Page 19 of Hungry Like a Wolf (Vikings Rock #3)

R avn stared down at Carmel’s pretty face. Her cheeks were flushed a delicate pink and her were eyes wide with curiosity and need. “I won’t hurt you,” he said.

“I know,” she whispered.

In the name of Odin, he hoped he could keep that promise. His cock ached with the need to drive deep and feel her wet pussy hugging his length. His balls were painfully tight with desire and he felt as though his blood were neat lust coursing through his veins.

He pushed forward into her tightness.

Her eyes widened and she hitched in a breath.

“It will feel so good,” he managed, a tremble going down his spine. Holding back was agony of the most exquisite kind.

“I want you to do it.”

“As I want to be inside you.” He ducked his head and kissed her sweet lips, tasting her desire and adoring her all the more for trusting him with her delicate, virginal body.

When he felt her relax a little around his cock, he curled his hips and took her another inch.

She moaned, but her kiss intensified and that told him she hadn’t hated his invasion. In fact, she’d enjoyed it.

A sudden, hot bluster of desire nearly had him plundering in, but he summoned willpower and started on a slow, gentle glide through her wetness. Her pussy fluttered around him and she canted her hips up to meet him.

A groan of longing rumbled from his chest. He reached downward, hooked his hand beneath her left thigh, and pulled her leg up to hug his hip. She opened up further and he rode deeper still.

“Ravn,” she gasped against his lips. “Oh…”

“I’m nearly in and you feel so good, I could believe I’m already in Valhalla.”

She moaned long and low.

He pushed in, to full depth, his balls pressing up against her. “Oh, fuck,” he murmured, studying her closely. “That’s it.”

She clutched his shoulders. “You’re in?” She gasped.

“ Ja , I am inside you so fucking deep…so good.”

He rolled his hips over her, catching her sweet, little bud with his body.

Her mouth formed a perfect ‘ o ’ as she stared up at him with her breath trapped in her lungs.

“This is where the pleasure will start,” he said, rolling over her again, not his entire weight, just enough to stimulate her. “Can you feel it?”

She nodded and drew up her other leg so she was clasping his hips with her knees. She let out a great exhale of breath.

“And there is no rush,” he said, hoping his stamina was at full sail. “We have all night.”

“Am I doing it right?” she asked.

“My love, you are perfect.” He found her mouth and kissed her. With each stroke of his tongue, he ground onto her and drove deep.

Soon, their flesh was slick with sweat as they rode against each other and their breaths quickened.

His cock throbbed with longing. Never had he worked so hard to hold off. But this was special. Carmel was special. He wanted this to be perfect for her and that meant she had to climax this first time. Climax before him.

“Can you feel the wave of bliss coming?” he managed, his voice breathy and needy, even to his own ears.

“Aye…it’s right there. It’s like a storm inside me.” She ran her hands down his back and clasped his ass cheeks, her fingernails digging in.

The action was nearly his undoing. To feel her touching him like that, needing him, wanting him, was almost too much to bear.

“Let it take you,” he said, trembling as he held the majority of his weight above her. “Let it take you, feel it. I’ve got you. Fear nothing. I’ve got you.”

“I’m going to…oh…oh…Ravn.” She screwed up her eyes and pressed her head into the pillow. “Don’t stop.” The tendons in her neck strained and she gritted her teeth.

Then with an adorable squeal and a gasp, she pulsed beneath him and her back arched. Her pussy hugged his cock in a series of powerful waves. Ravn could contain himself no more and buried deep, allowing his seed to rush through his shaft. The moment of release was intense and perfect.

He buried his head in the warmth of her neck and let out a thick moan of pleasure. It seemed to go on and on. She matched him, taking him deeper, crushing against him as she pulled him closer.

“Oh, fuck,” he gasped, closing his eyes. Bright lights flashed behind his lids and he had a sense of losing himself in her, becoming her. They were as one.

“Oh! Oh!” she cried, dragging her fingers up his back and gripping his shoulders. “Ravn…is that supposed to happen?”

“ Ja , every second of it.” He lifted his head. “It was good for you?”

“I have no…idea…what just happened to me.” Her pussy was still gripping his cock in honeyed, little spasms and she was breathing in soft pants.

“You had the pleasure I was telling you about. That is the gift of the gods to a man and a women.”

“It’s…incredible and intense.” She touched his cheek. “My body hardly felt like mine, yet at the same time, I felt more alive than ever before. It’s like nothing I’ve ever known.”

“I am glad you liked it.”

“Ravn.” She swallowed and stroked her fingers over his lips. “I more than liked it. When can we do it again?”

A laugh burst up from his chest. “Oh, devious Freya, what kind of nymph have you sent me for a wife?”

“I am not a nymph.” She grinned. “Though right now, I do feel kind of fragile beneath you.”

“Oh…right.” He rolled off her, realizing some of his weight had slumped when he’d found his pleasure.

She curled up next to him, her warm, soft body touching his along the length of his side.

He pulled her closer, needing her in his arms. A rush of pride came over him.

She might have been small and a long way from home, but she was brave and strong and full of determination.

She was the perfect match for him and he’d do whatever it took to keep her safe and ensure she was happy in Drangar, so happy that she would want to stay forever and she’d forget about his promise to take her home in three years.

After a while, his eyes became heavy and his heart rate returned to normal. He gave in to sleep, feeling more content than he had in years.

A delicious warm blackness enveloped him and for once, he wasn’t tormented by dreams of the past.

But then he woke, aware of her absence and of a cool patch at his side.

Instantly, he sat and looked around. All was quiet. The fire was still glowing and the heaviness of the dead of the night pressed down upon him.

Standing, he heard a noise from the bathing area. He took a few steps closer. Water splashed, the rustle of material, then the pull of a comb through hair.

Thanks be to Odin. She was perfectly fine and still here.

He went back to the bed, reached for a drink, then sat on the edge, waiting for her. A melancholy came over him. Regrets for things he’d done. He’d been spared those misdeeds in his dreams, but now they twisted around his mind and tugged at his soul.

After a few minutes, she appeared wrapped in a pale-gray fur. Light from the fire caressed her long, silken hair and the scent of lavender once again wrapped around him.

She stood before him and touched his chin. “You look sad, husband.”

His throat tightened and he looked into her eyes.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

“No. No, of course not.” He reached for her and pulled her onto his lap. “You are utterly perfect.”

“So why the downward tip of your lips?” She traced them with her fingertip.

He sighed. “I am a man with a past, a past I am not particularly proud of. And in turn, in the quiet of the night, like this, it makes me wonder if I even like myself.”

She said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“I took my first wife because I wanted sons, not because I loved her. She didn’t deserve that. She was a kind, good, and loyal woman.” He looked her straight in the eye, waiting for the disgust.

It didn’t come. “Did you ever mistreat her?”

He shook his head. “No. She was always safe and fed and warm. I certainly never raised my hand to her. I provided and cared for her.”

“And was she happy?”

He thought about it. “I think so.”

“So there is no reason to berate yourself, Ravn.”

For a moment, he was thoughtful, then, “And Haakon?” He traced the angle between her neck and shoulder that was peeking from the fur.

“What about Haakon?”

“You have met him. He is a fine Viking, with patience enough to tell sagas to children, anyone’s children.

He walked slowly with my father while I rushed to the sacred doors of Uppsalla, and he didn’t raid Tillicoulty.

Instead, he has made it a better and safer place.

” He paused. “I cannot say that I would not have raided what I could have in his place.”

“Would you now?”

He stared over her shoulder at an elk skull hanging on the wall. “They are good people there, families, like Drangar.”

“So you would not?”

He didn’t answer.

She ran her hand over his hair. “I think you are every bit as fine as your brother.”

He huffed.

“What?”

“I tried to kill him.” Again, he looked her in the eye. “I would have if my father hadn’t stopped me. I was about to put a dagger through his heart.”

“Why?” A muscle tensed in her jaw and she stiffened slightly.

“All in the name of power…which shames me.” He swallowed tightly.

“I stepped off the path of my destiny and behaved dishonorably. But the gods punished me for not believing in fate. A fate they had mapped for me when the stars were created.” He hardly dared look at her face again.

Carmel’s opinion of him, he suddenly realized, was the most important one of all.

“But you have found your path now?”

“ Ja , I have worked hard to find my path again. I flung myself at the mercy of Njord when I took to the ocean, and then I bestowed my brother with the respect his new crown deserves.”

“And you regret your past mistakes?

“ Ja .”

“God is merciful. God forgives.”

“But do you?”

“I have nothing to forgive you for.” She paused. “Unless you have only married me for the sons I will deliver.”

He smiled, a slight tilt of his lips. “No, no, I have married you because you are the only woman I can imagine having at my side in this life and the next. I want you as my queen. It is your rightful place.”

“I like that…even if it is for only three summers.” She paused and raised her eyebrows. “That is what you promised, right?”

“I will make it so good, you will never want to leave.” He tightened his hold on her. “Not in a thousand years.”

“You will, huh?” She giggled and touched his cheek.

“I will be a changed man. My people will say it. Like a snake shedding its skin, I will be reborn.”

“I have faith in you.”

“You are brave to believe in me with such conviction.” He swept his lips over hers. “And the gods smile upon brave women.”

“I am also lucky, for what man other than you would have been so gentle with me on our wedding night, or as skilled?”

“‘Skilled.’” He grinned, a lightness coming over him at the same time his cock stirred. “ Ja , I am skilled.”

She giggled as he tipped her to the bed, the fur around her torso falling away as he settled over her. Her laugh was such a delicate, sugary sound, his heart surged with love.

Love.

He was in love with his wife. So very much in love.

Catching her mouth in a deep kiss, he tried to show her how much she meant to him. How in awe he was of her. That he couldn’t live without her. She made him a better man, and she would keep making him a better man.