Page 37 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

And as the movement of their bodies replaced the meaning of words, no more was said that night.

* * *

Sometime later Petra awoke as the golden fingers of dawn reached through the rather dirty window of the room where they slept. Though there was not much sleeping, Petra thought wickedly.

Beside her Wolf stirred in his sleep and she adjusted herself so that she did not fall off the padded table that was barely holding two people atop it. Wolf’s arm was draped over her midsection and as he moved he drew her closer and she reveled in the warmth and safety of his chest as the chemise she was still wearing scraped against his naked skin.

Petra chased that warmth and found herself almost lulled back to sleep when a rough voice spoke in her ear.

“I never truly apologized to you, did I?”

Petra pushed herself to her elbow and sat up slowly, her hair falling down past her shoulders as her serviceable bun completely fell apart.

Blinking, Wolf appeared distracted by the cascade of her curls and his throat worked as he reached his hand forward to catch a strand and twined it between his fingers.

“I’ve never seen it down before,” he whispered with such reverence that Petra felt compelled to rise and turn away.

“Yes, well, that is for a husband, isn’t it?” Petra responded before she thought the better of it, then clasped her hand to her throat in shock at what she had uttered.

Wolf, who had previously seemed comfortable in his nudity, clutched the linen he had draped over them to his waist and sat up straight.

“For what it is worth, I am very sorry for trapping you, my lady. It was before I learned what your father had done to you and I’m even more so now.”

Petra nodded, accepting his apology.

Wolf subjected her to a protracted and searching perusal, his gaze fixed upon her features as though he might, through the sheer force of his will, compel something else to escape her lips. Averting his eyes at last, he directed his attention toward the floor, a subtle furrow growing between his brows.

“And I’m sorry that you have felt so alone, Petra.”

Startled by his utterance, Petra took a step back, then she picked up another piece of linen that had fallen to the ground and wrapped it around herself like a shawl, her armor for his piercing observation. That had not been the point of her story the previous evening, but he had picked up on her solitude. How lonely it was to live in her father’s horrible web.

“I could say the same for you, Jules.”

Lowering her gaze, she heard but did not see his heavy intake of breath, a sound that reverberated through the sudden stillness even as his form remained obscured from her view. She had uttered his Christian name, Julian, amidst the fevered intensity of the previous night’s passion, yet to address him as Jules within the cold clarity of the morning was quite another matter entirely. It was a definitive, if unarticulated, stroke of absolution, a signal of forgiveness that she had not yet fully realized she was prepared to bestow. Raising her head at last, she witnessed Wolf’s throat work as he swallowed. He opened his mouth to speak only to fall silent. Twice. Finally, he spoke.

“Come here.” It was a plea and a command delivered in a low, guttural rasp that thrummed with a potent blend of raw carnality and a profound, unbidden tenderness that Petra was afraid to fully face. It made every fiber of her being stand on alert.

Slowly, she dropped the linen she had been holding around her as a shield. He also dropped the cloth he was clutching around his waist and stood bare before her again as she walked toward him. Once she neared, he wrapped his arm around her with an ownership that should have made her uneasy but instead filled her with a delicious rush as she twined her arms around his neck.

When her lips met his, the first kiss was an apology, the next an exultation.

Picking her up, Wolf brought her legs around him, then sank back onto the padded table. The night before, he had driven into her, had taken her to a passion beyond anything she could have imagined. Her sex pulsed at the memory and the nearness to him.

“Are you still sore?” he asked, his voice caressing the shell of her ear.

“A little,” she admitted, even as her body arched against him. “But…”

“Yes?”

“Can we, like this?”

The tenderness in his responding smile turned wicked, lupine again as his fingers traced the edges of her sex. Petra felt moisture gather there as she urged him toward those nerves, toward that center.

“You and I? We can do anything. I can teach you to ride me, darling Petra.”

He leaned back and shifted her so that she could impale herself upon him. That full sensation almost made her stop, but the mix of carnality and tenderness in his expression helped her push on.

Until finally she found a rhythm.