WolfeBite (De Wolfe Pack Generations #10)

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

“I did not think you were coming!”

The whispered words had come from Catherine just after she had reached out to grab Talan, pulling him into one of the several towers that lined Ashendon’s walls. Most of the towers functioned as stairwells and storage areas, but this one in particular held hay and feed for the stables.

This was Talan and Catherine’s secret haven.

They had been meeting here several times a week for the past year, ever since Catherine had managed to flirt her way into Talan’s heart. It hadn’t been difficult, in truth, because she was a beautiful girl and quite charming, and Talan had succumbed without a fight. He was seven years older than she was, however, and she wasn’t yet of age. Almost, but not quite.

But he loved her anyway.

“I had to wait until Leonidas went to bed,” he said quietly, bolting the heavy wooden door of the tower. “At least, I assume he has because I haven’t seen him. But now that he has returned, we have a problem.”

Catherine, with an oil lamp held high so she could see his face, was looking at him with some apprehension.

“Unless you intend to tell him about us, we will simply have to meet in secret,” she said. “We have already been doing it for a year. We can continue.”

Talan sighed faintly, taking the oil lamp from her and then leading her up the narrow wooden stairs to the loft above. It was mostly empty, with just a few piles of hay and an old stool. He set the lamp on the stool and pulled Catherine down to sit beside him.

“I hate to deceive him,” he said quietly. “But his return was unexpected. You and I… We are still coming to know one another, Catie. We are still young. You are young. We do not have to rush into anything.”

Catherine knew that Talan wasn’t keen on jumping into marriage. They’d already had that discussion. He knew he loved her, knew he wanted to marry her, but at twenty years and four, he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it now . He was a knight of the de Wolfe empire and would go where he was told to go and fight whomever he was told to fight, and it wasn’t fair to a wife.

So he’d said.

She sighed heavily and looked away.

“Then what do you want to do?” she asked. “Continue hiding from him? It is not as if the entire castle does not know about us, Talan. Someone will tell him.”

Talan shook his head. “Not necessarily,” he said. “Catie, I do not mean to be difficult about this. You know I love you. But I would like my own command or, at the very least, a stable position before I marry. I do not want to leave you at Ashendon while I go wherever I’m told to go. I could end up in Scotland next month and be there for a very long time. How fair is it to you leave you here, waiting for me?”

She frowned and looked at him. “Who says I will wait for you?” she said. “I will tell Leonidas to find me a husband and I’ll marry a man who wants to be married. You can fight the Scots all you wish and I will not care.”

Another old argument between them. Talan shook his head in exasperation. “I do not understand what the rush is,” he said. “We have our whole lives ahead of us and I do not think we should be pushed into anything.”

“You pushed me into this when you first seduced me.”

He averted his gaze. “That is not fair,” he said softly. “That is not kind, either. I did not seduce you. You were quite willing.”

She had been. That wasn’t a lie. “I was willing to give my innocence to you,” she said. “I was willing because I loved you and I thought you loved me enough to marry me.”

“I do,” he insisted quietly. “But I just do not feel as if my position is stable enough for a wife at this time. I have hardly any fortune, hardly anything to offer you. I am the youngest son of the hereditary King of Anglesey and I will not inherit anything. I must make my own fortune. Why is it wrong for me to want a stable position, and some money, before I take a wife? I cannot offer you anything right now, Catie.”

She gave him a side-eye. “I would think you would appreciate a woman who wanted you for who you are, not the fortune you bring,” she said. “I do not care if you have a fortune. I only care that you are mine and I am yours.”

“As wonderful as that sentiment is, we cannot survive on love alone,” he said. “The reality is that I must be able to provide for you.”

It made sense, but it wasn’t to Catherine’s liking. She couldn’t let the subject go without a fight. “But why is this an issue?” she said. “You serve your cousin, the Earl of Hull, who happens to be my stepfather and who will provide a sizable dowry for me, which we can then live off.”

Talan grunted unhappily. “I will not live off my wife as the vast majority of my income,” he said flatly. “A man with no respect for himself would do that.”

“A man who is in love would do that.”

He shook his head firmly. “I will not,” he said. “If you do not understand my sense of honor, then we have nothing more to discuss.”

“But—”

“ Nay , Catie.”

She stared at him a moment. “Then you will not ask Leonidas for my hand?”

“Not at this time.”

Catherine felt as if she’d been hit in the gut. She and Talan has spent a year dancing around the subject, but Leonidas’ unexpected return had pushed the situation to a new level. She wasn’t conniving by nature, but she was young. And reckless at times. In her world, she only knew what she wanted, and after having suffered through a hellish year with Lady Maria, with Talan riding to her rescue and keeping her safe from the odious woman, a marriage with the man who’d saved her from that terrible fate was the only thing that mattered. He was reluctant, but she wasn’t.

Perhaps there was a way to force him into it.

“Then I suppose I shall have to rely on your good sense to know when the time is right,” she said, though she didn’t mean it. “Not to say I’m happy about it.”

“I know,” he said. “But I must do what I feel is best for us both.”

“Does that mean no more meetings between us until you are certain?”

He looked at her. “Nay,” he said. “Just because I do not want to marry at his moment does not mean I do not want to see you, Catie. Of course I do. Why? Do you not want to see me?”

Her answer was to lean over and kiss him, as she’d done so many times. Talan responded to her immediately, like he always did, his mouth fixed to hers. Passion ignited between them so easily, and it was something he’d learned not to fight. He just accepted it. Therefore, he pulled her against his body and began to loosen the lacings on her garment because that was always the next step when their desire took flight. His hands were big and strong, loosening the ties on the dress and sliding it down her torso as she went to work on his tunic.

Everything was coming off.

Talan lost his big hands in the silken mass of her hair, holding her head against his as his lips continued to feast. Catherine gasped and groaned in response to his tender onslaught, willingly lying on her back as he pulled her down atop the scratchy hay. Trapped beneath his big body, she spread her legs wide for him as his big body slipped between them, and she moaned with desire as his tongue invaded the honeyed recesses of her mouth.

But Talan wasn’t satisfied with only kisses. His mouth eventually left her lips, moving to the pert nipples he took such delight in. She was round in the bust and in the hips like her mother had been, which he found utterly pleasing. Talan lost himself in her breasts as Catherine cradled his head, encouraging him to suckle harder. She even rubbed her nipples to harden them, and he suckled her fingers when they came near his mouth. He suckled and kissed until the warmth between her legs became a raging fire and she grasped his manhood in an attempt to direct him into her wet heat. Talan didn’t keep her waiting. Stretching out over her body, he let her position him so that he could thrust into her, driving his full, hard length until he was fully sheathed within her.

In the grip of passion, Catherine cried out softly, biting off her screams as his heated shaft began to thrust into her. She began to work with him, her pelvis to his, gasping with pleasure each time their bodies collided. Already, she could feel her muscles tightening as her climax approached and she grabbed Talan’s hips, wrapping her legs around him so that he was pulled as deep as he could possibly go. He couldn’t move very well from the way she was holding him, but he could move enough.

His arms went around her.

“Speak of your love for me, my dearest,” he whispered into her ear. “Tell me how much you want me.”

Catherine was breathless. “More than life itself,” she breathed, digging her fingers into his buttocks as she rubbed herself against him. “More than the moon wants the night, do I want you. You are the size of a bull, my darling boy. Big and thick and…”

All of the grinding she was doing against him produced the desired results as she abruptly exploded with a climax as she tried to finish her sentence. Describing the size of his male member always did that to her. She cried out, and Talan brought his mouth down on hers, trying to drown out her shrieks of passion so no one would hear, but he had enough passion of his own. His release came as hers was dying away.

Usually, he pulled from her body before he released, but this time, her legs were around him and he couldn’t pull out in time. He managed to unwind her ankles enough to remove himself, but he’d already spilled mostly inside her at that point. The rest of it ended up on the straw beneath them as he lay upon her, breathing heavily and the least bit perturbed that she’d locked him up with her legs so he couldn’t pull out in time.

“You did that on purpose,” he said, winded. “Do it once more and I will never bed you again.”

She didn’t say anything. She just lay there, unmoving, as Talan waited for her to reply. Suddenly, she was pulling herself out from underneath him and, without a word, started grabbing her clothing, pulling it over her head in haste, yanking on her surcoat and slapping his hand away when he reached out to grasp her. He tried to do it again, to stop whatever she was doing, but she kicked at him the second time and stumbled away, cinching up the ties on the side of her garment.

“Catie,” he said quietly, “please do not leave. But you know you should not have done that.”

Catherine wouldn’t answer him. He’d caught her in a plan of her own making and knew exactly what she’d done, but she wasn’t going to admit to it. In her mind, she shouldn’t have to resort to such things, hoping to get pregnant simply to force him into marriage. Whatever she did was his fault.

At least, she kept telling herself that.

Going to the door, she unbolted it, yanked it open, and charged off into the night, leaving Talan still in the straw, wondering if he’d gotten the whole thing wrong. He didn’t think so, but perhaps he had. Perhaps she’d only wrapped herself around him in the heat of passion and nothing more.

Feeling rather bad with the way things ended, he went to find his clothing.