8. In the Furs
~ GRACE ~
A few supplies had been left in the cave. There were furs, and tools to start a fire. Even a book. No food. But those weren’t the hunger pangs I suffered anyway.
With shaking hands and a stomach that felt slightly sick with unspent energy, I unrolled the furs and fashioned a nest.
Yet, even when I took off the boots and ill-fitting trousers, let the shirt fall to my knees and let down my hair, slipping the pins into the pocket of the trousers, my body still felt tight. Tense. Uncomfortable.
I was exhausted, but I stood there as Vane drew further and further away, and the urgency to follow increased, as the dragons called and sang together, and the churning in my stomach became a boil. I ached.
Not with pain. But with need. I felt hollow, and frustrated, and lacking.
I’d never felt anything like it.
Any moment I didn’t concentrate, I turned toward the cave mouth, found myself staring in the direction of the dragons.
I swayed.
I took one step. Then another. Then caught myself, shook my head, and turned back to the furs.
I needed to rest. Vane was dangerous. The dragons were consumed. I needed to sleep, and pray that this insanity would stop by morning.
Muttering to myself, I lay down on the bedding, pulling the second layer over me, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground only padded by fur.
The sensation of the soft, dense fur against my thighs was stunning.
I lay on my side, but soon found myself on my back, arms splayed, running my hands and arms across the soft surface, my skin pebbling with the delicious sensation.
But, as lovely as it felt, that hollow ache, low in my belly, only grew worse.
I shivered, but not with cold.
No.
My skin felt hot. Raw. Something deep inside pressed at me. Wanted to drive me out of the furs, out of the cave, out of my mind.
With a frustrated whimper, I rolled onto my stomach, one arm under my head for a pillow.
But the dragons began to croon, and my hips rolled.
I trembled, locking my thighs together in an attempt to ease the ache, but only succeeded in stealing my own breath when the pressure of my thighs squeezed at places I usually tried not to think about—because they were the very places that tradition insisted made me valuable to men of the blood.
But now, lying there in the dark, alone, with fire in my veins, my skin so sensitive even a breath seemed like silk, suddenly, all thoughts of tradition and noble blood fell away.
As the dragon’s calls increased, and that driving hunger clamored for some kind of release, I rolled onto my back, eyes screwed tightly shut, with a curse dancing on my lips.
There was a flash in my mind—the dragons, twisted together, twined, tails lashing—and then, Vane.
Staring at me with dark eyes.
Kissing me, his breath roaring.
Hands, so large and rough, yet somehow as tender on my skin as they were demanding.
And that ache deep within became a chasm of need.
I cupped myself between my legs, begging my body to stop, only to discover even that small pressure on my sacred places brought a staggering thrill.
My breath rushed out of me, then sucked back in, my chest rising and falling too fast.
I blinked, but there was nothing to see in the dark except the memories, and so… I closed my eyes again. And let the shirt fall open. And my mind as well. I fell back into the memory of those glorious moments before he’d rejected me…
Vane’s hand, sliding from my hair to my neck, long fingers curling, his nails scraping at my nape, the pad of his palm pressed to my throat, his thumb stroking the side of my neck. Soft, warm lips sliding against mine.
I let my nails scrape against my cheek.
The peculiar thrill of the stubble on his chin scratching my jaw.
Rolled onto my back to feel the stone floor under the fur.
The iron strength of the arm bent against my spine to keep me pinned against him. The broad, flat hand splayed between my shoulders, cradling me.
Panting like I’d been running, I grew bold and reckless, and let my hand drag down…
Tingling pleasure wherever his other hand roamed—my face, my side, my waist, my belly, up to the neckline of my shirt, then with barely a pause, slipping under, his calloused palm against my skin. When he cupped my breast, I actually shook with a tremulous, frantic pleasure.
My hand shook, but my body knew. As I slipped fingers down between my own legs, only to explore, to discover what he’d sought, a rush of pleasure and hammering need battered me, begging for more.
The belt on my trousers gave under Vane’s shaking grip, and he groaned as he slipped magical fingers between my thighs.
My blood rushed to meet his touch, and my pulse pounded in my ears, as something drove me forward, to grip him, to cling, to plead.
Suddenly, the search was over. I knew it like I knew the sky was blue to match my eyes: This passion, this hunger, would not be sated by anything less than—
I cried his name like a plea as my spine arched until only my shoulders and tailbone met the fur, my breasts strained into the cool air, nipples hard as nails, and my body jangled with an inexplicable, vibrating pleasure that had me shaking and twitching, crying in short, high gasps, and writhing like a fish on a line.
For an eternal, mindless moment, I was nothing but bliss. Heated, shivering, burning, ecstasy stopped my breath in my chest, and turned me into a tuning fork, humming a note—no, screaming it—in harmony with the dragons.
I hung on the precipice of sanity, unbreathing, for longer than I could count.
Then, suddenly, as quickly as that tide had risen to dash me against the rocks of pleasure, so it sucked away, draining out of me, leaving my body trembling, weak, and gasping for air.
“Oh, God,” I cried, for surely only He could save me from this?
But as I lay there, tears building under my tightly closed lids, as that hunger ebbed just a hair with the outgoing tide, to leave my cheeks hot and mind reeling with confusion, I slumped back down to earth with a jolt.
And not the pleasant kind.
I was half-naked, lying on the ground in a cave, alone, because the first man to ever light a fire in my blood was repulsed by the very idea of touching me and—
‘Grace… God, Grace. I need you. Please. This is torture.’
“Vane?!” My eyes flew open and, forgetting my near-nakedness, I sat bolt upright, gasping, looking left and right, eyes wide, but finding nothing but darkness, and the soft glow of the night sky at the cave entrance.
Still panting, I rubbed my eyes and turned in every direction. But, there was nothing.
Then one of the dragons groaned somewhere in the night, and those threatening tears blurred my sight as that low, heated simmer began behind my navel again.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and gave myself one, wracking sob through my teeth, one hasty prayer for mercy.
‘Grace… oh, Grace… please…’
Sucking in one, bracing inhale, I pushed to my feet on shaking knees, and cast around for my clothes.
There was no need for the cloak, I was sweating.
The moment I was decent and booted, I hurried back out, into the night, following that disembodied voice, and the tug on my heart where he’d chained me. Somehow.
I wanted to spit a chain of curse-words at him for this torment.
I wanted to beg him to have me, even if just for this torturous moment.
And I wanted to fall into his arms and weep, plead with him to tell me what was happening to me.
But all I could do was run.
I had to find him before my skin went up in flames.