“Mayhap next time.”
She eyed him for many moments, gaging the truthfulness of what he said. Such a suspicious little person she was.
Wolfe found her utterly adorable. It was not an adjective he ever thought to attach to a woman he ached to fuck, but there it was.
“Okay,” she said the strange word that he’d only ever heard these foreigners speak. “First you swive me on the bank. Then, I swive you in the lake.”
Her legs clenched so tightly around his waist his spine creaked.
He shook his head, resting his brow against hers.
“You will be too sore. I am not an easy man to take, especially for—”
“I am not afraid of pain,” she declared matter-of-factly.
“I ache only for the lack of you.”
Holy God! The things she said.
He pried her legs apart enough to twist out of her hold, diving beneath the water to swim to shore.
Halfway there, he came up for air, looking behind him for Rui, making sure she followed.
“Over here, slow one,” her lilting voice came from the lake’s bank.
He swiveled toward her as he treaded water, impressed.
How did she swim so fast? She had much shorter limbs than he, and yet she reached shore well ahead of him. In fact, she was sitting on the edge of the embankment, her sleek body shimmering in the moonlight like a mermaid’s, her shapely legs swinging idly.
Wolfe immediately thought to the swimming race on the morrow. He was a strong swimmer, but only because of his strength and long body. He plowed through the water by brute force.
Rui, on the other hand, was like a slippery dolphin. He’d seen how natural she’d been last night, frolicking tirelessly in the lake, completely in her element. It gave him hope that she would win the morning’s contest. And it made him dread the afternoon wrestling match.
Losing the swimming race would be the easiest way to bow out of the tournament. One simply had to be slower than the others. There would be no threat of physical wounds.
Or worse.
When he reached the shallow part, he stood and strode out of the water, clawing one hand through his hair to squeeze out the excess.
“Mmm,” she murmured, smiling wide, staring at his body appreciatively.
“I like this view. You look like Poseidon stepping from the deep.”
He stood before her, legs slightly spread, as she rose smoothly to her knees, her hands instinctively reaching out to touch him.
He grasped her wrists before she could, and she growledadorablyat being thwarted.
“Know when to take, and when to receive, little one,” he said low. Though he kept his tone patient and gentle, his will was iron.
Still holding her wrists, he knelt as well, then forced her to her back with the crouching advance of his body.
“I am a man,” he rumbled huskily when they were nose to nose, his big body bracketing her much smaller one, surrounding her on all sides.
“This is my taking. Do you understand?”
She scrunched her face into a frown of stubbornness, confusion and defiance.
“I am a woman. A warrior. A dr—” she cut off the last word with a clearing of throat and plunged on, “I want to take too, not just receive.”