by Dixon, Ruby
And for B’shit, I continue to feel nothing at all. Annoyance, perhaps. Impatience with the situation. Not desire.
Am I to be one of those unlucky males who resonates to a female he loathes? Surely not…and yet I wonder.
“N’dek?”
A ripple of pleasure moves through me at that familiar voice calling my name.
9
N’DEK
Devi’s voice is hushed, as if she does not wish to be overheard. I roll onto my stomach and pull at the tent flap, gazing outside. Sure enough, Devi walks through the Strong Arm encampment, frowning in front of a nearby tent.
She came looking for me. The thought fills me with possessive joy. “Devi?”
She turns, her glowing eyes fixing on me. An expression of relief crosses her face and she hurries over to my tent, her feet crunching on the sand. “What are you doing over here?”
Me? I move back to my furs, back onto my bedding even as she ducks into the tent. “I am sleeping here. Why are you here?”
“I was looking for you.” Devi pauses. “You’re naked again.”
I like that she notices. “Do you want me to cover myself?” She is staring hard, and I am not entirely sure she is displeased. I like how hard she stares at my cock, the fascination in her eyes, and it stirs to life under her gaze.
“I…” She tears her gaze away from my groin and looks at my face. “It’s your tent. I’m just interrupting. Do whatever makes you comfortable.”
I prop my head up on one arm and scratch at my stomach. She did not tell me to cover up. Interesting. “Should you not be with S’bren?”
Her mouth draws down into a frown. “You sound jealous. It’s not as if you have room to talk. You want me to go get Bridget for you?”
I say nothing. She is not wrong. I am jealous of S’bren.
Devi purses her lips and then sits down next to my bed. “I didn’t come here to argue with you. I just thought you did amazing today, and I wanted to come and tell you that.”
“You came here just to tell me this?”
“I figure you can never be told often enough that you’re amazing.” She smiles. “Because I know how hard you’ve been working to make that leg look so easy. So I thought I’d come tell you that you’re a badass.”
I like that she smiles. “This is good? To be bad-ass?”
Devi laughs. “Very good.” She bites her lip and then tilts her head, studying me. “How are you holding up? Does your leg hurt?”
“A little.” It does not feel like admitting defeat when I confess this to Devi. She knows how difficult each step is and how much it taxes me to learn to walk once more. She would not mock me or pity me if I admit that it hurts my stump to grind against the false leg with every step.
She nods. “I thought that might be the case. I kept thinking about how you’ve added padding to the top and, well…” She rakes a hand through her hair, and I realize she is nervous. “I told Liz that I twisted my ankle and asked if there was some sort of herb that could help with swelling. She gave me a few roots that she said you can chew up and make into a paste and it helps reduce inflammation. I didn’t want anyone to think this was for you, so I told them it was for me, of course. And I went back to your hut to give it to you and ah…it was occupied.”
“J’shel and H’nah?” I guess.
Devi ducks her head. “I heard far more than I wanted to.”
“I am happy for him. He has been very patient with her.” I shake my head. “I am not sure I would be so patient with such a female.”
“Why not?” She seems surprised at this admission. “This place is a big adjustment for all of us. Not everyone handles it well. If anything, I think we’re all handling it really well considering.”
“You have not wept or demanded to be brought home,” I scoff. Why defend H’nah? The female is a difficult one.
“You think I haven’t wept? Or that I don’t miss my family?” Devi’s expression grows sad, her smile faltering. “Maybe I’m just better at hiding it than others. Or I have more to occupy me. I stay busy because if I don’t, I’ll think about everyone I left behind and if they miss me and—and—and so I focus on the ecology here.” She smiles again, and it is overbright, as if she tries too hard to reassure me. “I don’t judge Hannah for struggling. She’s a good person. And she’s happy now, which makes me happy for her.” She hesitates for a moment. “She’s really, really happy now. You might want to find new quarters.”
I chuckle. “Then I am very, very happy for J’shel and I will try harder to tolerate H’nah.” I think of her sad expression and the look in her eyes when she mentioned her family. I do not like to think of Devi as sad and hiding it. I love her happiness and I want to bring it back to her. She needs a distraction. But what?
Because I am an arrogant male who likes it when she stares at me, I shift my weight on the furs, then lower a hand and scratch at my thigh.
Her gaze darts there, rests for a long, long moment, and then she looks back at my face. “Did you want the roots? To help with swelling?”
“I will take them.”
She reaches into the front of her tunic, adjusts something against her teats, and now I am the one who cannot pull my gaze away. I stare as she pulls out the long, thin roots and offers them to me. “Tadaa.”
“My thanks.” I reach out to take them and deliberately brush my fingers against her hand. She is so soft, my Devi. It is torture not to grab her and pull her into my arms. My cock is hard and aching against my thigh, and I want her to look down there again, to stare at my length and marvel at how it would feel inside her. I want her to look me in the eyes and say yes, I will be your pleasure-mate.
I want so many things.
But Devi clears her throat and gestures at my stump. “Can I look at your leg?”
I grunt. Something tells me that all the fantasies in my head of her touching me and caressing my cock, of begging for my mouth, are just fantasies after all. I shift my weight and lie on my back, edging one corner of the furs over my cock so she will not be embarrassed at the sight of my need. “Look all you like, but it is not pretty.”
She snorts. “Legs are supposed to be functional, not pretty, N’dek.” She leans in and runs cool fingers down my thigh.
I am suddenly glad I pulled the blanket over my cock. If it was hard before, it is straining now. Just her small touch and the intent expression on her face have me hungry like I have never been hungry before. I bite down on the inside of my cheek to hold back a groan as her fingers skim down to my knee and then move over the scarred tissue of my stump. Devi sucks in a breath and looks at me. “You’re swollen.”
She has no idea.
“And…are these bruises?” Her gaze lifts to mine and her expression is full of frustration. “N’dek, I don’t like that you’re hurting yourself.”
I ache to reach out and touch her, to brush her long mane back from her face, to touch her soft cheek that is such a lovely, warm shade of brown that it fascinates me. Everything about her is soft and warm and touchable and I need her so badly.
When I do not answer her, she brushes her fingers over one particularly painful bruise. “I wish you hadn’t pushed yourself so hard,” she frets.
“It will get better with time,” I promise her. “With every fitting, with every step, it grows more comfortable. I can adjust the straps and the length of the bone, and it will get better.”
She clucks her tongue and rubs the thick muscle just above my knee. “You’re so tight. Does it hurt right now?”
Devi is torturing me. My mouth is completely dry as she kneads muscles and moves her hands over my skin. She rubs the muscles around my knee and my stump, but it might as well be my cock. I am harder than I have ever been, and the head of my cock is slick with seed just from her small touches. She says something, her beautiful mouth moving, and then looks over at me and frowns.
“What?” I ask hoarsely, forcing myself to focus.
“Do you need materials from me for a
djustments on the prosthetic? More padding or fur? I can sew a small pillow to fit between the bone and your stump, but I worry that if it’s too thick you’ll wobble when you put pressure on it and I don’t want you to fall.”
“It is fine.”
Her mouth flattens into an angry line. “N’dek, it doesn’t look fine. I worry about you.”
“And I ache for you,” I admit, unable to stop myself. “I am aching for you right now, Devi.” I reach up and touch a lock of her mane, rubbing it between my fingers. “I have ached for you all day and all night and having you this close right now is pleasure and pain both.”
Devi’s eyes go soft and her hands stop moving on my leg. “N’dek,” she murmurs, her gaze moving to my mouth. “We shouldn’t have kissed last night.”
“Why not? Did I do it wrong? Did I displease you somehow?” I twine the lock around my fingers, wanting to drag her forward into my arms with it. “If I need correcting, I want to know. I am perfectly willing to practice—”
“You were fine. We just…can’t.”
“Why?” I give her mane a gentle tug when she does not look at me. “I liked tasting you. I liked the way our tongues rubbed together. I made you moan.”
A strangled sound escapes her. “N’dek, stop—”
“I will not stop.” I sit up straight in the furs, reaching for her arm, but she pulls out of my grasp. “I want you, Devi. I want you as I have wanted nothing else in my life…other than my leg.” I give her a wry smile that she doesn’t return. “I want you in my furs, but for now, I will settle for more kissing.”
“I can’t kiss you,” she says, pulling her mane from my grip and moving back a half step, as if that will stop me. Her expression is tortured, her eyes sad. “I shouldn’t even be here, but I worried about you.”
“Because of S’bren?” I ask, and a growl rises in my throat. Has he won her so quickly? Can I win her back?
“Because you’re going to resonate to Bridget,” Devi hisses at me, her hands clenched into fists.
“Am I?” With Devi so close to me, her scent in the air, my cock aching for her, the idea of resonating to B’shit seems absurd. “I thought so because she spoke of me, and I feel a stirring in my spirit as if something will happen soon…but what if it is not her?” I shrug. “My khui is yet silent and unconcerned when it comes to her.”
“But you said you were going to resonate soon.” Her expression grows confused. “I’ve asked others that resonated and some said they knew it was going to happen, like you could anticipate it. If you say you’re going to resonate soon, I believe you.”
“I thought so, but perhaps I am wrong.” I shake my head. “All I know is that I should be focused on the games, or on hunting, or on my leg, and instead, all I can think about is Devi’s mouth. Devi’s skin. Devi’s scent. Devi’s smile.”
She sucks in a breath.
“I hunger for you, Devi,” I tell her, leaning forward. I capture her hand in mine and she does not pull away, so I keep speaking. “I want to touch you again. I want to kiss you, to lick your mouth and taste your tongue. I want to put my mouth on your cunt and taste you there. I want to learn all of you.”
Her lips part as I speak, her expression soft and full of longing.
“Tell me that you want me, too,” I urge her. “Tell me that you ache like I do.”
“We can’t,” she says softly.
“Tell me why.” I pull her hand to my face, rub her palm against my cheek, then press my mouth to her soft skin. “Tell me why we cannot touch, Devi.”
“Because if you resonate to someone else after we’re together, it’ll break me,” she admits in a small voice. “I’ve never really…you’re the first guy I’ve really been attracted to. And if you’re supposed to be someone else’s…” She trails off and then shakes her head, even as her fingers lightly skim my jaw. “I’m just so afraid of getting hurt.”
I press another kiss to her palm, then the inside of her wrist. She shivers at the touch and hunger rages through me. “The last thing I want is to hurt you, my Devi,” I murmur. “My Devi Bah-lah-soo-brah-mah-nee-un.”
She closes her eyes and shudders. “Oh god, that should not be so stinking hot.”
“I learned your name because I care about you,” I tell her. “I want you. Not B’shit.”
“Bridget,” she corrects automatically.
“Let me touch you,” I entreat her. “Just for pleasure. Nothing more. No promises, just joy. I will not hold you and call you mine, and I will not expect you to do the same.” It is painful to speak such things, because every fiber of my being demands that I claim her. But I do not want to hurt her for anything, and if this is what Devi needs, this is what I will give her. “But I would rather have you for one day than regret it for all of them.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh, N’dek…”
“I know,” I murmur, rubbing her knuckles against my mouth. “It is much to ask. I should not ask it. But I cannot help myself. I do not want to go another day without kissing you again.” Touching you. Tasting you.
She swallows hard, her elegant throat working.
I wait for her to refuse me, to tell me I am asking too much. I know I am. Ever since I was injured, I have struggled to understand who I am now that I am not N’dek with two whole legs. Then I am no longer N’dek of Strong Arm, the last of a mighty island clan. We are strangers on a cold shore, and it made it harder to look forward to each day.
But now that I have met Devi, I feel alive again. It is more than just my leg. It is the excitement in her eyes, the pleasure she takes in the smallest of things. I want to be more, because I want to be more for her. I want to be a hunter she can be proud of.
Everything I do from this point forward, I do for Devi. She is my reason. I know this as surely as I know my own four hands.
10
N’DEK
“Our clothes have to stay on,” she blurts, and I can feel her hand tremble in my grasp.
She…is accepting? I want to ask her if she means it, but I do not want her to rethink her decision. “Then our clothes will stay on,” I tell her swiftly.
“That’s going to be a problem for you,” Devi says, ducking her head shyly.
I like that she teases me even though she is shy. I like that she has not pulled her hand from mine. “It shall be difficult for you as well,” I murmur, adding a little teasing of my own. “I like when you stare at my cock.”
She makes a little sound in her throat. “You noticed that?”
“I could not help it.”
“I suppose I wasn’t good at hiding my observations. You’re just so…ah…big.” She lets her mane fall forward over her face.
Ah, no hunter was ever so flattered. I tug on her hand, pulling her forward. “Can we start enjoying each other now, Devi Balasubramanian?” The more I say her long name, the easier it gets…and I like the spark of pleasure in her eyes when I say it. “Or are you not ready yet?”
Her gaze moves to my mouth, even as she crawls forward, her legs straddling my bare thigh. It is my bad leg, the one with no more than a stump, but she does not care. She never has—and that is one reason why she is perfection. Her hands go to my shoulders, fidgeting. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, but we can start now.”
I lift one hand to her mane and run my fingers through her tresses, loving the slither of them against my skin. “When it becomes too much, we will stop. This I promise.”
“I should say no,” she murmurs, even as her arms go around my neck and she leans in closer.
“But you will not?” I ask, her lips so close to mine I hunger to taste them.
“Hell no.” She moves a bit closer, her hips higher on my thigh, and then our mouths meet.
It is just as sweet as I remember it, kissing Devi. Her lips are soft, her breath warm against my skin, and she immediately gives a little groan of pleasure when my tongue slicks along her mouth.
I know in this moment that no matter what happens, Devi is mine. I will t
ear my khui from my chest if it dares to resonate to another.
With a low growl, I pull her closer and taste her again. Her tongue is tentative as it meets mine, but after a few kisses, she is just as hungry for me as I am for her. I lick into her sweet mouth, claiming her with each stroke, just as I will someday do to her cunt. “My Devi,” I murmur between kisses. “My fierce, bright human. Touching you brings me such joy.”
“N’dek,” she moans against my lips. “Where…where did you learn to kiss like that?”
“From you. You give me passion and I show it to you,” I say. “I give it back to you. All of my touches say how much N’dek wants his beautiful Devi.”
I am careful not to say the word “mate.” Not yet. It remains on the tip of my tongue, only because she is not ready to hear it. Instead, I focus on pleasing her. I kiss her, relentless, until she is gasping for breath and the soft noises she makes in her throat grow louder and more insistent.
I want her in my arms forever.
She shudders with yearning, her hips rocking against my thigh, and it reminds me that I want to touch her all over. I have been careful not to put my hands on her, because I did not want her to think I am taking more than she is ready to give. I put one hand on her back, wanting to hold her.
“May I touch you?”
“Yes, please yes,” she says, and then her mouth is on mine again.
I bite back a groan as her fierce little tongue brushes against my teeth. I slide my arms around her waist and then lower, to her hips. She rocks against my thigh, her cunt all leather-covered heat, and I suddenly wish I had not agreed to leave her clothes on. I have none, but the blanket still rests over my lap, and I want to fling it aside, push her down into the furs, and bury myself inside her.
“You feel so good,” Devi whispers, her fingers sliding up my neck. That small touch sends prickles up my spine…and my sac. “I like your hair better like this.”
“Like how?” It is hard to think when her hands are on me.
