his night beard joined his fingers as he nuzzled her leg as if the touch of her consumed him. As if she were…precious.

Wolf’s hands stopped as her skirts were parted and only her drawers remained. Catching her eye, Wolf raised a tentative finger to the taper of her drawers. Not breaking eye contact, Petra stood and brought her hands to his, pulling the taper and letting the fabric fall to the ground.

Taking a hoarse breath, Wolf’s eyes turned feral. Petra did not have a moment to feel exposed before he lifted her onto the table once more and buried his face between her legs.

“My lord,” Petra gasped, as she absorbed the full force of his passion.

“Julian,” he corrected, his voice was low and guttural. “When I am worshipping at your altar, I want my Christian name upon your lips.”

Petra could not speak an affirmative for his worshipful ministrations robbed her of speech as he began to use his tongue to lave at the folds of her sex, letting this rough tenderness wash away the filth of all the lecherous hands that had touched her before. Unlike those times, she was choosing this, this was her desire, which she had stated loud and clear. Sensations she had only known that evening in the library were now magnified tenfold as her body pulsed and ached at each stroke of his tongue. Then his thumb began to trace the cluster of nerves at the top of her sex and Petra began to see explosions behind her eyes once more.

“Look at me, Petra,” he commanded.

Petra blinked her eyes open as her body began to shake.

“I want to see your eyes as you come for me.” His own were upon her as he circled that place with his tongue and Petra broke apart before him as wave after wave of pleasure rode throughout her entire being. Wolf rose and began to step back when Petra was able to gather herself to reach out and grab his forearm.

“Come with me, Julian.” She regained the power of speech enough to whisper.

“Are you certain?” He looked her full in the eye as she nodded.

“No counting down required.”

His throat bobbed at her words, and she pulled his body atop hers on the table, the wood creaking beneath them but blessedly holding.

Slowly raising her skirts, which had fallen again, Wolf buried his face in her neck. “It has never been like this for me, Petra.”

Not knowing what to say, Petra breathed in the scent of him, spice and bergamot and man. Something primal and alluring all at the same time as she ran her hands up and down his bare skin, relishing the sweat and sinew of his tightly muscled arms and back.

Drawing back, he traced the wetness of her sex. “I am told it will hurt if it is your first time.” Petra gave a small nod as he went on. “I would take all the pain from you if I could, but I swear I will make it good for you.”

Some of that tenderness returned as Wolf lined himself with her sex, then looked to her again. Petra blinked back a wetness in her eye as she nodded. At her assent, he gently pushed into her and Petra felt an odd stretching sensation. Wolf paused.

Petra shook her head. “Keep going,” she begged, and Wolf began to push into her again.

Petra absorbed the stretching, the unique pain it brought, but after a moment it began to subside and she moaned. “More, Jules.”