by Dixon, Ruby
My khui continues to sing its aching song, but I have never felt such intense pleasure. I made my mate come. I touched her until she lost control. There is no feeling better than this.
Calida gasps for breath, panting and tucked against my chest, and I lift my hand to my lips, unable to resist tasting her. She is musky and sweet, as good on the lips as she is to scent, and I know I am going to spend many, many hours this day jerking my cock to the memory of this moment.
She makes a soft sound and then presses her mouth against my chest, her lips brushing against my skin. “What do you want me to do to you?” Her voice is low and soft.
She thinks I did this because I want something from her? I fight back the feelings of dismay that tend to surface. Of course she does. She thinks I am sly…and she is not wrong. But this was simply because I wanted to please her.
Even though she offers, I will not take her up on it. I want her to touch me because she wants to touch me, not because she feels she must. After all, is that not what she has fought resonance so hard for? Because she wants to be the one to choose? So I try a different tactic. I smooth her mane back from her sweaty face and press my lips to her head. “Say something for me.”
“What?”
I love the softness of her voice and hate that I am about to destroy it. “Say that I am your mate.”
Calida makes a noise of disgust and smacks my chest with her hand. “Pig.”
I have no idea what that is, but I can guess. “Is that a no?”
She shoves out of my grip, all fierce, independent female once more. “Get out of here, cabron. I need to finish washing and you’re distracting me.”
I grin, pick up the wash-towel she flung down, and hold it out to her. She snatches it from my hand, makes a hmph-ing noise, and then turns her back to me.
Even though I want to join her, to let her “wash” me, I force myself to turn and walk away. I am figuring my Calida out. If I give her space, she runs away.
So from now on, I give her no space at all.
17
M’TOK
She bathes for a while longer, and I relieve the ache of my cock at the entrance to the cave, letting the cold bite of the wind take some of the edge off of my need. I watch, dissatisfied, as my seed spends in the snow, and then I kick fresh powder over it to hide it away. It does not help much. Nothing helps much, not for long.
Sometimes, I hate resonance. I hate this constant, skin-crawling need that makes me crazed. I shove my cock back into my loincloth and return to the cave, frustrated.
But when I go inside, I see Calida bending by the fire. She is dressed, her cheeks flushed with color, tendrils of dark mane framing her round face. And she is so beautiful that the ache inside me turns to something good, something worth waiting for.
She is worth all the agony.
I want to grin at her like a fool, but I pretend to be unaffected, gesturing at the steadily pouring snow outside. “The skies are terrible this morning.”
“You don’t have to sound so utterly gleeful about it,” Calida says, but there is a tease in her voice. “That’s fine. I’m too tired to go hiking all over kingdom come today anyhow. If someone wants to find us that bad, they can come sit by the fire.” She tucks a blanket around her shoulders and then sits cross-legged in front of the flames. “So much damn snow.”
“They do call it the brutal season,” I say, grinning as I move toward the fire. “I see why now. There is snow upon snow upon snow.”
“Upon more snow,” she agrees. “You couldn’t have waited until the weather got nicer before you drugged and kidnapped me?”
“You could have come sweetly to my furs instead of fighting me for insults I never gave.”
She makes a face in my direction. For a moment, I expect her to get angry at me once more but she only pulls the furs closer around her body. “Did they not have a season like this where you came from?”
“At home we had a rainy season. Everything was warm all the time, and when it was the rainy season, it would get so damp that anything you wore on your body stuck to you very unpleasantly. Most of the time we wore nothing at all.” I pluck at the loincloth I wear now, and think of the many cloaks and thick, heavy tunics to wear to protect against the snows. “I cannot say this is a great exchange for the fine, warm weather on the island.”
Calida sighs. “That sucks. You must miss it a lot on days like this.”
I think of how warm and slippery she was in my arms just a short time ago. “Today I do not miss it at all.”
She laughs, shaking her head at me, and I am encouraged. She is not pulling away from me after what happened just a short time ago. She is smiling and laughing, and things are easy between us. She will be mine soon, I know it. The thought makes my heart race with eager anticipation. “Should we work on dyeing more threads for you this morning, since we are trapped inside?”
Calida shrugs. “I thought I might sew. I have enough to get started and I want to see how it turns out before we ruin a bunch of thread for nothing.”
“Ah.” I am disappointed; I enjoyed spending the day with our heads bent together, working on a common task.
“What about you?”
The human female snorts.
“What?”
“You’re obsessed, you know that, right?”
I frown at this. Is she deliberately trying to start a fight? “A clean hut is a good thing. I do not see why you make it sound bad.”
“This is a cave, not a hut.”
“It could be.” We could live here, the two of us. We can hunt the four-legged mountain crawlers and drink the hot water. There is plenty of room for us to make a fine home here…if it were not so cold. And if S’bren were to find his way here with his mate, we could start our own clan. Tall Horn could live on once more…
“I’m not going to live in this cave,” Calida says. “Hot water or not. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s a lot colder up here than it is on the beach.”
I say nothing. I do not like that she is so quick to vow that she will not live here with me. Can she not bend just a little? After what we have shared?
It is silent in the cave, the only sound between us the irritated hum of our unsatisfied khuis.
Calida pulls the bag of scraps into her lap and arranges them, toying with each one. “Maybe we don’t have enough green thread after all. Do you think you could make me more?”
How can I refuse when she asks me so sweetly? “You know I will do anything for you, my Calida.”
I do not speak of string, and she knows it.
* * *
The weather grows colder throughout the day, the skies bleak with no sunlight showing through. Calida works on sewing tiny stitches along the sleeve cuff of her tunic, and I am impressed with her results. She has made tiny little vines with leaves that curl around the sleeve as if growing there, and dotted with small red flowers. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen created by hands, and I am amazed. I touch it, fascinated. “How did you know to do this?”
“My mami always made my clothes for me when I was a little girl.” She smiles, watching as I caress the perfect stitches she has made. “She was never very happy with her patterns, though. They never looked festive enough for her. She wanted them to be special, you know? Show they were made with love and care. So she’d embroider lots of things on the hems that would make it one of a kind. Hearts, flowers, teddy bears—anything a little girl would love. When I got older, I didn’t want her to do that anymore. You know, because I was a shitty teenager. I’d get my clothes out of the laundry and sometimes I’d find a few stitches on the inside of a sleeve—a tiny flower, or a smiley face—just something to let me know she was thinking about me. It was the best thing ever.” Her voice grows tight and she swipes at her eyes. “So I guess I’m doing this to keep busy, but also because it would make her happy.”
“It is beautiful,” I say, and hand it back to her. “She would be proud.”
“I can
do yours too, if you want.”
I am not sure I have heard her correctly. “You would…make this on my sleeves for me?” When she nods, I cannot help but ask, “Because when I see it I will know you are thinking of me?”
She bats at my arm and mutters something in her strange language, but her cheeks are flushed with color and she will not look me in the eye. “You want it or not?”
“It would make me very happy,” I say.
Calida looks up and our eyes meet. Her expression is soft, her full lips smiling at me and I remember how they felt when they brushed against my chest. She is so close, her scent in my nose, and I want to feel her squirming on my fingers again.
“I want to touch you,” I murmur.
She looks away, flustered, and fusses with the tunic in her lap. “Not right now.”
“Not right now” is not “no” and I am encouraged.
* * *
Calida works on my tunic all night, even as the wind roars outside and snow trickles in through the mouth of the cave. We move farther back in the cave, into an antechamber full of spikes along the edges of the walls that Calida calls “stal-hag-mites.” We let the fire burn itself out before re-making the fire pit farther back and starting a fresh flame. I do not like how cold it is getting, and even inside the cave, our breaths puff up like smoke in front of our faces. She stitches on my tunic while I wrap in furs and keep the fire going. We drink hot tea but Calida still shivers and I regret we ever left the village.
Briefly. Very briefly.
I do not like that she is so cold, though. That evening, when we get ready for sleep, I get my furs and add them to the pile of hers.
“Where are you going to sleep?” she asks, perplexed.
“Right here with you.”
I expect her brows to go down, for her face to scrunch up in that angry expression I know so well, but she just nods and gives me a suspicious look. “No funny business, all right?”
“Funny—?”
“Don’t pretend to be cold when you secretly want to feel me up,” she snaps.
I laugh. “I pretend nothing when I want to feel you up. I thought I made it obvious all the time that I would like nothing more.” When she just glares at me, I shake my head. “This is about sharing warmth because it is too cold. I will keep my hands to myself.”
And I do. I sleep next to her, and it is Calida that puts her hands all over me, sliding them under my tunic to press against my warm skin, her cold feet tucked between my legs. She sleeps peacefully, half-sprawled atop me, and I cannot remember a moment that I felt so lucky…or so tortured.
I lie awake, my body aching for her…and it is still the best evening ever. I doze off and on throughout the night, and wake up to a strange rustling coming from the front of the cave. I stiffen, trying to determine the sound, and carefully pull my limbs free from Calida’s.
My human murmurs a protest low in her throat and clings to me. “Yrsowahrm,” she slurs, half-asleep. “Come backta bed.”
I try to detangle myself from her grasp. “Something is in the cave,” I whisper.
Calida jerks awake, sitting up and clutching the furs to her chest. “What?”
I put a finger to my lips, indicating silence, and creep out of the furs. I cannot see what is making the noise because we have moved our sleeping area and fire pit deeper into the cave, and I think of the half-eaten creature and the mess in the caves when we arrived. Something lived here that ate meat, and I do not want Calida in danger. I reach for my spear.
She gets to her feet, too, and when I silently indicate she should stay behind, she slaps at my hands and gives me an angry look. “I can help,” she whispers. “Give me a knife.”
The rustling gets louder, and there is no time to argue. I push my spear into her hands and grab a knife as I head for the main part of the cave. Behind me, Calida is on my heels, her hand at the waist of my loincloth so she can keep track of me in the darkness.
Thin pre-dawn daylight filters in from the snowy entrance of the cave. Snow drifts in, covering the floors in a fine white powder, and inside the cave, two shadowy things move. I hear the sound of teeth crunching and Calida’s cold hand grips my elbow.
“What is it?” she whispers, shivering.
One of the creatures lifts its head and bleats. As it does, a bit of string falls from its mouth. Another swoops in and grabs the bits, crunching them. They are eating Calida’s dyed strings, which have frozen at the front of the cave. I sigh with relief at the realization that it is just the four-legged plant-eaters. “The wooly creatures that scale the cliffs also seem to like your threads.”
“The mountain goats? Seriously?” She sags. “Fuck, that scared the shit out of me.” She presses her forehead to my arm. “God, I thought we were about to die because of a yeti or something.”
“I will keep you safe,” I promise her. The “goats” ignore us, rummaging through the sinew we laid out for dyeing and eating everything they can find. “I suppose it is a good thing we moved our packs and furs back here or they might have nibbled on us while we slept.”
She chuckles and nudges me. “You’re a bigger mouthful than I am. I’ll let them eat you first.”
“Ah, but I have tasted you and you are very juicy, my Calida.”
She sucks in a breath and her glowing eyes meet mine. My meaning is clear, and I wait to see if she will retreat. She stays at my side, though, her gaze locked on mine, and her khui’s song increases in strength.
That causes the goats to notice us. Ears prick. One of the creatures bleats, then goes back to chewing.
I tear my gaze away from my enticing mate and eye the intruders. They look fat. Lazy. Probably good eating and I must ensure that my mate is fed. “Should we kill one of them? Get fresh meat?”
My mate blanches. “But they’re so cute. Look at them. They’re like baby goats but they’re puffy-coated. How can you want to eat them?”
“Because they are food? And we might regret it later?” I gesture at the spear in her hands. “They are right here. It would be an easy thing to kill them here and not have to haul them a long distance back. Do you not want their fur? It would make a warm cloak.”
“They have faces,” she hisses at me. “I can’t kill it if it has a face!”
Is this why she does not go hunting with the others? Because she is too soft-hearted to kill anything? “What do you propose we eat, then, if we run out of our supplies before the mountain paths are safe to walk?”
Calida thinks for a moment. “Fish?”
I frown. “Fish have faces.”
“But not cute little goat faces with fluffy tails.”
It is an absurd reason, but the look on her face is genuine. She does not want to kill them because…they are cute. “I see.”
“I know I’m not being reasonable but…” She shrugs. “They look like pets and I can’t do it, all right? I’m still adjusting to sleeping in a cave and wearing fucking leather, don’t make me go a hundred percent cave girl and kill something with big googly eyes and fluffy fur.”
She looks distraught at the thought.
“If it bothers you, we can eat fish,” I say. “But the closest lake was farther down the path. We might have to go out when it’s cold and snowy one day just to go fishing.”
Calida chews on her lip, her fingers toying with the waist of my loincloth. “Are…we in danger of starving anytime soon?” she asks. “I don’t want to be stupid about this, of course. But if we don’t have to eat them, I would prefer not to.”
I think of the pouches of dried meat and trail rations I stuffed into my pack and the additional food I took from the hunter cave we stayed at before. “No. I think we have plenty of food. We will let them leave.”
“Thank you, M’tok,” my mate says softly. “You’re a good guy for humoring me.”
Humoring her. As if I could deny her anything.
18
M’TOK
For the next three days, it continues to pour snow from the skie
s. This makes me far happier than it should. Every day of snow, though, is another day I get to spend with Calida without her insisting on going back to the village. It is another day of huddling under the blankets together by the fire, talking of nothing and everything, and getting to know one another. She works on her stitching as we sit near the coals, wrapped in furs. Because I do not know how long it will snow, I am being conservative with the fuel, which means our fire is not much more than coals, and we share body heat instead of relying on the flames.
I prefer this, anyhow. Calida’s skin pressed to mine so we can share warmth? I will go without fire forever if I must.
I wear nothing but a loincloth so my legs and my chest can warm her. She wears a bit more—a loincloth of her own and a band around her large teats. When she sits to sew, I pull her between my thighs and let her rest her back against my chest, and as she works, she tells me stories of her family, of her planet, of warm beaches instead of frozen ones and sand so hot it burns bare feet. It reminds me of home. Our sands were never so hot, but our waters were warm and I feel bonded to her in that we are both baffled by the endless cold we find ourselves in.
With her at my side, though, it does not feel so cold. It feels…cozy.
As she sews, I lean in and brush my lips against her neck. She shivers, squirming, and pokes my leg. “You’re distracting me.”
“I will not apologize.” That would imply I do not want to touch her, when I want to do much, much more.
Since the day I found her bathing, I have not pleasured her again. I have wanted to—with every moment that passes, I want to more and more—but I also know she expects me to do such a thing. And because I am constantly thinking about her and how to entice her into my arms, I have decided that the best method to do so is to make it seem as if it is her idea.
So I am around her constantly. I wear very little clothing and share warmth with her. I curl up under the furs with her and let her put her cold feet on my legs. I touch her every chance I get. I caress her neck and hold her close.
