20. Chapter 20 The Return #3
She looked at me over the robe, then at Sif standing beside me, and something in her expression shifted to respect. “I can fix this. Stonethread requires careful work. The repair thread has to match the original weave or the enchantment integrity fails. Come back this afternoon.”
“Thank you, Dalla.”
“Don’t thank me, just stop letting scary monsters scratch my work.”
We walked out into the morning. Sif took my hand again before we’d cleared the doorstep.
We walked two blocks without speaking. The streets were filling up slowly, vendors and early shoppers and a few kids running between the buildings. The sunlight was coming over the rooftops and the packed dirt was warm underfoot.
Sif stopped.
She turned to face me in the middle of the street.
Her blue eyes found mine and held them. She was shorter than me by half a foot, compact and precise, and standing in front of me in the morning light with her hair loose and her face open, unguarded, the version of Sif that only came out when nobody else was watching.
She stepped in and put her arms around me.
I held her. She pressed her face into my chest, right below my collarbone, and her hands fisted in the back of my shirt. We stood in the street and held each other, and the people walking past us went around without comment.
She had that campfire look again, from after the [Bolster], when she’d said “nobody has ever looked at me and said I want you to be more.”
She pulled back enough to look up at me. Her eyes were clear and steady. She went up on her toes and kissed me.
I kissed her back. Her mouth was soft and her hand came up to the side of my face, her fingertips light against my jaw, the fur on the back of her hand brushing my cheek.
It was a real kiss, the first one between us, on a public street, in daylight, and I didn’t care who saw it. This kiss was well overdue.
She settled back onto her heels and held my gaze.
“Do you still have your room at the Brown Hen?” she said.
“I do.”
“Take me there.”
Her voice was direct and certain. She wasn’t playing and she wasn’t teasing. She said exactly what she meant, wolf-kin to the bone.
“Sif.”
“Don’t make a speech. Just take me there.”
I took her hand and we walked to the Brown Hen.
***
The room at the Brown Hen hadn’t changed. Small, barely used, the narrow bed against one wall and the window facing the back alley. Everything sat exactly how I’d left it—cold blankets and dead air.
Sif closed the door behind us and locked it. She unbuckled her daggers and set them on the table by the window, the new poison dagger and the remaining original, side by side. It was the first time I’d seen her without weapons since I’d met her.
She turned to me.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The space between us felt heavier than it had on any dungeon floor. Her wolf ears were angled forward, listening. Her tail hung still behind her. She looked at me like she was waiting to see if I would change my mind.
I stepped in and took her face in my hands.
Her skin was warm. I kissed her slowly, giving her time to meet me.
Her mouth opened under mine and her hands came up to my chest, not pushing, just holding on.
The kiss stayed unhurried at first, then deepened when she made a small sound in her throat and pressed closer.
I could feel how long she had been holding this in.
When we broke apart, she rested her forehead against mine.
“I’ve thought about this,” she said, voice quieter than I was used to from her. “A lot. About your mouth. About you inside me.”
“So have I.”
I reached for the ties of her top. She let me.
I worked them loose and drew the fabric up over her head.
Underneath she wore a simple wrap. I unfastened that too and let it fall.
Her breasts were a bit smaller than Liv’s, high and firm, the nipples already tight from the cool air of the room.
I brushed my thumbs over them, then lowered my head and took one into my mouth.
She drew in a sharp breath and her fingers slid into my hair.
I sucked slowly, then switched to the other, licking until she was shifting her weight from foot to foot.
She undressed me next, just as carefully.
Shirt first, then the belt, then my trousers.
When I was bare she looked down at me and her ears flicked once.
She reached out and wrapped her fingers around my cock, not stroking yet, just feeling the weight of it.
Her palm was warm. She gave me one slow stroke, thumb spreading the wetness already at the head, then looked up at me.
“You’re sure,” I said.
She nodded. “I’m sure. I’ve always been sure.”
I guided her back to the bed. The mattress was narrow and the blankets were still cold, but we didn’t notice.
I laid her down. My hand traveled from her collarbone down between her breasts, over the plane of her stomach, to the thatch of darker hair between her legs.
She was already wet when I slid two fingers through her folds.
She made a small sound and her hips lifted into the touch.
I kissed her again while I touched her, slow circles over her clit, then one finger easing inside. She was tight. Her inner walls gripped me as I moved. I added a second finger after a while and she exhaled against my mouth.
“Daniel… that feels so good.”
I kissed my way down her throat, her chest, the soft skin of her stomach.
When I settled between her thighs, she opened for me without being asked.
I licked her the way I had wanted to for a long time; long, patient laps through her folds, then focused attention on her clit.
Her taste was different from Liv’s, distinctly her.
I took my time. I pushed my tongue inside her, then dragged it up and sucked the swollen bud between my lips.
Her fingers found my hair and stayed there, not pulling hard, just holding.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “I’ve imagined your mouth on me so many times.”
Her first climax came quietly at first, then broke into a trembling moan that she tried to muffle against her own wrist. Her thighs tensed around my head and her hips pushed up into my mouth. I stayed with her through it, licking softer until the shaking passed, then started again.
I didn’t let her come down completely. I slid two fingers back inside her while I sucked her clit and curled them against the spot that made her gasp. She came a second time like that, wetter, a little louder, her tail twitching against the sheets.
When I moved back up her body, she pulled me into another kiss and tasted herself on my mouth. I could feel how ready she was. I positioned myself between her legs and looked at her.
“Tell me if it’s too much.”
“I will. Just… go slow at first.”
I pushed in slowly. The head of my cock stretched her and she sucked in a breath, ears pinning back for a second.
I stopped and waited. She nodded. I gave her another inch, then another, until I was fully seated.
We stayed like that, joined, breathing together.
Her eyes were open and locked on mine. She was so tight that I had to stay still or I would have finished too soon.
“You feel…” she started, then didn’t finish the sentence. She just pulled my mouth down to hers.
I began to move. Slow, deep strokes. The narrow bed creaked under us. Her legs came up around my waist. I kept most of my weight on my forearms so I wouldn’t crush her. Every time I bottomed out, she made a small sound against my neck. I kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the base of one ear.
“I’ve wanted this,” I told her, voice low. “Wanted to be inside you.”
Her nails dug lightly into my back. “Don’t stop talking. I like your voice when you’re inside me. Tell me how I feel.”
“Tight. Wet. Perfect. You’re gripping me every time I pull back.”
She came again while I was still speaking, tighter this time, a broken gasp against my shoulder. I held still inside her until it passed, then started moving again, a little deeper, a little more sure.
After a while she pushed at my chest. I rolled onto my back and she climbed over me.
She took me in again herself, sinking down until we were flush.
The new angle made her ears flick and a low sound left her throat.
She started to ride me, slower than I expected, rolling her hips instead of bouncing.
Her hands rested on my chest. I held her waist and let her set the pace.
She looked down at me the whole time. No hiding. The wolf in her was there in the intensity of her gaze.
“I've wanted you since the first time I saw you,” she said. “I wasn’t sure it was going to happen.”
“It’s always been just a question of when for me.”
I sat up so we were chest to chest. The change made her gasp. I wrapped my arms around her and she wrapped hers around my neck. We stayed like that, her grinding down, me thrusting up to meet her, kissing whenever we could catch a breath. I could feel how close I was getting.
“I’m going to come,” I told her.