Then she did other things to him with her mouth.
Then he did things to her.
Then he took her, not hard and rough, but slow and sweet and she didn’t scream to her wolf when she cl**axed. She whispered it in his ear on a contented sigh.
Then she fell asleep in his arms.
She woke up in them too, just as far gone as the night before but Callum wasn’t in the mood to be slow and sweet. He was in a different mood. And, with the urge over her, Sonia liked his mood.
She liked it so much she begged for it.
After, she lay on her belly, her eyes closed, her mind trying to regulate her breathing.
She felt him lying beside her, her head was turned away from him but she knew he was up on an elbow and his fingers were trailing lightly along the na**d skin of her back. His hand finally glided down over her bottom and he reached low as it slid down the back her thigh and he gently cocked her leg.
Then, just as he had done after her claiming, he coated her thighs with their combined wetness.
She felt his chest at her back and his fingers digging in her hip when he growled in her ear, “That’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
Sonia didn’t respond verbally but she shivered deliciously because, somewhere, deep down, even though she told herself she didn’t, she agreed.
His fingers gave her hip another, far gentler, squeeze.
“Dress warm before coming to me,” he ordered before exiting the bed, throwing the hides over her and walking to the bathroom.
Before he left the room, he tucked her stuffed wolf in her arms and kissed her temple.
Sonia stared at the pillows, clutching her wolf, and told herself not to cry.
She also told herself, that day, she was going to find a way to end this.
Before Maraleena could arrive, she threw back the hides, went to the bathroom and took a shower.
* * * * *
However, Sonia didn’t find a way to end it.
Instead, she had breakfast with Maraleena and Callista in the kitchen again and they spent that time teaching her queenly etiquette and protocol and doing it hilariously. Callista acted out the silent part of the queen while Maraleena acted out the domineering part of the king and all three of them giggled until their sides hurt.
When she arrived at the door to Callum’s study, he was already striding across the room. Sonia barely got her mouth open before he took her up the stairs for her injection and then he said they were off to explore the wood.
Before she could say another word, they were off to explore the wood.
That was the worst because it was the best.
Tramping through the snow and the trees, the brisk air in her lungs, the cold on her face, the warmth in her active muscles, she could smell the wildlife, hear it and sense it all around her.
And she loved it.
It reminded her of being out with her father all those times when she was a child. She hadn’t done it since he’d died and she forgot just how much she loved it.
No, how much it felt right, like she was where she belonged, like she’d come home.
And being there with the sweet, tender Callum. Feeling that with him, while Callum held her hand as they trudged through snow. Stopping her every once in a while to place his hand under her jaw, tilt her head to his and brush his lips to hers (and sometimes it was far more than a brush). Coming to a rise which exposed a new vista and both of them halting, standing close and just experiencing the view. She allowed herself to pretend. Just that once, she allowed herself to be where she always loved to be with the man she wanted for so long to be hers.
So, when they returned, without demur, she ate lunch seated in his lap and, after lunch, she made out with him in his desk chair that was turned to face the roaring fire. She didn’t make a peep when he picked her up, walked her to the couch and set her down.
Arranging the woolly throw over her, he murmured in a tone filled with regret, “I’ve work to do, little one.” He framed her face with his hands and touched his mouth to hers. “We’ll finish in a bit.” Shafts of tawny sliced through the blue of his eyes before he whispered, “There’re a few things I want you to do to me in that chair.”