Chapter 49
Valen
We walk to my cabin together. Her hand’s been in mine since the treeline, wings are still out behind her, folded loose against her back like she’s forgotten they’re there. She walks through her own compound with them showing and nobody looks twice.
The woodpile by my door is stacked, higher than I left it, a good deal higher, split clean, and some of it is green enough to still smell like it came off the round today.
I split what I burn. Somebody else did this.
I can’t tell you who. There are fifty people in this valley, half of them would have done it without mentioning it.
The other half would have done it, mentioned it once, and never brought it up again.
Somebody stood at my door with an armload and stacked it against my wall for me to burn later.
I stand in front of it longer than a stack of wood is worth.
In six packs I was the one who stocked. For the longhouse, the elders, whoever asked.
A man who’s useful is kept through the winter.
Nobody ever stacked mine. I get the door open and step through.
My eyes find the two windows and the door I came in by.
I’ve known what all three of them do since my first week in this cabin.
I check them anyway. My bag is by the bed.
Packed. I stop one step past the threshold with my hand still on the frame.
Nyxiana is already three steps ahead of me. She turns around.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
She stands where she is in the middle of my floor and looks at me. “You’re still waiting for the catch.”
“Yeah.”
“There isn’t one. Not here.”
I take my hand off the frame. Then I close the door, all the way, with the latch, which I haven’t done once since the day I moved in. It’s the loudest sound in this cabin. I cross the room to her, put my arms around her, pull her to me, and kiss her. She tastes so good I groan into her mouth.
Her hands find the hem of my shirt and pull it up over my head. I lift my arms for her. I take hers off the same way. Her bra comes open under my hands. I drop it somewhere behind me, I stop and look at her.
“Valen.”
“Let me.”
She stands in the middle of my floor and lets me.
Her skin is white from her throat to the waistband of her jeans, not a freckle anywhere, nothing the sun has ever put there.
Her hair is silver over one shoulder, nipples tight in the cool of the room, wings folded behind her, the low light runring along the top edge of them. For a long time I simply look at her.
I walk her back to the bed and take her down onto it.
I take a nipple into my mouth and suck hard enough that she says my name.
My hand opens her jeans. I push them down her legs with her underwear inside them.
She kicks both off the end of the bed. I put my hand on her and take my time with it.
Down her belly. Over one hipbone and across to the other.
Down the inside of her thigh and back up again, slowly, until she opens her legs for me. God, she’s so fucking beautiful.
Her pussy is soaked before I ever put a hand on it. Two fingers slide into her with nothing in the way. She’s tight and hot around them. “Fuck.” I say it against her breast. “Is this for me?”
“You know it is.”
I curl my fingers up and find the place that lifts her hips off the mattress.
I stay there. My thumb on her clit, my fingers working that spot inside her, the same pace over and over while her breathing turns short.
She says my name again and her voice cracks on it.
Gold comes up faint under her skin at the hip.
She can’t hold it in, isn’t trying to. I suck on her nipple until she comes around my fingers with one hand fisted in my hair.
I keep going, slower, until she stops moving.
She puts a hand on my chest and pushes me down onto my back.
Then she kisses her way down me. Slowly.
Her mouth closes around my cock. I groan.
My hand settles into her hair and stays there.
She takes me slow at first, wraps a hand around the base of me and works it in time with her mouth.
I look down at her. She’s watching me. Her eyes stay on my face while she takes me, and they don’t move when she catches me looking.
Watching her take my cock is going to finish me faster than her mouth will.
“Fuck. Ana.”
She hums around me. I feel it all the way up my spine.
She sinks lower. All the way down, slowly, until her mouth meets her hand.
I feel the head hit the back of her throat.
Back up. Down again. She keeps that up until my fist closes in her hair and s he stays right where she is.
I start thrusting up into her mouth every time she comes down.
She takes all of it. Gold comes up faint under the skin of her throat.
Faster. Harder. My heels dig into the mattress. “Oh my god, I’m so fucking close, Ana. Fuck.”
She takes me deeper. Her hand keeps time with her mouth. Her eyes never leave my face.
It gathers at the base of my spine and pulls tight in my balls.
Suddenly it lets go. Her name tears out of my throat.
She takes every pulse, swallows all of it, doesn’t let up until I stop shaking.
I’m still hard. Whatever’s in my blood keeps me that way.
By the time she’s kissed her way back up my chest I’m ready for her again.
I lie back and pull her up over me by the hips.
She works out what I want before I say it.
She comes up on her knees and settles above my face with one hand braced on the headboard.
I take hold of her thighs and bring her down onto my mouth. She says something I don’t catch.
I work her with my tongue. Slow circles.
Long and broad. Back to the circles. I stay on whatever makes her hips move.
She’s slick under my mouth and getting slicker.
The light is coming off her now, bright enough to put color on my ceiling.
I’m looking straight up at it while it happens.
Her thighs close against the sides of my head and shake there.
Her hand comes off the headboard and fists in my hair.
She grinds down onto my face. I keep my tongue on her clit and hold it there.
She comes loud. My name is in it somewhere.
Her pussy pulses against my tongue and she rides it out on my mouth, curled forward over me with both hands in my hair.
I lap her up while she does it. She’s soaking my mouth and my chin.
I stay under her for all of it. I take her by the hips, slide her back down my body, and roll her under me.
Then I settle between her thighs and stop there.
Foreheads together, both of us breathing the same air. I hold myself up on my forearms.
“No rush,” she says.
I’m not in one. We stay like that a while.
Her hand comes up against my chest and rests over my heart.
Neither of us does anything else at all.
She keeps her eyes on my face, I push into her.
One slow slide until I’m buried in her. Her pussy stretches around my cock and takes every inch.
She’s tight and slick around all of it. I bottom out and stop.
Neither of us moves, her palm stays on my chest. My forehead comes down onto her shoulder.
Then I start to move. Slow and deep. All the way out, all the way back, no faster than that.
I keep it there. She clenches around my cock every time I come back in, I hold the pace and look at her.
Her hair is loose and pale across my sheets, mouth is open and soft, eyes on my face and they stay there.
Underneath me her breathing turns ragged.
I keep the pace. Her hands come up my back and her nails go in.
She starts pushing up to meet me on every stroke.
Her pussy tightens around me and keeps tightening.
Then she breaks. Her whole body curls up into mine.
Her pussy clenches down the length of me and holds there.
She says my name into my shoulder and doesn’t stop saying it.
The gold comes up along her collarbone. It glows there low and steady.
It stays lit. I stay with her through all of it.
I stay in her. My arm slides under her and turns us both onto our sides.
Her leg comes up over my hip and settles. I get my arm under her head.
Face to face. We move together like that.
Small movements. Nothing driving. Her pussy tight and slick around my cock.
Her breath moves across my mouth. My hand stays on her back between her wings.
Her hand comes up against my cheek and stays there, eyes holding mine from four inches away. She doesn’t stop moving with me.
“Ana.”
“Say it again.”
“Ana.”
Her hand slides off my cheek and down onto my chest. It settles over my heart and turns hot against my skin.
Gold burns up under her palm. I feel it go into me.
I put my hand over her heart and hold it there.
Silver comes up out of her under my hand.
I keep moving in her the whole time. The same slow strokes, all the way out and all the way back, with my hand never leaving her heart.
She starts tightening around my cock again.
I’ve got nothing left to hold back with.
“Look at me, my love,” she says.
I do. She breaks and takes me with her. Her pussy clenches down the length of me.
I come inside her with my hand still over her heart and hers over mine.
When she takes her hand away the print of it is on my skin.
Mine is on hers. They beat in time with our hearts.
Afterward she settles against my chest. The arm I had under her head comes around her back and stays there.
Her wings are still out. One of them comes down across my legs.
I run my hand along the edge of it. Her hand moves down my back.
She finds the first ridge and stops there.
She’s done that twice before. Both times she left it alone.
“Ask me,” I say.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen the first time. It ran until I left.”
Her hand doesn’t move.
“They did it because I wouldn’t shift. A pack corrects what it can’t use, and it’s done in front of everybody so nobody has to wonder about it after. The one that wraps around my ribs got that way because I moved.”
“You couldn’t shift.”
“I didn’t know that then.”
She puts her mouth on the ridge under her hand. The room is quiet.
“I’m not waiting for the catch anymore.”
I say it into her hair, quiet. She says nothing at all, just kisses the mark she made on me.