Chapter 9 #2
“So, to be clear, when I was holding your horns just a few hours ago so I could stand up on the wagon and do the Titanic thing, you were feeling some kind of way about it.”
“I still do not understand why you had to balance and yell that thing about being the king of the world, but yes.”
“But, you felt…”
“I was aroused.” He frowned. “Oh. Oh no! Have I been violating you by enjoying your touch there?”
I laughed. “I don’t think so. I’ve had my hands all over you, and it all made me horny. Can’t very well complain if some of my touches made you… rather specifically horny.”
His frown hadn’t gone anywhere. “Are you sure?”
“Next time, communicate better. But you know I want to fuck. You know I find you sexy, and the thought that you were secretly enjoying intense horny feelings makes me smile. How intense, by the way?”
He closed his eyes. “Sky.”
“No, I’m asking. On a scale. Like, is it nice? Is it wow? Is it oh-god-I-might-come-right-here-on-this-wagon?”
“It is not… it does not work that way. It isn’t purely sexual.
It’s—” He stopped and started again, choosing words with the care of a man defusing a bomb.
“The trolgar connects physical sensation to emotional response. When you touch my horns, I feel it physically, yes. But I also feel… you. Something inherent in your nature that speaks to something in mine. It is my understanding that that is rare.”
“Can I?” I reached up, giving him every chance to stop me. My fingers hovered near the base of his left horn. “Now that I know what it means?”
His breathing had gone shallow. “You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to.”
He hesitated. “But, Bryndala…”
“I don’t know much about Bryndala, but I’d like to imagine her as someone who would encourage you to live your best life, not be sad and lonely and sexless for the rest of your days.”
Instead of answering, Moerrven stared off into the middle distance, his mouth a thin line.
“What’s going on in that big head of yours?”
“I want you to touch me. So much. But… what if…”
“Live a little, Moerrven. I’m not asking for your heart. I know that’s hers. But if we can take some pleasure and comfort in each other in this dangerous universe, why shouldn’t we?”
He stared at me for a long moment, then nodded, a small, tight movement.
I reached for him, searching for the spot he was talking about, a warm ridge at the base of his horn. His whole body shuddered. His eyes closed, his lips parted, and the sound he made was quiet and wrecked, the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
I traced the curve, learning the texture — smooth as polished stone near the tip, rougher and warmer where it met his scalp, and at the root, a softness I hadn’t noticed before, skin that was fever-hot and pulse-quick under my thumb. His hand tightened on my waist. His breathing was ragged.
“Good?” I whispered.
“I cannot… I cannot accurately describe—” He swallowed. “Yes. Good. So good that I fear I may not have done it justice when I wrote about it.”
“What do you feel?”
“It’s… the same sort of tingle as when a person touches your cock, but compounded by the connection. I feel you. Sky, who is warm and funny and open to everything—”
“Except camping,” I said.
“Open to most things,” he amended with a twitch of a smile. “And I feel that maybe you’re lonely, and maybe you want. But I don’t know if that’s coming from you or me.”
“Probably both, if we’re being honest."
I kept going, slow strokes from base to tip, my thumb pressing into the warm groove, and his head dropped forward until his forehead rested against my shoulder.
His breath was hot on my neck. His body was trembling, fine tremors running through his massive frame, and his hand had slid from my waist to my hip and was gripping hard enough to leave marks.
“I’ve got you,” I said, the way I said it when I had someone in my hands and knew what I was doing to them. “I’ve got you, Moerrven.”
He moaned, low and broken, against my neck. His arm tightened around me, pulling me closer, and his whole body curved into mine, this enormous man folding himself around me like I was the only warm thing in the world.
I moved my other hand to his other horn, matching the movements, pushing forward the emotions I wanted him to feel: that I liked him, that he intrigued me, that I was sad for him, and I wanted desperately to make it all better.
He moaned softly and I wasn’t sure if it was from the sensations or the emotions.
I cupped his face in both hands and dragged him up to face me, then leaned in and brushed my lips against his. He went still, and pulled back a fraction, and I stopped, my thumbs resting on his cheekbones. “Is this okay?” I asked.
He looked at me for a long moment, something enormous moving behind his eyes, and I watched him decide.
“Yes,” he said, and surged into me, hands sliding up my spine, curling down around me as he devoured my mouth.
Arching forward, I pressed my hardness against his, whimpering at the clothing between us as I sucked on his tongue and slid my hands from his face back up to his horns, working my thumbs into the grooves, holding him exactly where I needed him as I tasted him for the first time.
The kiss was unlike anything I’d ever felt, electric and wild and full of everything pent up between us over the past few days. He tasted of honey and strawberries, and his strength and heat beneath me were a study in restrained power as he let me take control, let me devour him like a man starved.
I wanted to be touching him everywhere.