Chapter 29 Kojo
KOJO
The cabin is quiet when we return and the absence of Zaki’s scent confirms she is still out of the community lands, which means we are alone for the first time since the claiming, and my Bouda has been counting the minutes.
Kendra kicks off her boots at the door and walks into the kitchen to make herself a plate from the food Zaki prepared this morning.
She moves through the space comfortably, arranging the plate, filling a glass with water from the sink.
I watch her from the front room and the claim mark on her neck is visible from here, dark and permanent, and the sight of it sends heat through me that I am not prepared for.
There she is, my Bouda says, and his voice has dropped into the register he uses when he is done being patient. Our mate. Carrying our scent on her skin and our mark on her neck, and you are standing in the doorway holding bags.
I carry the shopping bags from the SUV upstairs to the bedroom and set them on the floor.
I need something to do so I start unpacking, removing each item she purchased at the market and folding it slowly.
I fold the thermal blanket and set it on the shelf.
I pair the thick socks and place them in the drawer she has claimed for herself.
I stack the kitchen towels and carry them down to the cabinet under the sink and return upstairs and I am running hotter than I should and I know why.
It started at the academy. Walking behind her through the campus, watching her light up in the technology center, seeing her speak to Amari with authority that had nothing to do with me or the bond or the clan.
She was herself in that room. The woman she was before Detroit.
And that version of Kendra does something to me I did not anticipate.
My Bouda noticed first — the scent shift, the furnace climbing, finding reasons to touch her arm or her shoulder or the small of her back as we walked.
I pushed it down at the academy. I am pushing it down now, folding her new shirts with fingers that are shaking for reasons that have nothing to do with the cold.
You are fighting a losing battle. My Bouda sounds thoroughly amused. Your body has tasted what it wants and it will not forget. Her bending, her stretching, that shirt lifting — you will feel all of it. You are mated now, Alemayehu. The furnace does not lower. It only climbs.
I fold the last shirt and place it in the drawer and close it with more force than the task requires.
You need a release, Alemayehu. My Bouda’s voice carries frustration. Your furnace has been climbing since the academy. Your scent has changed. If you do not address this soon you will snap in a way that neither of us can control. I am not asking. I am warning you.
“I will not take her without permission,” I say under my breath, and my Bouda goes quiet for the first time in hours, not out of agreement but out of the particular silence he reserves for moments when he knows I am right and resents it.
I hear her footsteps on the stairs. She comes into the bedroom still chewing the last bite of her food, her fingers brushing crumbs from her shirt, and she pulls off her pants and drops them on the floor.
She is wearing her shirt and underwear and nothing else, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn that tells me she has no idea what she looks like right now.
The shirt rides up and the strip of bare skin between the hem and my furnace spikes in a single breath.
“I’m going to take a nap,” she says, and she walks to the bed and pulls back the blanket and climbs onto the mattress on her hands and knees, reaching forward to adjust the pillows, her back arching and her hips lifting and the roundness of her pressing against the thin fabric of her underwear.
My mouth fills with saliva so fast I have to swallow twice.
My arms hang at my sides and every muscle locks, my ridge spiking hard enough that the blades tear through the back of my shirt, and the heat that has been building in me since the academy detonates in a single rush that whites out every thought in my head except the shape of her body and my Bouda’s voice saying now.
I am across the room before my mind catches up to my legs.
My hands find her hips and she yelps, her head whipping around to look at me over her shoulder with wide eyes.
“What the...” She does not finish. I hook my fingers into the waistband of her underwear and drag them down her legs, off her thighs, off her ankles, and the sight of her bare and bent over on the bed with her knees spread and her skin warm from the shower sends a sound out of me that is more Bouda than man.
I drop to my knees behind her and press my mouth between her thighs and the taste of her floods my tongue, warm and slick and sweet, and the sound she makes when she feels my mouth on her is a moan so deep it vibrates through her hips and into my teeth.
I grip her thighs and hold them apart and run my tongue through her in a slow stroke that makes her back arch and her fingers curl into the sheets and her voice crack on a sound that has no word behind it.
“Oh my god,” she breathes, and she pushes back into my face and I take that as instruction.
I find the place that makes her thighs shake and I stay there, my tongue working her in circles, the taste of her growing stronger as her body responds, wetter and hotter with every pass of my mouth.
She rocks into a rhythm that matches the movement of my tongue and I hold her steady with both hands on her hips, my grip firm enough that she cannot pull away even when her legs start shaking so hard the bed trembles beneath us.
“Kojo, oh god, right there, right there, do not stop.” Her voice is climbing, her thighs trembling on either side of my face, her hips rocking harder, and I hold her steady and keep my mouth where she needs it until her whole body seizes.
Her thighs clamp around me and her back arches so hard her head lifts and the scream that comes out of her fills the bedroom.
I do not give her time to recover. I stand and strip out of my clothes, the shirt tearing along the ridge on its way over my head, my pants hitting the floor.
I climb onto the bed behind her and she is still shaking from the orgasm when I grip the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head, tossing it to the floor.
My fingers find the clasp of her bra and this time I do not fumble, I tear it, the hooks giving way under the force, and the fabric falls away and I press myself along the length of her back, my furnace heat sinking into her bare skin.
I reach around her body and take both of her breasts in my hands, palming the full weight of them, feeling her nipples harden against my palms while my mouth finds the back of her neck.
“Kojo, wait, I need a second, I...” She trails off when I press forward and slide into her from behind, slow and deep, and the heat and the tightness of her body opening around me pulls a groan from both of us at the same time.
She is so wet from the orgasm that I slide in with a fullness that makes her drop her head and grip the sheets with both fists and the word that comes out of her mouth is “fuck” drawn out long and breathless.
I hold myself inside her and give her body time to adjust to the stretch, my hands still on her breasts, my thumbs tracing her nipples in slow circles, and when I feel her hips push back into mine I begin to move.
She meets every stroke, pushing her hips into me with a greed that strips the last thread of restraint from my body, and I keep one hand on her breast, rolling her nipple between my fingers, while the other grips her hip and I give her everything I have.
The furnace spikes between us, the heat pouring off my skin into hers until the air in the bedroom goes thick and damp, sweat running down the center of her back, my palm slick on her skin.
The sound of our bodies meeting fills the room in a rhythm that builds until the bed frame shudders and the headboard knocks into the wall and neither of us slows down.
“Harder,” she says, and the command in her voice hits me in a place that my Bouda recognizes before I do.
I obey. My hips snap forward and she cries out and I feel her body clench around me and the second orgasm tears through her with a force that makes her arms buckle.
She drops to her elbows, her face in the sheets, and the sounds she is making are muffled by the fabric and I reach forward and gather her hair in one hand and turn her head to the side so I can hear every one of them.
Her moans fill the room, open and raw and unashamed.
I keep the pace and I feel the third orgasm building in her body before she announces it, her thighs tightening, her hips losing their rhythm, her voice climbing into a pitch that breaks on my name.
When it hits, her whole body goes rigid and a wetness spreads across the sheets beneath her, hot and sudden, carrying her scent concentrated and overwhelming, and the clench of her body around mine is so absolute that my own release follows within seconds.
It rips through me in a wave that starts at the base of my back and radiates outward until my vision goes white and my arms lock and a sound tears out of me that is half roar and half cackle and fully beyond my control. I press into her one last time and hold myself there while my body empties.
I roll to the side and pull her into me, both of us breathing hard, the furnace slowly cooling.
I hold her and I wait for the calm to come, for the urgency to drain out of me the way it drained after the claiming, but it does not.
My furnace is still running high and I am still hard and the scent of her on the sheets and on my skin and in the air is not calming me down.
If anything, it is making it worse, and I realize with a clarity that borders on alarm that one round did not satisfy what has been building in me all day.
Interesting, my Bouda says, and the smugness in his voice tells me he already knew this would happen.
The mate bond intensifies with every encounter, Alemayehu.
You will want her more after having her, not less.
This is by design. Mother Fate is not subtle about ensuring the continuation of a bloodline.
I press my face into Kendra’s hair and breathe, trying to will the heat down through discipline alone, but my hands are already moving along her waist and I am shifting closer and my instincts are making decisions my mind has not approved.
“Kendra.” My voice comes out rough. “I am sorry. I should have asked before I...”
She rolls over in my arms and faces me, and the look on her face is not anger.
Her eyes are half-lidded and satisfied and her lips curve into a grin.
“I don’t know what I did to make that happen,” she says, her voice sleepy and warm, “but I hope I do it again.” She laughs softly and presses her hand flat on my chest. “That was incredible, Kojo. Like, I need a minute to remember how to use my legs.”
The relief moves through me but the desire does not leave with it.
She must feel the heat still pouring off my skin and the hardness pressed between us, because her grin widens and her eyebrows lift and she looks down between our bodies and then back up at me.
“Already?” she says, raising an eyebrow.
We have time, my Bouda says. Zaki will not return for hours.
Your mate is willing. And I can give you pointers, Alemayehu.
You have been operating on instinct alone, which is admirable for a first attempt, but there are techniques our ancestors perfected over centuries that would make your mate very, very happy.
“Shut up,” I mutter to my Bouda, but Kendra has already pulled me closer and her mouth is on mine and the furnace between us climbs again and I stop fighting it.
She rolls onto her back and brings me with her and I settle between her legs and there is no rush now, no need for my Bouda’s help, because my mate is looking up at me with dark eyes and parted lips and I know exactly what to do.