Dream of Me/Believe in Me

himself to move to his side but he couldn't bear to let go of her entirely, and drew her into his arms.
    She trembled and brought her legs tightly together but didn't try to pull away. Despite her fear, honor refused to let her forget that she had made promises to this man. She had accepted the blessing of the Church. She was his wife and there were things she simply couldn't shirk.
    He was breathing very hard, his massive chest rising and falling rapidly. Tension radiated from him. Slowly, Cymbra lifted her head and dared a peek at her husband.
    His eyes were closed but he certainly didn't look at peace. On the contrary, his features were tightly drawn, and a pulse beat in the hollow of his lean, burnished cheek. Her gaze swept lower, past the thick column of his neck and broad sweep of his shoulders, and a very strange sensation stirred within her.
    The times she'd seen him bare-chested and the one glimpse by the pool had merely whetted her curiosity. Astonished though she was by her feelings, she was too inherently honest to deny them. Her gaze drifted down the long, muscled length of his torso to—
    Cymbra's cheeks flamed. With some difficulty, she murmured, “I … uh … thought you didn't find me attractive.”
    Wolf opened his eyes a slit, followed the direction of her gaze, and winced. “I told you that, didn't I?”
    She nodded solemnly
    “I lied.”
    Cymbra sat up a little farther, acutely conscious of her nudity. She was blushing from head to toe and was grateful for the concealment her hair provided. “Why?”
    He sighed, a deep rumbling she felt all along her body. “I thought it would make you feel safer.”
    Her last fear that Marta's horrible words might be true vanished. He was a proud, strong, even arrogant man bred in a violent world and accustomed to absolute obedience. But he had never hurt her, despite ample opportunity and—she admitted deep inside—at least some provocation.
    And he was her husband.
    Tentatively, she touched the tips of her fingers to his chest. He stared at her, not breathing. Emboldened by his stillness, she laid her palm against him. A frisson of shock pulsed through her at the sensation of rock hardness covered by warm, smooth skin.
    “Cymbra …”
    She heard the warning rasp in his voice, but far from being discouraged, it only emboldened her further. “It doesn't seem fair,” she murmured.
    He fought for breath, a fascinating sight made all the more so when she noticed that his hands were clenched into fists digging into the bed. “What doesn't?”
    “Your being dressed and my being … not.”
    C YMBRA'S HEAD ARCHED BACK AGAINST THE PILLOWS , her hair spilling in disarray around her. Her body bowed as though drawn taut in the hands of a master archer. A delicate blue vein in her throat throbbed. She cried out, half sob, half scream, and dug her fingers intothe massive shoulders of the man who loomed above her, a dark, powerful, naked presence dominating her with ruthless intensity.
    His hands moved over her breasts, the callused thumbs rubbing against her distended nipples, filling her with a terrible, burning ache for something she could not define. She writhed helplessly when he suckled her, drawing hard, then laving each nipple with his tongue before his teeth closed on it, bringing her again to the very edge of pleasure-pain. Never had she imagined her body capable of such sensation—or such terrible need.
    And he had only begun.
    Wolf raised his head and looked with grim satisfaction at the beauty beneath him. Through the hot, surging roar of his hunger, he dimly thought that this was fairness, a redressing of the imbalance that had existed between them from the first moment he'd glimpsed her in the cell at Holyhood. He had not drawn a free breath since. Astonished as he was by her power over him, he also deeply resented it.
    Before this night was done, their positions would be reversed. His lust would be satisfied or at least so eased as to be the nearest thing, whereas hers— He smiled and slid his hands down her sleek flanks, cupping her buttocks, squeezing, and feeling her muscles clench in response.
    He would leave her so dazed with pleasure, so primed for arousal, that she would be utterly willing, pliant, and obedient. Exactly as she should be. So resolved, he moved farther down her body, savoring every exquisite inch, and lifted her to his mouth.
    Cymbra gasped. Even through the molten haze of pleasure he had unleashed, she was stunned by