Chapter 39
Kalfr was kissing her. On purpose.
The warmth and light and longing flashed through Raye with dizzying force — but alongside it was the vision of the altar. That horrible, humiliating moment when she’d tried to kiss him, and he’d pulled away. He’d said, no. No.
And this time, it was Raye wrenching back, shoving herself shocked and shaky into Gaelfr’s solid chest behind her. Blinking muddled and uncertain at Kalfr’s too-close face, at the confusion and even hurt in his glimmering eyes.
“But you — you didn’t,” she choked, “want to. With — me.”
Kalfr’s eyes shifted, cleared, and a small smile pulled at his mouth, wan and rueful. “I did want to,” he whispered back. “I… do.”
He did. He did. Raye’s heart leapt, her eyes snapped wide — and suddenly he was kissing her again.
Or she was kissing him, or perhaps it was both of them at once.
Tasting each other, drinking each other, swallowing each other like they were starving for it, and yes, Raye had been starving for this.
She’d needed nothing more in the world than his hand on her face like this, his soft clever wonderful lips plundering hers, his tongue twining into her mouth, staking his claim.
Making her his, his, and Raye could have shouted with it, danced with it, drowned with it.
When Kalfr finally drew back, he was breathing hard, his eyes blazing, his lips plush and swollen — from kissing her — and Raye had to bite her own lip, bite back the desperate urge to hurl herself forward, and beg him for more.
While something shifted behind her — Gaelfr — and what would he do, what would he say…
“You keep tending our mate thus, ástin mín,” he purred, as he eased sideways off the sofa, and onto his knees on the fur-covered floor below it. “Whilst I tend her here, ach?”
Here. He was gripping both hands at her skirts, sliding them up, because oh hell, he meant he was going to tend her there, like that — and amidst the furious flare of longing, Raye could only nod and moan, and spread her legs wider.
Earning a smug grin from Gaelfr in return, and a huff of a laugh from Kalfr too, as Gaelfr settled her skirts up around her waist, and spread her legs wider apart.
Exposing her entire lower body for him, and Raye shuddered all over as he looked, as his tongue brushed against his lips…
And then he leaned in, and latched his lips to hers.
Raye bucked and gasped, arching up into Gaelfr’s beautiful mouth, already so slick and warm and hungry — and that was another soft laugh from Kalfr as he gently turned her head back toward him, and pressed another kiss to her lips.
His mouth just as sweet and thrilling as before, tasting her, consuming her with focused, fervent intensity, while Gaelfr did the same between her legs, his tongue delving deeper into her tender quivering heat.
Both of them kissing her together, lavishing her at both ends, at once.
And gods, they even felt the same. Their tongues seeking and stroking in sweet dizzying unison, wrenching the wonder higher, hotter, closer.
Until Raye’s thighs were quaking, her mouth gasping, her shaky hands clutching to the silken skin of Kalfr’s shoulders.
Fuck, she needed this, she needed them, this was everything, everything —
She crumpled and keened as the relief thudded through her, wrenching her all over, flashing white behind her eyes.
While her tender invaded heat wildly spasmed against Gaelfr’s still-kissing mouth, as if kissing him back, greedy and helpless — but Gaelfr smiled as he kept kissing her, and Kalfr was smiling against her mouth, too.
Because — Gaelfr wasn’t stopping. Not even as the spasms slowly ebbed away, fading into shaky little shivers.
Instead, he just settled closer, and kept licking, tending, his tongue still tasting, twining, plunging.
Even though the sensation was rapidly becoming overwhelming, almost too raw and vivid to bear.
Raye couldn’t hide her whimper, or the way she shrank back toward Kalfr behind her, and in return, Kalfr’s hand slid down, and brushed against Gaelfr’s glossy hair.
A question, or maybe a reprimand, but Gaelfr’s glance back up toward him was stubborn, if rather hazier and hungrier than Raye would have expected.
“She yet needs more tending,” he said firmly, through his swollen, shiny lips. “Our pricks well stretched and bruised her today, and she must heal with haste, so we can soon do this again.”
Raye’s whimper sounded more like a moan this time, her body clutching back toward him, to which Gaelfr sharply smiled, and leaned in again.
This time slipping further down her crease, into where he had filled her on the altar — and in this moment, despite the still-overpowering sensation wrenching through Raye’s body, it seemed like an unthinkable bargain, far too good to be real.
They would fuck her together like that, shatter her full of that overpowering pleasure, and then they would tend her afterwards, like this? So they could do it all over again?
And Kalfr wasn’t arguing it, either. Instead, he was just watching Gaelfr feast between her legs, his eyes surprisingly indulgent, even fond.
His hand had still been on Gaelfr’s head, and now his long fingers were threading easy and familiar through Gaelfr’s hair, too, guiding him deeper between Raye’s legs.
A command, surely, but one that only earned Kalfr a heated, appreciative glance up from Gaelfr’s hooded eyes.
Raye felt almost drunk with it now, awash with the dizzy shivering furore, and it belatedly occurred to her hazy, swirling thoughts that Gaelfr was tasting himself on her, there.
He’d been tasting both himself and Kalfr on her, all this time, and — he liked that.
They both liked that. Kalfr wanted to keep watching him do it, wanted to see Gaelfr kneeling before him, and feasting between their mate’s trembling thighs.
And maybe — maybe this was a kind of power for Kalfr, too.
A kind he perhaps hadn’t considered, with Raye boneless and pliant and willing in his arms, writhing helplessly upon his ástvinur’s clever tongue.
And already wrenching closer toward another release, oh gods, her too-sensitive body jolting and shivering, both wanting to escape and needing more, more, more —
She arched and shouted as it tore through her, even harder and wilder than before, her body thrusting down toward Gaelfr’s mouth.
And Gaelfr’s glance up toward Kalfr was conspiratorial, triumphant, and he chuckled with satisfaction as he settled closer, vibrating yet more impossible pleasure through Raye’s shuddering body, while Kalfr again drew her mouth to his.
After that, it all swarmed together, an endless blistering stream of feverish, anguished euphoria.
Raye’s body transformed into something feral and uncontrollable, something that was only capable of one wrenching release after another, while it writhed and whined and begged.
Enough that she scarcely noticed when Kalfr tugged her dress open, and drew her breasts out over her chemise, so he and Gaelfr could watch them heave and jiggle, could revel in the sight of her utterly lost, utterly defeated, cut down and conquered by their matching merciless mouths.
“Ach, enough,” Kalfr finally murmured, after yet another release had wracked through Raye’s body, striking so hard that her vision blacked out, and she felt spurts of fresh fluid escaping down her tender, overwrought crease. “And breathe, saeta.”
Saeta. Raye blinked her bleary eyes toward him, even as she fought to obey, to breathe, because — he’d never called her that before, had he?
It had always been Gaelfr, just like with almost everything else, but yes, in this moment, it was Kalfr, and he was still smiling at her, with the same fond indulgence from when he’d looked at Gaelfr.
As if he was pleased with her. As if he approved.
He even leaned in, pressed another gentle, thrilling kiss to her mouth — and with a tug of his hand in Gaelfr’s hair, he drew him up, too.
Drew him up toward Raye’s mouth, so Gaelfr could kiss her there, too.
His lips feeling slick and swollen against hers, and tasting not only of her, but of them. Of both of them. All of them.
Raye’s moan quivered against him, her tongue eagerly flicking out to meet his, drinking up the truth of it — and though she whined when he drew away, then came the sight of it, too.
Of Kalfr and Gaelfr kissing now, with tongues and teeth, tasting each other, too.
Tasting her on them, and between them. Part of them.
And when they pulled apart again, Kalfr’s eyes flickering toward her were even softer than before, his smile slow and warm, his body languid and relaxed.
Looking more like the easy, long-ago Kalfr than Raye had witnessed yet, and the sight clenched in her chest, fluttered her eyes. Her mate. Her mate.
“Was that kiss enough, then?” he asked her, his voice velvety soft, but with a twinge of teasing in it, too. “Or do you yet need more?”
And it was ridiculous, absurd, but Raye — laughed. Laughed, hoarse and shaky and delighted, because it was him, him, and he’d just given her quite possibly the most spectacular pleasure she’d ever felt in her life — and now he was smiling at her, and asking if she wanted more.
“If you give me more, Kalfr,” she breathed, still smiling at him so bright it hurt, “I will explode. Into a million messy pieces, all over your beautiful house.”
It was a stupid reply, surely, borne of the giddiness and exhaustion, but Kalfr was still smiling at her, still with such impossible warmth in his eyes. “Ach, we should not want that, should we, Gael?” he murmured, with a teasing glance toward Gaelfr. “Next time, mayhap.”
Raye couldn’t help a strangled groan — next time, again — and Gaelfr’s grin was wickedly pleased as he heaved himself back up onto the sofa, and settled his heavy arm around Raye’s shoulder.
Drawing her back into his side, reassuring and protective, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so good, so calm, so safe.
The exhaustion had begun whispering behind her eyes again, along with a distinct prickle.
And as she sank heavier into Gaelfr’s side, she could almost tell herself that there would be a next time.
That she could keep doing this. That there wasn’t an enemy coming, even now, to their door.
And that Kalfr wasn’t still planning to sacrifice himself to another woman.
A woman who wanted to steal him away from her and Svein, in the worst way possible…
Please, goddess, Raye’s thoughts whispered, a silent desperate hope. Please, save us. Please, let this be mine, forever.