Page 97 of The Wolf in My Tavern

“The lass he was searching for… he was promised to her although nothing had been consummated, and now she is with Drake, along with Gray’s younger brother. She snuck in while you and Gray were, um, busy yesterday… through the window after shimmying down a rope. But she knew you were special. She called it life-changing. Now I see what she means.”

I step away reluctantly, heading for the table where someone has placed a pitcher, basin, soap, and cloth.

Callum strides past me and takes the cloth with a determined glint in his eye.

“Gray told me to do this,” he says.

Now, he wants to follow Gray’s instructions.

“She seems really nice… a little crazy, dangling from ropes over the side of a moving ship…” I swallow, distracted from this important conversation, as my eyes land on Callum’s cock. It is bobbing, giving me the ‘come hither’ move that makes me want to sink to my knees.

“I’ll put some pants on,” he says, turning and stopping as he glances around the room. “I do not have any fucking pants.”

A giggle escapes me. “They would not fit you anymore.”

He glances down at himself, flexing his arm and staring in confusion at his thick biceps. He was a big man before, but now his body seems to have grown to better contain his shifted beast.

“I don’t know what this royal business means,” he continues. “My parents left their homelands when I was a babe, perhaps even before. I didn’t realize my mother was even a shifter. My father promised me a conversation, but something always got in the way, and now it is too late. But no one leaves their homelands on a whim. Now, I wonder if those reasons were bad. Perhaps the royals were persecuted or even guilty of a terrible crime.”

“We will have to ask Gray about it,” I say.

“You trust him, then?” Callum asks.

“I do, and deep down, so do you.”

He grunts. “Aye, maybe I do… I’m a greedy bastard and don’t want to share you. For sure, Gray feels the same. But we’re caught up in this now, and none of us have a choice.” He holds my gaze. “But I can’t walk away from you, Ada. Not even if you wanted me to. That first time I took you on the filthy floor after the fight, I felt it even back then. I knew there was no going back, that I would follow you anywhere, and would die to protect you. But it has an ugly side—I will never let you go. There is something primal inside me that’s part of me, and yet also distinct. He is my darkness. Both parts of me have claimed you, Ada, for life. No decent man says things like that. Decent men speak of love and keep a woman at their side by their ways and their goodness. I like to think I am still that man, still my father’s son. But I also won’t let you go, even if you were to fucking beg me.”

“Good,” I say decisively. “I do not want a man who would let me go. I want a man who wants me with everything, as much as I want him. And I want you, Callum.”

He growls low. “I want to fuck you.”

“Well, I want you to, so we are equal in this, too.”

He covers the gap between us in a single stride and snags my waist, pulling me close. “Gray will fucking kill me if I do.” He smirks, one full of dark promise. “He can try.”

“Tell him I begged you to. I don’t care.”

Lifting me up, he drops my ass on the table and leans over me, his body caging mine, cock pointing straight toward the place where I need it. With a groan of defeat, he takes himself in hand and slides it through my wetness until it catches the entrance of my pussy.

“I will go slowly,” he says gruffly. “Tell me if it’s too much, and I will stop.”

I nod eagerly, already knowing I never will.

He sinks into me, and I bite my lip to hold the whimper in. It does hurt a little, but it’s a good kind of sore, the kind I want more of.

“Is this okay?” he asks, eyes searching mine, reminding me that he is still my Callum, a sweet apprentice blacksmith who is gentle even in this.

“Don’t stop,” I beg. “I hate it when you’re not inside me; I cannot bear it. It is the only way I am whole.”

He ruts me slow and gentle, rocking his hips and working deeper a little at a time.

The room is cool, yet I see the strain on his features, the way sweat breaks upon his brow.

It doesn’t hurt anymore. He feels a compelling kind of good. Tingly. Clenchy. Blissful.

I moan as he goes deeper and stills. And I can feel him inside me, filling me, pulsing, stretching sore muscles until I am quivering around him.

He reaches between us; his thumb finds the slippery, swollen bud of my clit and swipes from side to side.

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