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When she broke away, breathless, she had to know—“Do you still taste the bloodbane?”
He shook his head. “Only your sweetness.”
The sweetness was Warrick’s. He kissed her lips again, then her ribbon.
Her pulse raced dizzily. Exhausted from one kiss. “I would like to spend more time kissing each day,” she proposed. “Just as I walk a few steps more each day. I will build up my stamina…until I can ride a horse alone.”
Warrick chuckled against her lips before tenderly stealing another kiss. “And also ride me.”
“Precisely,” she laughed and threw her arms around his neck. “I must regain my strength. Our wedding night still awaits!”
“Then we will kiss more.” His rumbling murmur against her ear sent shivers over her skin. “So that I might also build up stamina, though in my tongue.”
“By all means,” she agreed, breathless again. “Talking will not be enough. Only kissing.”
Because it was quite necessary for her own sanity and health to keep Warrick’s tongue very, very strong.
When they left the river barge, Elina wasn’t yet able to ride on her own. Within a few days, however, she purchased a horse—though she could only ride alone in short jaunts. They often stopped to rest along the way, with Elina stumbling down out of the saddle, exhausted and aching.
At least making camp each night with Warrick was a much easier affair. Meat was cooked from a snare that he taught her to set. Bread and cheeses were easily purchased at the villages they passed through, fruits and berries collected along the way.
To sleep, they shared Warrick’s bedroll—and within it, they kissed so much that Elina had to purchase a milker’s balm to soothe her chapped lips.
Sitting at their campfire that night, Elina watched Warrick skin a rabbit while he watched her apply the balm with a fingertip.
“That will not be needed when I begin spreading my kisses all over you again.”
Or when she began kissing him all over. The thought rendered the fire too warm. Restless, Elina rose and moved nearer to him, stopping beside his axe, which he’d propped head-down against the same fallen log he sat upon.
She gripped the chain and grunted—it was too heavy for her to lift more than an inch off the ground. Certainly too heavy to swing. Disappointment filled her, but she attempted to laugh it off. “I was having a wonderful dream of killing Soren myself.”
Warrick did not laugh. “Every morning and night, pick it up and lift it as high as you can. At each meal, pick it up again. By the time we reach Aleron, you will be strong enough to swing it.”
Hope replaced the disappointment. “Truly?”
He nodded and continued preparing the rabbit for the spit. After a moment, he looked to her again. “Why do you stare at me like that, wife?”
Because he believed in her. There’d been no hesitation in him. He’d expressed no doubt whether she could become strong enough. He simply advised her on how to accomplish what she wanted to do.
“Do not move, my king.” It emerged thickly, from a throat swollen with emotion. She went to him where he sat upon the log, his knees comfortably spread and his boots flat upon the ground. Elina stepped into the space between his feet, crowding close enough that Warrick sat back and spread wide his arms, one hand holding the bloodied rabbit and the other just bloody—making certain the mess didn’t touch her.
Confusion creased his brow. “Elina—”
She leaned in—kissing his mouth, his jaw, his neck. His chest.
“Elina.” More hoarsely now. “Let me wash and touch you.”
That did not sound like something Elina wished him to do at that particular moment. Kneeling, she slicked her tongue over his nipple, pleased by the way it tightened. Pleased by his flavor, salt and skin.
With open-mouthed kisses, she licked her way down his abdomen, which was heaving now with the great breaths he took. Oh, but she liked so well his body’s reaction to her.
Just as she liked that he always wore such easily discarded clothing. Simply by unbuckling the belt that hid his navel from her questing tongue, Elina bared the rest of him, too.
She looked up at him over the length of his jutting erection. His eyes were molten, the carcass near crushed to a pulp in his effort not to touch her. And he seemed beyond words, for when she took hold of his rigid cock, he made such a deep and growling sound that she felt it reverberate within her own flesh. Recalling how he’d stroked his fist over his shaft until he spilled upon her belly, she began to work him the same way, though it required both of her hands.
The muscles in his thighs and stomach became steel. His breath hissed through clenched teeth.
“I think often of how this will feel inside me.” She rubbed his throbbing flesh against her cheek. “When I heft your mighty weapon, my king, do you think me strong enough to take you?”
