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“Fennel?” She seemed surprised I would ask. “Oh, he’s probably out and about his own business. You know how cats are.”

I set the sack of hevnuts on the floor by the door and hung my cloak above it. The little room was warm and my cold ears stung as they returned to life. As I turned to the table, she was setting down two steaming cups of tea. The rising warmth beckoned me. A dish of butter and some honey waited beside the bread. “Are you hungry?” she asked me, smiling up at me.Advertisement

“A bit,” I admitted. Her smile was contagious.

Her eyes moved over my face. “I am, too,” she said. Then she stepped forward, and I found my arms around her, and her mouth rising up to mine. I had to stoop to kiss her. Her lips opened to mine, inviting, and she tasted of tea and spices. I felt suddenly dizzy.

She broke the kiss, and pressed her cheek to my chest. “You’re cold,” she said. “I should not have made you wait outside so long.”

“I’m much warmer now,” I assured her.

She looked up at me and smiled. “I know.” And as her lips found mine again, her hand dropped down to trace the proof of that. I jumped at the touch, but her hand on the back of my neck kept my mouth on hers.

She was the one who walked us sideways to her bedchamber, never breaking the kiss. She released me to shut the door firmly behind us, plunging us into near darkness save for the bits of light that fingered their way in through the shakes of the roof and past the open rafters of a small loft. The bed was plump with featherbeds. The chamber smelled of woman. I tried to take a breath and find my mind. “This isn’t wise,” I said. I could scarcely get the words out.

“No. It isn’t.” Her fingers loosened the laces of my shirt and tightened my desire. She gave me a small push and I sat down on the edge of her bed.

As she pulled my shirt off over my head, my eyes fell on a small charm on a bedside table. A string of red and black beads was looped and wound around a framework of dead sticks. It was a dash of cold water, stilling my desire and infusing me with a sense of futility. As she unbuckled her waist, her eyes followed my glance. She studied my face, and smiling, shook her head. “Well. Aren’t you the sensitive one? Don’t look at that. It’s for me, not you.” And she casually covered it with the shirt she took from my hands.

I knew then a moment of sanity when I could have stopped what was happening. But she gave me no chance to surrender to my common sense, for her hands were at my belt, her fingers warm against my belly, and I stopped thinking entirely. I stood and lifted her robe over her head, and its passage left her curly hair standing out in a cloud around her face. For a time we stood, nuzzling one another. She made some approving comment about the charm that she had made for me. It was all I currently wore. When she asked me what had given me the fresh scratches on my neck and belly, I silenced her mouth with mine. I recall picking her easily off her feet and turning to set her on her bed. I knelt on the bed over her and beheld the wealth of her, her nipples standing out pink and eager, and the delicious scent of woman rising from her.

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Without a word, I mounted her and then possessed her. Blind lust drove me, and she gasped, “Tom!” shocked at my fierce ardor. My hands were cupped on her shoulders, my mouth covered hers, and she rose to meet me. A sudden terrible need for her overtook me. To touch, skin to skin, in closeness and passion, to share myself completely with another being, to leave behind the sense of being isolated in my own flesh. I held nothing back, and I thought I carried her with me.

Then, as I lay dizzied with completion, she said in a small voice, “Well. You’re a hasty man, Tom Badgerlock.”

My hoarse breathing as I lay atop her made a hideous silence of its own. Shame drenched me. After a terrible stillness, she stirred under me. I heard her draw a breath. “You were hungry!” Perhaps she regretted her words of disappointment, but that did not call them back. Her gentle attempt at making light of it brought the blood to my face and completed my humiliation. I dropped my forehead to the pillow beside hers. I listened to the wind outside in the streets. Some people tramped by in the street, just on the other side of the plank wall. A man’s sudden shout of laughter made me wince. Up in the attic loft, I heard a thump and a squeak. Then Jinna kissed the side of my neck and her hands moved gently down my back. Her voice was a soothing whisper. “Tom. The first time is seldom the best. You’ve shown me your boy’s passion. Shall we find your man’s skills, now?”

So she gave me another chance to prove myself, and I was shamefacedly grateful. I proceeded in a workmanlike way that soon rekindled both of us. There were several things Starling had taught me and Jinna seemed pleased with my second performance. It was only at the very end, as we lay panting together, that her words stirred a misgiving in me. “So, Badgerlock,” she said, and then drew breath beneath me. “That is what it is like for a she-wolf.” pqdm.com