Chapter Fourteen #2
I opened my mouth to say...I didn’t know what to say.
Perhaps that we were not alone, and we couldn’t be certain anyone else was sleeping.
Then he raised himself up on his elbows and brushed his lips over mine.
After that, I couldn’t think at all. My arms went around his neck, and I pulled him over me, letting him claim my mouth with those skilled lips of his.
When he teased my lips open and touched his tongue tentatively to mine, I had to stifle a moan.
I followed his lead, pursuing his tongue back and tracing his lips with the tip of my tongue.
His hand rested on my neck, at my rapidly beating pulse, but now he moved his palm down over my chest and on top of my heart.
He said something in his language, and then his hand moved to the side, cupping my breast in his warm palm.
He caught my moan with his mouth, tangling his tongue with mine as he teased my hardening nipple with his fingers.
Underneath him, I began to squirm as his mouth took mine and his hand woke sensations in my body I hadn’t felt before. I pressed my legs together to try and quell the throbbing between them. I ached to be touched there.
Taio’s mouth left mine and trailed to my neck where he pressed light kisses up to my ear then bit the lobe gently.
I caught my lower lip between my teeth to keep quiet, even as I shivered from the feel of his breath whispering across my sensitive skin.
His mouth moved lower, and his hand left my breast and caressed a path to my abdomen.
His mouth replaced his hand, taking my nipple between his teeth through the fabric of my tunic.
Gods but I wanted that mouth on my bare flesh.
I wanted the fingers on my belly to touch my skin.
“Touch me,” I whispered. “My skin.” I wasn’t certain I made any sense, but he seemed to understand.
He rucked up my tunic and placed a hand on my belly.
His flesh was warm and rough and his hand large enough that it all but covered my stomach.
He didn’t linger there. His fingers dipped into the waist of my leggings and then down where I was aching for him.
I should have stopped him. Even under our bedrolls and with the coat over us, the others were just a few yards away.
But I didn’t care about them. All I cared about was the feel of his fingers as they feathered through my damp curls to find the place where I needed him.
One finger brushed over that sensitive part of me, and I bucked.
“There?” He murmured against my breast.
“Please,” I whispered.
“You must be quiet.”
“I will.” Anything if he’d keep touching me.
One of his long fingers moved lower, parting my flesh then slipping inside me. I arched back, catching my breath and biting my lip hard. Another finger joined that one, stretching me until I was satisfyingly full. Then his finger slid upward and circled the small nub that throbbed for him.
I closed my mouth, keeping my moans inside, but I couldn’t stop my hips from rocking to increase the friction between us. I had found pleasure by touching myself before. I knew what I needed.
But Taio moved his finger away, gliding back inside me.
I let out a small cry of disappointment, and he bit my breast lightly.
“Shh,” he said. I almost moaned, so he’d bite me again.
But then his slick finger was on me, flicking and teasing, and making me squirm.
He brought me within reach of climax twice more before using his thumb on me.
By that time, I was so lost in the pleasure that I didn’t object when he put a hand over my mouth.
Instead, I bit his palm as his thumb circled me until I saw white stars.
I bit harder as my hips bucked and my muscles clenched around the fingers inside me.
He pressed upward with those fingers, making my breath catch as pleasure unlike I’d ever known coursed through me.
I dug my hands into the bedroll beneath me and tried to hold on as my body soared into oblivion.
When I opened my eyes again, he’d moved his hand from my mouth and pulled me against his chest, probably to muffle the way I panted. His mouth was on my temple, kissing me gently and his hand was on my back moving in slow circles.
I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, and when I did, my voice wouldn’t work. “That was...that...how did you...” I finally managed.
“Sleep now,” he said.
I didn’t argue. My eyes already felt heavy, and my body felt light as though I were floating. I closed my eyes, and when Taio rose later that night to take his turn at the watch, I turned over and slept deeply and dreamlessly.
***
DARK CLOUDS HUNG LOW in the sky. I smelled rain and damp earth and wet fiber as I trudged behind Omira and occasionally wiped rain from my eyes.
I’d woken before Taio this morning, and when I’d pushed his coat off my face, drizzle was already falling.
Yung gave me a sympathetic look. He had the last watch and was already wet through.
The rest of the Zulenii were stirring. I carefully avoided Taio’s gaze as I plaited my hair, which had somehow come loose again, then rolled my bedding and helped break camp.
No one seemed to want to talk. We had nothing to eat so we drank our water and shouldered our packs in silence.
But my body still hummed with the pleasure Taio had given me last night.
My face burned when I thought about how I’d reacted to his touch.
I prayed to the gods none of the others had been awake and realized what was happening.
I glanced at Taio as we formed a line, and he winked at me.
I quickly looked away. Clearly, he wasn’t at all embarrassed.
Of course, he hadn’t been the one writhing about on the ground whimpering.
We walked for more than two hours before we came across another log structure.
This cabin still stood, though it leaned perilously to one side.
We gathered on the outskirts of the clearing where the cabin had been built, looking for any signs of Hollows.
I was also watching for Gaz or Nize. If anyone was inside the cabin, they were long dead.
Undisturbed leaves and moss as well as saplings dotted the clearing. No one had walked here in some time.
Kintle said something and Taio leaned close to translate quietly. I tried not to shiver when his lips brushed my ear. Had he done that on purpose? “Kintle says we should go inside and wait out the weather.”
“No,” I said. As tempting as that idea was, it was even more dangerous. The last time we’d found an abandoned structure, we’d lost Finnrey. “Whoever lived here might still be in the area. It’s not a coincidence that the last attack from Hollows was near what had once been a habitation.”
Omira gestured to the undisturbed ground. “No footprints,” she murmured. “No scent of them.”
We all breathed in, and I had to admit that the air smelled only of wet earth and the cedar trees surrounding us.
“We can build a fire inside,” Omira said, her voice heavy with longing. The mention of a fire tempted even me. The weather grew colder every day. This morning I could see the fog of my breath when I exhaled. I hadn’t been warm for days—except in Taio’s arms. Now I was wet and cold. We all were.
“Mara is right,” Taio said. “Too dangerous.”
I glanced at him, wondering if he’d sensed my hesitation. At his words, I felt relief flow through me. As much as I wanted a fire and the comfort of four walls and a roof, we had to keep moving. I felt Gaz breathing on the back of my neck and ached to run away.
Omira kicked at a rock but did not argue with Taio.
He took the lead now, and I took the rear of our line.
We moved silently and cautiously, my every sense on alert.
A quarter hour passed, and I saw nothing, smelled nothing.
After half an hour, Taio fell back, taking my place at the rear as Yung took the lead.
The clouds above opened, and rain poured down on us, the sound like a waterfall.
Omira gave me a disgusted look then faced front as we trudged through the downpour.
We continued walking, my skin prickling.
I swiped water out of my eyes then unsheathed my skullcrusher.
Taio touched my shoulder, and I paused. He gestured to the skullcrusher, and I shrugged but I held it at the ready.
He nodded and withdrew his weapon. I wouldn’t have smelled or heard the Hollow if I hadn’t been looking at Taio.
I spotted the movement over his shoulder as one of them crashed through the trees to our north.
I pushed Taio hard to the side and met the Hollow in five steps.
I noted it was a boy a few years younger than me and several inches shorter.
His neck had been torn away, the skin hanging in rotten black strips that grazed his shoulder.
His clothes were little more than threads hanging on his body of leathery skin over bones.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen a Hollow this ancient.
He opened his mouth, showing black teeth and a swollen, gray tongue.
His teeth chattered as though he anticipated the meal I’d make.
I hefted the skullcrusher and swung it in a wide arc, slamming the pointed end into the damaged side of his face.
Instead of blood, yellowish fluid spurted from the wound that all but split his head open.
I hadn’t killed him, though. He went down, his crushed skull looking a bit like wet sand caved in after the tide has gone out, but his limbs still moved.
I stood over him and swung again, finishing him.