Chapter 24
DASKA
I'd spent thirty-two winters learning to live without being chosen.
Learning to make myself useful enough that people kept me around, careful enough that they didn't send me away, quiet enough that I never became a burden.
Thirty-two winters of earning my place with steady hands and healing salves and the kind of patient, reliable competence that people valued but never loved.
And then Ellie had looked up at me in that spring like I was something, like I was someone, and had spoken those words that had me falling apart like a snowbank in a spring thaw.
I chose you.
I kissed my way back up her body. Slowly.
Her hip, the soft curve of her belly, the dip of her waist where the skin was so thin I could feel her pulse fluttering beneath my lips.
She threaded her fingers through my hair again, gentler now, not pulling but guiding, and when I reached the hollow of her throat she tipped her chin up to give me access and I pressed my mouth there and felt her heartbeat against my tongue.
"Daska," she murmured.
"Mm."
"I want you."
My whole body went taut. The words were simple, direct, unmistakable even in her strange accent, and they sent a bolt of heat through me so fierce that my vision darkened at the edges.
The bear surged forward, pressing against my skin, and I climbed out of the spring and gathered her against me, wrapping the deerskin around her.
Slipping my arms underneath her, I lifted her and carried into the moon hearth, setting her gently down on the furs.
She reached up and cupped my face in both hands, her thumbs brushing through the damp hair of my beard, and drew me down to her.
The kiss was different this time. Slower.
Deeper. She tasted herself on my mouth and didn't flinch from it, just kissed me harder, her tongue sliding against mine with a deliberateness that made my whole body shudder.
I braced myself on my forearms above her, trying to keep my weight off her, but she wrapped her arms around my back and pulled me down, and the full press of her body against mine was almost more than I could bear.
She was so soft. That was the thing that kept undoing me, the impossible softness of her, everywhere, the give of her body beneath mine, the way she yielded and pressed up into me at the same time, like she wanted to be closer, like there was no such thing as close enough.
I could feel every inch of her skin against mine, warm and still slightly damp from the spring, and the friction of it, the slide of her against me, was making it very difficult to think.
I needed to think. I needed to go slow. I needed—
"Daska." Her voice was low, her lips against my jaw. "Stop thinking so hard."
A startled laugh escaped me, rough and breathless. She knew me. Already, impossibly, she knew me well enough to read the tension in my body and understand what it meant.
"I don't want to hurt you," I said. The words came out strained. I was painfully hard, pressed against the inside of her thigh, and every small shift of her hips sent a jolt through me that made my arms tremble.
She looked up at me, her brown eyes warm and steady. "You won't."
"I am... not small, Ellie."
Her lips twitched. "I noticed."
The dry humour in her voice caught me off guard, and I laughed again, a real laugh this time, and the sound of it seemed to ease something between us.
"I just want to be careful with you," I said. "You deserve—"
"I deserve you," she said. She reached down between us, her fingers wrapping around me, and my breath left my body in a rush.
Her hand was small against me. I knew that.
I'd known it every time she'd touched my arm, my shoulder, my face, the delicate architecture of her fingers against the broad, rough-hewn planes of my body.
But feeling her hand there, wrapped around the hard, aching length of me, the contrast was enough to make my head spin.
She stroked once, slow and exploratory, learning the shape of me, and I groaned.
"Good?" she whispered, echoing my own question back to me, and the playfulness in her voice, even now, had my grinning down at her.
"Good," I managed. "Very… yes. Good."
"I want to feel you," she said quietly, and the simple honesty of it, no games, no pretence, just truth, made my chest ache.
She stroked me slowly, her thumb tracing the ridge beneath the head, and I dropped my forehead to her shoulder and groaned, my whole body shaking with the effort of holding still.
"If you keep doing that," I managed against her skin, "this will be over very quickly, and I will be deeply embarrassed."
She laughed. A real laugh, warm and bright, and the sound of it in this small cave full of firelight and flowers and furs was the best thing I had ever heard.
I lifted my head to look at her, and she was grinning up at me, her eyes crinkled at the corners, her cheeks flushed, and I thought: this.
This was what I wanted. Not just the heat and the hunger, though those were there, roaring through me like a river in flood. But this.
I reached between us. She shifted her hips, opening for me, and I guided myself to her entrance, feeling the slick heat of her against the head of my cock. I held there, trembling with the effort of not pushing forward, and met her eyes.
"Ready?" I asked, my voice barely recognisable.
She nodded. Her hands came up to grip my shoulders, fingers pressing into the muscle there, anchoring herself.
I pressed forward. Slowly. So slowly that my arms shook and sweat broke out along my spine despite the cool air of the cave.
The tight, wet heat of her enveloped me inch by inch, and the sensation was so overwhelming that I had to stop halfway and press my face into the curve of her neck, breathing hard, every muscle in my body locked rigid with the effort of control.
She was so tight. So impossibly, devastatingly tight around me, and the bond was amplifying everything—every sensation doubled back on itself, hers and mine tangling together until I couldn't tell where my pleasure ended and hers began.
I could feel the stretch of her body accommodating me, the way her breath caught and held, the slight tension in her thighs.
"Ellie," I ground out. "Tell me if—"
"Don't stop." Her voice was strained but certain, her nails digging crescent moons into my shoulders. "Just… go slow. You're…" She let out a shaky breath. "You're a lot."
I pressed deeper. Another inch. Her eyes fluttered closed and her lips parted, and I felt her body resist, then yield, then resist again, the tight heat of her gripping me so fiercely that my vision went white at the edges.
I stopped. Held there, my arms trembling, every muscle in my body locked rigid with the effort of not moving.
"Don't stop." Her eyes opened, dark and liquid, and she cupped my face in her hands. "Daska, don't stop."
I pressed forward again, easing deeper, and felt her stretch and open around me.
The sensation was indescribable—not just the physical pleasure, though that was enough to make my breath catch and my vision blur, but something else.
Something deeper. The bond between us flared bright and hot, and I could feel her through it, feel the way her body was adjusting to me, the slight burn giving way to something warmer, fuller, the tension in her thighs softening as she relaxed into it.
I was shaking. My arms were locked on either side of her head, holding my weight off her, and every muscle in my body was screaming with the effort of going slow when everything in me wanted to thrust hard and deep and claim her completely.
But I held back. I would always hold back for her. I would always put her first.
"Safe?" I managed, though the word came out barely recognisable.
"Safe," she breathed. "So safe. You feel… oh…"
I pressed the rest of the way in with one slow, steady push, and the world narrowed to the point where our bodies joined.
The tight, slick heat of her surrounded me completely, gripping me so fiercely that I had to close my eyes and concentrate on breathing, on not moving, on giving her time to adjust to the size of me.
Then I withdrew slowly, feeling every inch of the slide, then pressed back in, and the sensation was so intense that the bear surged forward, not threatening, just present, just aware, claiming. Mine. Mate. Mine.
I set a rhythm. Slow and deep, each thrust deliberate, controlled, even though everything in me was screaming to go faster, harder, to lose myself in the tight heat of her.
But I wouldn't. Not this first time. Not when she was still learning the shape of me, the weight of me, the feel of me moving inside her.
Her hands slid down my back, nails dragging across my skin, and I groaned. The small bite of pain only heightened everything else, sharpening the pleasure until it was almost unbearable. I angled my hips slightly, changing the depth, and she cried out, her back arching off the furs.
"There?" I asked, my voice rough.
"Yes, oh… there…"
I held there, feeling the way her body clenched around me when I hit that spot, and then I did it again, angling my hips to find the same place, watching her face as pleasure rippled through her.
Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her head tipped back against the furs, and the sight of her like this—open and wanting and mine—made something possessive and primal roar through me.
I shifted my weight to one arm and slid my hand between us, finding the swollen bud at the apex of her thighs. The moment my fingers made contact she gasped, her eyes flying open, and I circled slowly, matching the rhythm of my thrusts, deep and steady and relentless.