Werewolf fairytales

He will try

*Theo*

I hadn’t known… hadn’t dared to think… about what was about to happen, and what it would mean for me. But as laughter gathers in my chest at the look in Paisley’s eyes, the helpless, desiring, appalled look on her face, I know.

I mean to have her, to have and to hold, any way I can. Whether that means becoming a butler in her house, or a gardener in her fields... I have to be near her.

This funny, delicious, intelligent she-wolf has walked into the castle and straight into my heart and she will never leave it, as long as I live.

But that is a problem to be worked out tomorrow. Just at present, I have to pry my beloved off the bed railings.

“Darling,” I say, walking closer.

Paisley flicks her eyes to my face, then back down. The agonized doubt on her face almost has me doubling over with laughter, but I can’t do that. Instead, I sweep her up in my arms and lower her onto the bed.

She lies in the path of the moonlight coming through the window; it flows across the floor, up and over the bed, spilling on the window and splashing light over her white-blonde hair as it spills over the pillow and down the side of the bed. She looks ethereal, like a fairy and not an English She-wolf, some sort of fabulous sprite I’ve captured and brought to my bed for the night.

I sit next to her on the bed. “Why did you ask me whether you should undress?”

“Rodney didn’t, that is, he undressed but he didn’t remove my clothes.” She says.

“Rodney,” I state, “is a fool and a bungler. I don’t suppose he used a condom either, did he?”

She shakes her head, “No.”

“It will prevent your being with child,” I tell her. “Our child.” There is a little stab to my heart as I say it. I would give anything to have my baby growing inside Paisley, to watch her stomach round, to see her eyes in the face of a little boy or girl… But since I don’t know if the obstacles to our marriage can be overcome, the condom is necessary.

A ghost of a smile touches her lips, but still, she looks strained and uncertain. I lower myself slowly until I lie on my side, and gently, very gently, lean forward to touch my lips to hers. My hands tangle in all that gorgeous hair, drawing locks of it through my fingers like silk spun on Jove’s own looms.

I kiss her until she opens her mouth to me and turns toward me. I keep kissing her, not moving, letting her body inch toward mine, letting her hands take the initiative, slipping from my neck to my shoulders, down my back.

Her touch makes me shake with ferocious need, but I school myself. I remain still, telling myself that I must not frighten her. Paisley has already had one unpleasant experience; if I muff this, she’ll likely be put off for life.

I wait until her eyes fly open, and she says, “Theo.”

“Yes?” I can’t stop grinning.

“Don’t the gentlemen do more with the strumpets they buy?”

I look at her, “What sort of thing would you like me to do?”

“You should know. And stop smiling at me like that.”

“I can’t help it,” I say, leaning forward and kissing her lips, her cheek, her feathery eyelashes. “I’ve never laughed in bed with a she-wolf before.”

“That’s probably because you were more busy than you are now,” she remarks, and I nip her earlobe, then feel the shudder that pulses down her body.

“You look like a fairy, a sprite,” I say, running my hand down the long line of her leg. She seems to have a fascination with my chest: she is tracing little patterns on it. “But you sound like a schoolmarm.” The last word is strangulated, as Paisley has leaned toward me and is tracing the same patterns with her tongue.

Slowly, slowly, I slide my hand under her nightgown, over her slender thigh, the tender curve of her waist.

“I just want to say one thing,” Paisley says, abandoning my chest, much to my regret.

“Mmmmm,” I say, my fingers gliding over skin as soft as daisy petals. My heart is thudding in a way I have never experienced before.

“No tiddle-taddling,” she says.

My hand is caressing her generous, lush breast, and I can’t think very clearly. Paisley’s head falls back against the pillow as I brush past her n****e and a small moan breaks from her lips, so it seems she isn’t exactly clearheaded either. “Is this tiddle-taddling?” I ask, rubbing that sweet raspberry with my thumb.

Another strangled moan, a tiny pulse of air, flies from her throat. “No,” she says with a gasp. Then: “You don’t know what it is, do you? I should have known only Rodney would try to engage in something so distasteful.”

It strikes me that bedding my beloved is the most delightful, funny, and passionate activity I have ever engaged in. I kiss her again, letting my fingers wander, marking what makes Paisley arch her back, instinctively falling into a position to give… and take.

Slowly, slowly I inch her nightgown all the way above her breasts. She doesn’t seem to notice until I replace one of the hands that is caressing her breast with my mouth… well, she notices that. And I stay there, learning her secrets, tasting her sweetness. Savoring her. Every startled gasp makes laughter and desire double in my chest.

“Lovely Paisley,” I murmur, sometime later, “is this tiddle-taddling?” And just to make sure she knows what I am talking about, I lean down and give her other breast a kiss, the kind that claims, that is a little rough and a little wild.

“No!” she gasps and then, “Oh, Theo, that feels wonderful.”

Her hands reach out, rather blindly, toward me. “Does it feel the same for you?”

Once we have established to both our satisfaction that yes, it does feel just as good for me, I am flat on my back with Paisley lying along my side, one of her legs entwined with mine.

“Paisley,” I say softly, dimly hearing the hoarseness in my own voice. “May I remove your nightgown now?”

She looks at me, her eyes shining. “If I kiss you here, Theo, your whole body jerks in response. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Quite,” I manage, and whip her billowing nightgown over her head. “You’re so beautiful,” I breathe, awestruck.

*Paisley*

I follow Theo’s gaze down my body. The moonlight has turned my limbs to alabaster; I try to imagine myself as he sees me. But I would rather look at him.

“Just one thing,” I say, trying to gather my thoughts. “What I said before…”

But his hands are at my waist and his mouth closes over my breast and I lose the sentence, the words, the thought altogether.

“Yes?” he asks.

All the secret parts of me are throbbing, which is such an odd sensation that… still, I need to make the point. “It’s just one of Rodney’s daft perversions,” I say, tugging his shoulders. “He called it diddling, but I know you won’t do such a thing.”

Theo moves so his body is poised above mine and the Goddess save me, the only thing I want is that large body to rest on top of mine. I finally understand why she-wolves play the strumpet: it’s because they catch a glimpse of a man like this one.

“Theo,” I whisper, throwing the last of any remaining maidenly caution to the winds, “come to me… please?”

“I thought it was tiddling that you didn’t like,” Theo says, his eyes glinting with an unholy mixture of laughter and lust. “Now I find you don’t like diddling either?”

I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

A strong hand suddenly lays a scorching path up my leg, easing them apart, skating onto the inner flesh of my thigh. I gasp. “That’s exactly where Rodney . . . you mustn’t!”

“I won’t,” Theo says tenderly, dropping another kiss on the corner of my mouth. “I’ll never do something so ham-handed that Rodney partook in it… not unless you beg me to, of course.”

And with that, he takes my mouth in such a devouring kiss that at first I hardly notice the hand stroking my legs apart, dancing close to my most secret… but notice I do. I tear my mouth away, and say, “Theo, no.”

“I would never,” he says, his eyes innocent. “On the Continent, we disdain diddling. We do this instead.” And without pausing for a response, he pulls open my legs with strong hands, slides down, and before I can even conceive of such a thing, puts his mouth… there.

I don’t even think of refusing. In fact, I can’t think at all. My capacity for rational thought does not reemerge until after I find myself shaking from head to foot, trying to fathom how a scorching wave has burst over my head and dragged me down into its fiery depths.

Theo is there, grinning down at me… nudging me.

My eyes widen. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” he says, husky and sweet. “Take me, Paisley. Because I’m the one who loves you, and because you love me. Make me yours.”

I know instinctively that this kind of ownership has nothing to do with ha’pennies, or even kisses. And when he is deep inside me, mine aren’t the only eyes shining with errant tears.

“You’re mine,” I whisper.

Theo cradles my face in his. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” I whisper back, rather surprised. “It did with Rodney, and there’s so much more of you. But it feels . . .” I wiggle a little. “It feels good.”

“Ah,” he says, with such a wealth of satisfaction in his voice that I start to smile, but then he draws back, slowly, and just as slowly, thrusts forward, and the smile flies from my mind, along with everything but the wild pleasure, the ravishing feeling that has me arching to meet him, crying out with each stroke.

He keeps coming, and coming... like the tide washing up on the shore, only not so gentle, then it feels as if the ocean comes to me, as if a flood of pure pleasure sweeps from my toes to the ends of my fingers.

Dimly, I hear his groan, then my own cry.

It was a night of discovery.

I wake in the dim light of dawn to find that Jonas has slept through the night for the very first time. Theo is bent over me. I reach up, only to realize that he is, once again, dressed in his livery.

“I must go,” he murmurs, brushing strands of hair from my face. “And you must return to being Miss Paisley rather than my favorite nursemaid.”

I smile at him drowsily, but I am waking up, and his words coalesce into something ominous. “What do you mean?”

“I expect your father will arrive this morning to take you home.”

I sit up, my heart suddenly pounding. “I shan’t go.”

“You must. Jonas is much better, and young ranked she-wolves can’t serve in the nursery forever. You are no servant, Paisley.”

“I don’t want…” I stop. “If you are a servant, I want to be a servant.”

“You mustn’t say such a thing.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“You must.” He says it gently, but I hear the stark truth of it in his voice. “There is no place for you here, in the castle. You might come as a visitor, but if I am in livery.” He hesitates. “I would rather you did not.”

And there it is.

I swing my legs from the bed and stand up, feeling the chill of his words spread through my body. “Please, Theo, don’t… don’t say this.”

He runs his fingers through my hair and pulls me close. “I will try to come for you,” he says, low and fierce. “I will try, Paisley. But I could never make you a servant or a beggar at my side. Wait for me…”

“Forever,” I say.

“One week. If I don’t come for you before one week has passed, I could not manage it. But know this, Paisley.” He looks down into my face, as unyielding as the greatest emperor who ever lived. “If I do not come for you, it is not for want of desire for you, nor for want of love for you, nor for want of trying. I would do anything to be worthy of you.”

My breath catches on a sob. “Oh, Theo . . .”

“And I will never love another she-wolf above you.”

The deep, hungry yearning in his eyes makes my knees weak. I catch at him, fumbling for words, the vow that will make him understand that I am his forever. That I will wait a lifetime.

But he is gone.