Page 76 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

A lady was touched, she did not touch. Not until she was safely married and then only at her husband’s behest. He would take my hand after I was wed and show me how he wanted his body caressed and it would be beholden on me to follow his lead, learn what he liked in bed as well as out. So, to reach out now, with just a fingertip. To trace the narrow channels between his stomach muscles, to let it scud along the little trail of black hair that led from his belly button down, right up until his hand snapped out and around my wrist.

“Don’t go lower,” he growled, his beast in his voice. “Not yet. You’re not ready yet.” And as he pushed my hand away, I was forced to face why.

I knew what a cock was and how it worked in theory. I’d seen bulls inseminating cows, stallions covering mares and dogs mating bitches too often to remain as pure minded as Linnea would have liked, but this…This was the closest I’d ever come to being near a man’s cock and I found my eyes traced the sizeable lump beneath the drying cloth with a mix of curiosity and alarm.

“Oh, don’t go looking at me like that, lass,” he grumbled, but when he went to turn away, I grabbed his hip, keeping him where he was. “Darcy?”

“That… doesn’t seem like it could possibly fit.”

“This?” That purr was back as his free hand smoothed the fabric tighter over the lump, the shape becoming slightly clearer. “Oh, you’d be surprised. A woman has a body the gods deem flexible enough to bear a baby. You’ll take me fine, when you’re ready.” His fingers moved restively. “And women say they like the stretch, though possibly not the first time.”

“Stretch?”

I glanced up at him with a frown and he smiled then, rubbing a thumb across my chin. I knew there was some kind of… hole between my legs, one where my moon blood came from and that he would put… that into to create a child, but stretching?

“Some things can only be experienced, not explained. When you’re ready—”

“You keep saying that.” Irritation bled into my voice. “What does that even mean? When I’m ready to accept you? When I’m ready to mate?”

“When the fear of moving forward is extinguished by the need to be with me, be with us,” he replied in a definite tone. “Because then you won’t be eyeing my cock like it’s some snake in the grass, and you’re not sure if you should stroke it or break its fucking neck. When you’re ready, you won’t accept no for an answer. You’ll need me just like I need you and I’ll be helpless to do anything other than give you everything I’ve got.”

“Oh.”

He pulled me to my feet but didn’t give me any ground, staring down at me before kissing me so sweetly.

“We’ll have plenty of time to kill now we’re in the palace. If there’s anything you wish to explore, I’ll be your willing victim. Now, give me your back. I need to stuff the aching bloody thing into pants that’re gonna feel way too tight if we’re to go to the inn.”

“It gets painful?” I asked, turning around as he asked, but considered looking over my shoulder to take my own look.

“Of course, it does. It aches to be inside you, but that’s no matter. And don’t get soft hearted about it, or Axe’ll have you on your bed with your legs in the air in seconds, getting you to apply ‘therapeutic relief’ to his knob.”

I chuckled at that until he turned me around and then took my hand, drawing me out of the room after tamping down the fire. We walked through the darkened, silent corridors of the castle, out of the building proper and into a stable that would’ve made Nordred gape. I told Gael that.

“Your Nordred, he’ll have other things to do here, I think,” he said, hoisting himself up into the saddle of a massive piebald beast and then reaching down to me to haul me up. “Arden’s walked all day and needs a rest,” he explained and then settled me on the saddle in front of him. Choosing to ride double with a man, feeling his body pressed against mine, it was such a different affair to when I did the same with Axe. “Things are about to change, Darcy, but right now, it’s in me to believe it could be for the better.”

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