32. Just One Fur
Just One Fur
It’s hard to know the precise time of day when you live in a cave.
Blinking, I turn my head side to side, assessing. It could be morning or noon. Tage’s den has small vents located high in the ceiling, but they’re so far above and so narrow that only paltry light trickles into the cozy space. Again, not a true indicator of the passage of time.
I fidget cautiously, not wanting to jar my ribs. It’s been days since Cyphus kicked me, and in that time I mastered how to move about carefully until I’ve evaluated the tenderness and soreness awaiting me.
Soft, cadenced breathing rustles the hair near my ear, and I hold still, sitting with it for a moment, wrapping the sound of Tage around myself just as his body wraps around me.
I rolled over at some point during the night, onto my side in the soft fur bed so that my back is no longer to him. I’m chest to chest with Tage, my face buried in a warm wall of bare skin. His heady scent fills my nose, the musk of him reminding me of the wind-swept Crags.
One of his arms drapes over me, the palm flat over my spine, the fingers splayed wide, the tips of his fingers brushing my shoulder blade. I wiggle nearer, telling myself it is merely his warmth that draws me closer.
He lets me in, pulling me deeper against him.
Touching him, feeling him, is still an invigorating experience. Affirmation that I exist and I am here and more alive than ever.
It’s vulnerability, I realize, that amounts to life. Vulnerability that makes one feel exposed and raw and flushed with fever.
That hand on my back moves, sweeping up and then arrowing down, down, pressing me even closer, pushing my stomach flush with him.
Naked. Of course. Again. Somehow, he had lost his garments in the night.
Or had he removed them before getting into bed with me?
He never hesitated to strip off his clothes, his nakedness so natural to him.
He must be in a dead sleep. If awake, he would not be accosting me like this. I won’t touch you again.
That self-imposed code of his would prevent him from touching me this way deliberately, and there is some freedom in that knowledge.
If he sleeps and doesn’t know what he’s doing, then he wouldn’t know what I’m doing either.
I could react to him without fear of judgment or rejection.
I inch closer, rubbing against him, seeking pressure and heat and ease to the ache mounting in me.
I feel his hardness, prominent, swelling against me, and I know what it is. Not only that, but I know how it can be used, the pleasure it can give. Wrong or right, I’ve had plenty of time to observe how that bulging shaft could be used to satisfy someone.
Wrapped up in his giant body, the thick band of his arm so strong and comforting, I imagine he knows how to wield that particular weapon very well.
My heart twinges as I recollect Linnea and Isak and how desperate and hungry they had been for each other—how I’d envied them that. Their closeness, their shared desire, their intimacy, the act of . . . coupling.
Even before them, before I was cursed, I’d heard Meya and Henrik through our thin walls. I had longed to someday experience the same kind of passion for myself.
My face burns and I’m glad for the dimness of the den, and the fact that I’m still buried in his chest, so I don’t have to look at him, so he can’t see me. I release a small hiccup of laughter at this irony . . . that I would even wish to be invisible again.
His hand continues its descent, cupping the swell of my ass, one cheek, holding it in his large grip.
I gasp, but don’t speak, afraid to discourage him, afraid he might wake and stop.
Not a word passes my lips as he massages flesh that suddenly becomes exceedingly sensitive.
Indeed, it feels as though a thread hums between the weight of his hand and my sex.
Every squeeze and flex and pump of his fingers on me twists something tighter inside me, coiling within me like a turning, grinding screw.
His movements start to feel deliberate . . . directed . . . a decided choice.
That can’t be right, though. He’s asleep. He can’t mean to break his vow . . . he can’t want to . . .
My bones turn to liquid and the core of me pulses and throbs in aggravating need, and I’m faced with the knowledge that I would not be opposed to joining with him.
At least I think so. I won’t know until I try, but trying with him doesn’t frighten me as it should.
Everything about him mesmerizes me. Even his dragon.
Frightening as he may be in that primitive form .
. . in human form he’s mouthwatering with his body and hands and voice and too-beautiful face .
. . and those lips. That wide mouth. Not that I have a great deal of experience with kissing.
He’s it. But I can’t think of kissing anyone better.
I wiggle my hands between us, fingers walking up his chest, luxuriating in the breadth of him, in the power and strength, the muscle and sinew moving beneath the surface of his skin. I curl my fingers, kneading my nails into him like a kitten, my palms full of him yet wanting more.
I lift my face, exhaling, letting my breath mingle with his. Inhaling sharply, I sip the air from his lips, from that mouth that makes me dream of long, deep, impossible kisses. Ones that go on and on until you can’t feel your lips anymore.
I look up from his lips to his eyes. They’re open and locked on me.
Definitely awake.
Definitely staring at me, gleaming bright and cutting through the dimness of his den, fixating on me.
“What are you doing?” he whispers.
“What are you doing?” I counter, achingly aware of his hands flexing against my ass. My hands move higher, skimming over his collarbones.
“Touching you.”
“I thought you weren’t going to touch me again.”
“It appears I’m a liar,” he says without apology.
A diminutive whimper escapes me. I moisten my lips with a shaky breath. “And I’m just touching you back.” The tips of my fingers graze his shoulders. “This isn’t something I’ve been able to do.”
“You can touch me all you like,” he offers, and the invitation emboldens me.
I arch my spine enough so that my hands can move downward between us, exploring his chest and abdomen, reveling in the way his skin contracts and quivers at my touch.
“For someone who hasn’t touched anyone in years, you’re good at it,” he growls.
“I’m a keen observer,” I confess.
“Are you now?” he asks gruffly, his lips twitching as though tempted to smile.
I nod. “That was all I could do . . . watch others live.” And yearn for my turn.
My nails lightly scrape his skin and his breath catches. I put enough space between us to find him, for my hand to dip and circle my fingers around him, gasping at the girth of him, the length, the way he feels, like the softest silk on steel, jumping and pulsing in my grip.
He curses crudely, his throat arching, and I can’t help myself. I bring my lips to the column of his throat, loving that skin there, kissing and sucking as my hand fondles him.
He groans. “You’re very skilled at this . . . lack of experience does not afflict you.”
“As I said,” I murmur against the underside of his jaw. “I’ve seen my share of things.”
“What else did you see?” His voice ripples beneath his skin, against my lips . . . honey on the air. “Show me.”
The encouragement is a heady thing, empowering, and I lack the will to refuse him. I reach around to seize one of his hands, dragging it between us. Clasping his thick wrist, I guide him toward my parted thighs. Once I place his fingers against my sex, he doesn’t need further guidance.
He starts moving, running his fingers in my slickness, sliding against my folds, the rough pads of his fingers perfection on my sensitive flesh. “Oh, you’re lovely, already so wet.”
My face burns hotter. I’m aching and swollen and drenched, panting as he moves with dexterity against my slippery flesh. When he reaches that spot at the top of my sex my entire body jerks.
I’d found that place myself before, exploring my body on more than one occasion in the wretched solitude of my life.
I’d also seen other women fall apart when their lovers used either their hands or mouths on them.
I don’t know if he’s especially skilled or I’m just so needy, so starved for touch . . . for this, for him.
My thighs quiver around his hand and he seizes my right leg, flinging it around his hip, opening me wider for him.
The sudden move shoots pain up my side, and a small cry escapes me.
He stills, clearly recognizing this sound is not one of pleasure.
“Arden?” He draws my name out in a way that demands explanation. His hand leaves from between my legs, and he begins to explore the rest of my body—but not in a sensual manner. Unfortunately.
When he reaches my bruised ribs and prods my skin, I gasp and recoil, trying to escape the pressure of his appraising fingers. He pulls back to peer at the area. I don’t know what he can see, if anything, but I cannot properly evaluate myself from this angle.
His expression turns into something dark and menacing, and I know he can see perfectly, and I suppose it makes sense that his dragon eyes are better than mine.
His hand gentles on my skin, fingers stroking as lightly as a moth’s wings, a direct contrast to his muttered “Fuck. Your skin is black and blue. If I could kill him again I would.”
“It’s nothing,” I reassure. “I will heal.”
“It’s not nothing.” His eyes glitter like burning coal in torchlight. “Don’t you see? When you say that . . . you’re saying that you are nothing.”
I blink and take a shuddering breath, shaking my head, refuting that despite his logic. “Really. It’s already better than before. Please, just keep touching me.” I just want to feel good things. The good things I never thought I would get to feel.
He hesitates.
“You’re what makes it feel better,” I coax, my fingers gliding down the taut flesh of his arm.