She laughed, and kissed my chest.
“You would clean my feet?” she asked.
“I would, Nova. And nothing, not wrinkles, not gray hair, not death, will make anyone more beautiful to me than you.”
There was a long silence between us, the only sound was her sniffling, the only movement her gentle rubbing along my erection.
“I love you, Brandon,” she said finally. “So much. More than I ever thought I could love anyone. You were the first man to look at me with the kind of genuine adoration that only my father ever showed me. He, too, believed I was beautiful.”
I pulled her close, not understanding. This world was so strange on so many levels, and yet it was starting to feel more like home to me—more than my own home ever did—and all because of this amazing, wonderful, beautiful woman.
“What happened to our loincloths?” I asked.
“I needed them for bandages.”
“Oh,” I said, touching the leathers around my waist. “What’s this goo?”
“It’s the medicine you got from the Chutanga woman. Remember? You told me how to use it.”
“I did?” I said, wearily. “I guess I… do I… how did you get me here? To this cave?”
“I tied you to some branches, then trapped two small horses, and tied the branches to them. They did most of the work.”
I smiled, and felt such a warm glow. What a woman. I was so proud of her, so glad to have her, and amazed at her resourcefulness.
“You saved my life,” I said.
“You saved mine,” she said, squeezing my dick firmly. “In so many ways.”
She turned her head up to face me and I kissed her soft lips with all the passion I could muster, our tongues slipping lovingly over one another. She nibbled my lower lip, and then bit a little harder on my chin, playfully.
“How sore are you, exactly?” she asked.
We both laughed, though I stopped quickly because of the pain.
“I’m willing, if you are,” I said, unconvincingly.
She raised her eyes to mine, and I could see her consider it, then change her mind.
“No,” she said, grinning. “I would kill you.”
I laughed, and winced. “Yes, you probably would.”
“Your spear would spit inside me, you would tense with pleasure, and burst open every wound.”
“What a way to go,” I said.
“Sleep,” she whispered. “I would prefer you live so you can pleasure me often, and without dying.”
I laughed again and realized she was probably right as razors of agony shot through my ribs and stomach.
She moved away, stood and stared down at me.
Her lean, nude body was so tempting, and my staff hardened once more, throbbing with illicit thoughts of her. She noticed the slight movement and scowled.
“Stop that, Brandon!”
“I can’t help it!” I said. “You don’t understand how beautiful you are.”
She huffed, and put her hands on her hips, trying her best to be angry, but rather obviously delighted with my carnal interest. The sudden motion made her lovely breasts bounce, which didn’t help at all, especially when she caught me looking at them.
“Close your eyes, if it’s a problem!” she snarled.
I did as commanded.
“Doesn’t help. I can still see your gorgeous body in my mind.”
“Ooooh!” she howled, laughing slightly. “You’re hopeless!”
I heard her footsteps shooshing through the grass away from me, giggling as she went. It was a heavenly sound.
“I’ll go find something for us to eat. Maybe if I’m out of the camp, you’ll stop thinking about how amazingly gorgeous I am.”
“Not likely!” I called after her.
“And leave your penis alone!” she yelled. “If you can’t handle putting it in me, you’d better not go pulling on it all by yourself!”
I laughed again, instantly coughing and groaning from the lance of pain, and the sudden opening of a wound or two.
“Serves you right!” she called back from somewhere off in the forest, laughing hysterically.
I smiled to myself, and lie back to finally rest.
“That girl,” I said to no one, as I drifted almost instantly into sleep. “Please don’t let me lose her again.”
* * *
HUNTERS RETURN
* * *
I SUPPOSE IT WAS possible I was sleeping less. I’d heard that happens to people living near the North Pole when the sun never sets for months. Their bodies become confused and they stay awake for weeks at a time. Or maybe Suri’s medicines were simply wonders of primitive science. Whatever the case—I’d only slept twice since the fight with Gudra, and was nearly healed. So the time that passed had to be at least two weeks, right?
I opened my eyes groggily from my latest period of slumber and saw Nova cooking over a small fire between me and the little brook. She was still wet from the stream, apparently having bathed, or swum, or maybe just fallen in. She was holding her hair back from the licking flames, and sprinkling something over a fish on a spit while humming quietly to herself. Once the seasoning was complete she turned the tiny trout to keep it roasting evenly. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and just lie there, watching her work.
For years men’s magazines like Playboy had made a fortune by posing women erotically, wearing lingerie and heels, but for me there was nothing sexier than my naked Nova just being herself in our little camp. Her happiness was infectious, and her joy for living made me higher than any drug. Her comfort with walking around nude was sexier than any G-string, or airbrush, or pair of heels could have made her.
As I watched, she tested the fish, decided it was ready, pulled it from the fire and turned back to me.
Seeing I was awake, her eyes lit up with electrified love.
“Good waking, sleepy man,” she said with a radiant smile. “I have something for you.”
She walked toward me and I felt my ‘little friend with a mind of its own’ spring happily to life. Nova noticed and chuckled.
“Well, good morning to you, too, little one,” she said.
She stepped beside me and put one foot on either side of my chest, giving me a delightful view of her best parts.
“I think you’re well enough to eat, now,” she said, grinning.
“Eat what?” I asked.
“Eat… fish,” she said, holding it out, clearly confused. She held up her stick and pointed at it. “See? Fish.”
“Well, you’re offering me more than fish,” I said, pointing between her legs.
She covered it quickly.
“You can’t eat that,” she said, grinning.
“Oh, can’t I?” I said, reaching up to cup her ass and pull her to my mouth. She squealed with surprise.
“Brandon!”
I was used to women who shaved and preened, but there was something feral and lusty about plunging my lips into the recently washed fur of a natural woman. I kissed her playfully, and then quickly found what I was looking for between her heated lips—that tiny pink knob of hardened, delicious flesh. I rubbed it gently with the tip of my tongue, and she purred, happily.
“Ooooooh!” she said, with surprise. “Brandon!”
I felt her hands grip my head and grasp my hair, her knees wobbling just a little. I pulled her ass more tightly to me and went to work, hearing her voice trill upward in pitch and volume. Then I let go with one hand and plunged my fingers deep into her moistening fissure, applying pressure on the inside, opposite my tongue.
She nearly screamed.
Her thighs were shaking against my ears, her voice warbling and I knew her head was back, eyes closed. Very quickly her hips began to buck, her grip tightening in my hair, and I knew she was there. She called out repeatedly as she came—not my name, not any name, just the simple noises and cries of pleasure.
After she’d finished and started to sag against me, I helped her down onto my lap, guiding myself int
o her, dropping her down on my thighs to drive my hardness into her. Then I began to move.
“Oooooh, Saraja!” she cried.
Suddenly her eyes and mouth fell open and she stared at me with red cheeks and dilated pupils. Her hands still gripped my hair, and with a sudden surge of pleasure she yanked my face to her neck and held me there tightly, as if afraid of falling. I felt her hips explode back and forth with movement, and given how wet she was and amazing she felt, I didn’t last long. As I drove deep for my final thrust, she clutched my head more tightly to her neck and wiggled her hips frantically. We finished—breathing heavily—and I grabbed her hips to gently roll her over beside me.
As she lie back, she loosened her grip on my scalp, and stared at me with wide, amazed eyes, and open mouth. She looked at me as if she’d never stop loving me. I’d never seen anything sexier in my life.
“What did you do?” she asked.
I just shrugged.
“No,” she said, genuinely wanting to understand. “I have pleasured myself, but that was… beyond…”
“You’ve done so much for me.” I said. “I just wanted to repay you.”
“You did,” she said, in a whispery voice. She pulled me down and hugged me sweetly. “Oh, you did, you did.”
She laughed and held me as though she wanted to make me a part of her. But I already was.
“I love you, Brandon,” she whispered.
“I love you, too, Nova.”
I WAS STILL A little weak from my injuries, and Nova insisted we stay put a while longer, just to make sure I was ready to travel.
“Sit back,” she said, approaching me with another tasty thing she’d prepared over her fire. “Tell me what you think of this?”
Her cooking was truly masterful. I’d never imagined cave people making anything other than simple, raw meals, or overcooked meats as Nala had done, but Nova knew of many flowers and grasses that added flavor to the meals she prepared, and her little masterpieces could have rivaled a Top Chef.
“I’m sure it’s as incredible as everything else you make,” I said as she once again straddled me.
She squatted down and knelt to rest on my hips, holding out the meaty morsel between us. Before officially offering it, she reached down and guided my once again erect member inside her.
“I never knew dinner could be so much fun,” I said.
“Nor I,” she admitted, sighing as she settled around me. She shivered a bit with delight, then continued. “This is the haunch of an orthopi…”
“Orthopi?” I said, confused. “The little horse? I hope it’s not one of the little guys you used to drag me up here? I’m very grateful to those little horses.”
“Then be even more grateful that he tastes so good,” she said, offering me a bit of the meat.
I made a face, but tasted it anyway. It was good. Incredibly good.
“Damn, Nova,” I said, smiling. “I bet that orthopi is actually grateful you made him so tasty.”
“I killed him quickly,” she said, matter-of-factly, “more quickly than some other predator would have.”
She took a bite herself, and seemed pleased with her work. Then she shifted her hips a little and gave us both a thrill.
“I would be happy to die this way,” she said, smiling. “Take this as my last memory into the paradise on the other side of the sun.”
“Is that what you believe?” I asked. “That there’s a paradise on the other side of the sun?”
“It’s what some people of Pangea believe. I like to believe it. Or did. Now this feels like paradise to me.”
She shifted her hips and laughed as my face melted with pleasure.
“Is it paradise for you, too, Brandon?” she asked.
“It’s become my new definition of the word,” I said.
We chewed silently, as Nova made small, sexy movements with her hips.
“Then why don’t we stay?” she asked.
I stopped chewing as I realized she was serious.
“Here?” I asked, looking around.
“It’s well protected,” she said, explaining quickly. “The valley mouth is so narrow that large animals can’t get in. The cave provides shelter if it rains, or gets too hot, and no one would ever find us here. We are not on an easy path either to the valley or the sea.”
She rocked her hips again, and stirred me around inside her.
“Keep doing that and I’ll never be able to deny you anything,” I said.
“How about another ride on your mouth?” she asked.
“Your wish is my command.”
“After we eat,” she amended.
She fed me another piece of horse meat and I chewed along with her. She smiled at me through greasy lips. Who would have ever thought that could be sexy?
“What about your family?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you miss Sa Fasi?”
She shrugged, and I could see she was hiding something.
“I no longer speak the language of Sa Fasi, so what’s the point? I have the slave language, now.”
“Your family wouldn’t care. Your father. Your brother.”
She shrugged again.
“Why do you want to stay here, Nova?” I asked. “Really.”
She looked down at the bits of bone and meat left in her hands, nibbled away at a tiny piece, then tossed it rather expertly all the way into the river. She slapped her hands, wiped them clean on her bare thighs and leaned back—all without ever looking me in the eye.
I was in no hurry for her to talk. I could have sat there forever staring at her naked body straddling mine, her suntanned breasts so soft and lovely in repose.
But I was concerned for her.
“Nova?” I prodded.
“I never cared before,” she said suddenly, still without looking at me. “I never cared if I lived or died. It happens. Usually quickly and unexpectedly in Pangea. At times I wished it would happen.”
She looked at something far away, farther than the woods she was staring into, remembering some old pain, probably of being unattractive and unwanted in her tribe.
“And now I want so very badly to do nothing but live,” she said, turning finally to stare me in the eyes. “Live with you, forever, preferably with your spear always inside me.”
She wiggled her hips rapidly, smiling, and I smiled, too. But her smile fell quickly.
“People die—even in Sa Fasi, Brandon,” Nova said, sadly, “We become food for the dinosaurs, then shit for the worms. Our lives are a blink. Most of us try to live with no regrets because regrets are a waste of what little life you are given. Run, sing, and die fighting for one more breath to laugh with, one more heartbeat to love with.”
She leaned forward suddenly and took my face in her hands, kissing me passionately. As she did, she thrust her hips back and forth so hard and rapidly that she brought me very close to a finish. Then she stopped abruptly and stared into my eyes from only a few inches away.
“I never thought I would love, and now that I do, I want our hearts to beat together forever, Brandon,” tears formed in her eyes. “I want to live long and die first so I never have to feel anything but how wonderful it is to be with you. We can do that here. We are protected. We can live safely, and raise babies who will also be safe, and grow old beside us… no Grigori, no Angara, no…”
The look in my eyes must have told her something, because she stopped talking and stared at me silently.
“Brandon?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” I began, nervously, then looked around. “I had a pouch. With a silver thing in it.”
“I used the pouch. But I have the silver thing.”
She stood instantly and I slipped out of her. She ran inside the cave and rooted through a pile of things she’d put there, found the device and returned quickly. She knelt beside me and looked at the screen as I explained.
“This is a thing the Grigori use to find us,” I said. “It’s how the Angara tracked you.” I pointed. “These red dots a
re us. You, and me.”
She traced the contour of the map on the screen.
“Is this…” she began, struggling to understand, “I have seen others make drawings like this in the sand. Is this the Usuyasa Um?”
“I think so,” I said. “I don’t know the names of places I only know that this is a map of Pangea. Or part of it. Emibi—the Grigori city I was trapped in—is over here near this bay. This island is where I went with Zash. These are the mountains we came through where you and Hajah escaped.”
“Yes,” Nova said, getting it. “Sa Fasi is here.” She pointed.
“When I was looking for you, I used this. I saw your red dot near Sa Fasi, not moving, and occasionally disappearing. I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe you were hiding in caves.”
“How does the dot know where I am?” Nova asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said, as I looked up at the sky. Satellites seemed out of the question. “When the Angara gave us the common language, they also put a thing inside our heads that tells them where we are.”
She touched her forehead, shocked and a little afraid.
“How do we get them out?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Milton was working on some ideas. It might be easier just to deactivate them, somehow. Break it so it doesn’t send a signal anymore.”
“If we can, will my language come back? Will I be able to speak to the people of Sa Fasi again?”
“Interesting question,” I said. “I don’t know.”
I looked at the device once more, front and back, and saw that the cluster of blue dots, which had been following me, were very close, almost beside us. I felt like an idiot for not remembering to check the damn thing sooner.
I took Nova’s cheek in my palm.
“I love you, Nova, and I will treasure every moment with you. But we are not safe here. Not while these things are in our heads. These blue dots are Angara who must be very close, practically on top of us. We have to go.”
She looked momentarily horrified, then saddened, but recovered quickly and smiled.
“Then we go,” she said, standing.
I stood beside her and took her hand, intending to move quickly and head immediately out of our little Garden of Eden. But we were stopped by something that shocked us both into immobility.
The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1) Page 27
