Page 100 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

When Axe carried me upstairs this time, it was a very different feeling to back at the keep. Being in his arms felt good, right, as right as my flurry of energy had felt before. So when he kicked open the door and brought me inside the room, then set me down beside a steaming bath, I let out a small huff of appreciation. When he stripped me down, unlacing my jerkin and my boots with some haste, then going much slower when he got to my shirt and pants, I just gloried in the feel of the cool air against my sweaty skin. But it was as I was stepping into the bath that I turned to see him begin stripping off his own clothes.

I froze where I was, staring up at the massive muscular expanse of his now bare chest and he stared back.

“It’s a big bath,” he told me. “It’ll fit the both of us and then neither of us will catch a chill getting clean.” I still stared. “I won’t do anything other than wash you, even if it kills me,” he muttered to himself. “Just… get in the bath, Darcy.”

I stepped into the water, feeling all that delicious heat radiating up my body as I did, my eyes steadfastly on my feet as I sank down into the water. Because Axe did the same. He slotted behind me, stopping me from having to rest my back on the cold copper rim, instead being pressed against him. I shifted restlessly, not entirely sure where or how to put my body until his hand slid down my breastbone and firmly pushed me against his body.

I could feel him, all his bulk, all his hardness and, yet, with that one gesture, I went limp. It was like I knew, deep down, that this was where I was supposed to be. A hand trailed over my arm, just stroking me as I finally relaxed and then he reached for the soap.

I’d washed myself many a time before, but this experience was so different it was almost like it deserved being called something else entirely. He started simply, smoothing the cake of soap along my arms, letting the lather build before I washed the bubbles off into the water. He smoothed it across my collarbones and chest, my breath picking up slightly as a result. My breasts felt like they bobbed up in the water, ready for their turn, the nipples pulled curiously tight at the simple caresses.

“Darcy?” he asked me as the soap in his hand began to sink under the water. “How much of you am I allowed to wash?”

“Ah…” I couldn’t say, couldn’t point to the parts of my body like one would a prize wall at the fair and say, ‘that one’ and ‘that one’. “How about I tell you if I want you to stop?”

A low chuckle from him had something tightening inside me, flexing and clenching in a way I didn’t totally understand. His touch always brought that deep pulsing feeling with it, but this? They’d made me come with just their hands pressed against me, but this was something else again. It was more direct, blasting away the artificial lassitude provided by the beer and winding me tighter in a way I was still trying to come to grips with. Then the soap moved lower, and I followed its path, every nerve ending on high alert.

Which was perhaps why I responded so intensely. He smoothed soap over the top of one breast, letting the bar slide across my skin at a much slower, more languorous pace than I would use. So I felt the slip of the soap, the brush of his fingers and that’s when I began to stiffen.

“Shh…” I felt Axe’s lips pressed against my neck as he made a sound a man would use when gentling a horse, for apparently I was the skittish one. I’m not sure if it was that or the feel of him, but I flexed against his body, the water lapping lightly against the edge of the bath as well as against us. He grunted as I surfaced up and out of the water, the soap dropped into its depths, forgotten. If my skin was to be cleaned, it’d be by the rough abrasion of his callused palms as he covered my breast with his hand.

“Axe…”

“I’ve got you, lass. I’ll always have you.”

His other hand slid up and around my throat, just holding it lightly, keeping me pinned to his chest, but his fingers? They moved, playing me like a bard would a lap harp. But it was me that he plucked, not the strings, and my sounds were very, very different. There was nothing pretty or decorative about my moans, but they were an honest response.

I shifted under the water, unable to stay still, what he was doing resulting in a slow simmering pleasure in my breast, but it went well beyond that. It was as if a secret string was attached to my nipples, one I’d been unaware of my whole life, and tugged at another between my legs. I’d felt the sullen swell of pleasure in my pelvis before, but this was so much more. I pulled away finally, resulting in a groan of frustration from him, until I turned around in the tub and knelt to face him.

Right now, Axe looked like Dae, the Granian god of wine and pleasure. His massive arms rested against the edge of the tub and he stared into my eyes, his own heavily hooded ones quickly sliding down my form.

“If you think this is going to bring things to a halt, I regret to inform you, it just makes me hungrier for you, not less. Look at you, lass.” Those hands moved, cupping both breasts, drawing a pained little gasp from me.

“How?” I forced out as his thumbs began to move, brushing much more lightly against my breasts.

“How what, lass?” he asked, shifting under the water, more of that massive body revealed. “How do I make you feel things you don’t understand?” I frowned slightly for a second and then I nodded sharply. “Because they’re backward bastards in your country and they don’t seem to see fit to inform a woman of her pleasures. Any bastard could make you feel the way I do. I’m just fucking glad it's me.”

He moved then, staring up at me with eyes bright blue as his head came closer and closer, forcing me to stare back, perplexed. What the hell was he going to do and how would it—? My spine jerked perfectly straight as his lips parted around my nipple, his fingers sinking into the softness of my breast before he sucked the aching point in.

“Oh…! Oh!”

I made stupid little sounds of surprise, but what else could I do? His mouth was so hot and he pulled my nipple in with such powerful sucks that sparks formed before my eyes. My fingers gripped the bathtub rim, digging hard into the metal as my back arched, chasing more.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” he promised when he pulled free before turning to the other nipple. “You’ll get more. More than you could possibly want if you keep doing that.”

Like beforehand, my hips twitched in response to his caresses, but now they slipped against all parts of his body that I had come to straddle. His hand pushed me down, settling me on top of him and that’s when I felt it. The long, thick length the like of what I’d seen beneath Gael’s drying cloth, but now this was pressed hard against the seam between my legs. He watched me lazily move against it, rubbing myself against him like a cat in heat as he rolled my nipple between his fingers, pinching tighter and tighter, the pleasure ratcheting up, even as it was coupled with a brief spike of pain.

“You’re going to work yourself on my cock like a good little girl,” he said and part of me bristled at that. My lips peeled back, my fangs flashing as I bared them, but he didn’t look scared at all. Axe looked like he loved every bloody moment of it. “You keep doing that…” His voice tapered away, his smile faltering as I moved harder, faster against him, some instinct pressing into my spine, showing me exactly what to do. “You’ll be able to take your pleasure, rather than be given it. You keep nudging that little pearl at the top of your slit.” His hand shifted my hips slightly, altering the angle until I let out a rapid succession of gasps. “You’ll come all over me. You can do that, can’t you? You can give me your pleasure and I’ll give you mine.”

I couldn’t tell if the last bit was dark promise or threat, but I couldn’t seem to care either way. Axe had shown me something, and just like when I was training with Selene, once it’d caught my attention, I couldn’t let go of it. His mouth returned to my breasts, showering them with kisses before grabbing one. The brutal bite of his fingers sent a shiver up my spine, making me move faster, the water sloshing around in earnest now. It felt like I was shoving my breasts into his face, needing, wanting, more from him, but he was more than happy to give it. He called me beautiful and lush and lass and a million sweet things, before he swept me up and out of the bath and deposited the two of us on the floor beside it.

“Ride me, lass,” he told me in a harsh tone. “You’re not a girl anymore. You’ve a wolf inside you and it knows exactly what she wants. Take it. Take your pleasure. Take me.”

I scrambled over him with undue haste, momentarily freezing when I caught sight of his cock in all its ruddy glory. But he tipped his hand under my chin and brought my eyes to meet his.

“Don’t worry about that. It’s not going inside you any time soon. Feel this. Feel me. Feel us.”

It felt different when I settled down on top of him, my body and his slotting together like a key in a lock. The long curve of his shaft lay flat against his taut stomach as I pressed myself down onto it.

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