Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [65]
He jerked away from her, his heart beating so fast he wondered if he would survive it. He remained on top of her, but he was balancing himself on his elbows above her to keep distance between him and that wonderful mouth of hers. “Why did you do that, damn you? You were lying there as if you were dead, or suffering me until I would get done with you. And then you attacked me.”
“I would do it again if you would only come back down to me. It isn’t fair. You can force me since you are the stronger, but I cannot force you to do what it is I want.”
Then she smiled up at him, hit the sides of both her hands hard against the crooks of his elbows and he fell flat on top of her, driving the breath from her. She grabbed his ears and held him there, kissing his throat, his shoulders. Merrik laughed, he couldn’t help himself. He reared up again, still laughing.
“You forgot that I am very smart,” she said.
“I won’t forget that in the future. Now, answer me. Why did you do that?”
She didn’t say anything, just stared up at him in the dim light. He wanted to demand that she answer him, but that look of hers and the words she’d spoken flowed over him like balm, soothing and so soft and deep, and at the same time incredibly exciting. And her laughter, by all the gods, her laughter was wonderful. And she’d even knocked him down on her, she wanted to kiss him so very much, and he said, surprising himself even as the words came out of his mouth, “You won’t have to fell me again. I will allow you to do as you please with me.”
“Come back to me.” She knew exactly what she was asking. She’d thought about it for a very long time, truth be told, probably since he’d cared for her on board his longboat, at least thought about him as a man and not an enemy who would hurt her. No, she’d thought of him as a man, so very different from her, a man who was kind to her, whose hands were gentle, a man who would give her immense pleasure.
Her future had changed irrevocably that long-ago night when she and Taby had been taken, and the future that would come had no meaning to her yet, for it was shrouded in uncertainty, and in fear. She had become a realist and no longer believed like a credulous fool that there could exist a future that would be sweet and good. She had become a Christian because her uncle had demanded it of her, demanded it of all of them, but she never called on the Christian God to save her, to show her which path to take, which decision to make.
She knew she owed it to Taby to try to get back home, to learn who had betrayed them, to restore to him what he’d lost and to herself what she’d lost as well. But that was the future, and she was here, and she wasn’t at all certain that she even wanted to regain what she herself had lost, for there was Merrik now, and she wanted him.
She wanted something for herself now, and if Merrik was only willing she could have it. For just this one night she could have him. “Aye,” she said again, her voice harsh with her growing excitement, “come back to me, Merrik.”
He did, dipping his head down. Her hands again closed about his face, and her fingertips traced his brows, his nose, his jaw. He felt her warm breath fan upward as her breathing hitched. She wanted him. She truly wanted him. He felt at that moment as if Grunlige the Dane were naught but a gnat of a man in comparison to him.
“Come to me,” she said again, and this time when he touched her, he opened his mouth just a bit and let her learn the feel and texture of him. When his tongue touched hers, she quivered, but then again, so did he, so he couldn’t be certain who quivered first or the most, nor did he care.