Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [144]
“You are a man,” she said, and kissed his warm mouth, “and a man likes to caress a woman’s breasts. Ah, Merrik, I do love you. More than you can begin to imagine. I will love you until I die.” She’d said the words, she didn’t regret saying them even though he was still beside her. For just a moment he was very still, and silent, then he was kissing her frantically, his tongue stroking her mouth, his hands wild on her breasts, then his fingers were moving to her waist and belly, gently probing there, searching for a sign of the babe, then going lower still to find her and caress her.
“It has been too long,” he said as he eased her down over him. “Far too long. By all the gods, Laren, you give me so very much.”
The pleasure he brought her momentarily made her forget the truth of things, and that truth was always there and would always be there, even after Taby and her father left to return to Normandy. Taby would always be in Merrik’s heart, closer than any other man or woman or child. She thought of the child she carried. Merrik would love the babe, surely he would love his own son or daughter, but not so much as he loved Taby, never so much as Taby.
She cried out in her release, shaken by its power and its sweetness as she always was, then held him to her as he took his own pleasure.
“You please me,” he said, his voice low and deep, for he was sleepy now and sated. She felt him leave her, felt the wet of his seed, and eased down beside him. He kissed her forehead, caressed her shoulder, then he closed his eyes.
She loved him more than she could imagine loving another human being. She would love him forever. He was her husband and in that, he would always be hers.
“My father has been here with you, has he not, Sarla? Do you know where he is now?”
Sarla smiled as she stirred the mutton, cabbage, and onion stew. “Aye, he was here and he made me laugh. He is a very valiant man, Laren, your father. Perhaps he is outside now, speaking to Merrik. Or perhaps he is yet again trying to gain Taby’s affections. Do you think I should add some mashed lingonberries?”
Laren agreed, waited for Sarla to say more, but she didn’t. She went outside to the privy, then to the bathing hut. Merrik and her father and Taby were all within, their shouts loud, making her smile. When they emerged, all of them wet and well scrubbed, she saw that Taby was in his father’s arms, not Merrik’s. She looked quickly to her husband. To her profound relief, he was smiling. There was no hurt in his fine eyes, no sign of shadows.
“Laren,” he said to her. She ran to him, flinging her arms around his back. He laughed as he hugged her to him. He continued to hold her close, waiting until Hallad and Taby were farther away. “Taby begins to accept him,” he said, and now she heard the ache in his voice, but also his acceptance. “It is the way it must be. I’ve known it for a very long time. Aye, all will be well. You and I will visit Rouen and see him and your father and Rollo. Now, sweeting, I must see Cleve. He will tell me what has happened at Malverne whilst we were gone adventuring. And I must know what it is he wishes to do now that he is a free man.”
“You remember that Uncle Rollo told us that Cleve was welcome to come to him. He said he would see that he was rewarded.”
“I will tell him that. Stop looking at me like that, Laren, and take your hands off me. Go now, sweeting, else I’ll take you back in the bathing hut, lather you with that sweet-smelling soap Helga made for you, and keep you there until neither of us can speak or walk.”
She laughed and said, “I would like that better than stirring mutton stew, my lord.” Slowly, unwillingly, she released him. She stood there, watching him stride toward the fields, his hair fair and bright beneath the sun, his body strong and brown from the sweet summer.
Merrik found