Chapter 52
Fifty-Two
Ayla
Ididn't know what sexy thing I'd done, and I wasn't even sure I cared. The way Zasen was holding me so tightly was amazing. It made me feel small and helpless, but also amazingly powerful. He was tall, and strong, and broad, and his mouth took control of mine, but I liked it.
I also knew I could stop it. All I had to do was tense up and he'd not only let me go, but jump back. I didn't want that, though. I wanted him to keep going. I was ready to know what came after this, and I couldn't think of a better place than in the forest that had set me free.
Every time his mouth slid over mine, I matched him. When his tongue explored my mouth, mine tangled with it. One kiss, then another, and before I knew it, I'd stopped thinking about what I was doing and started worrying more about how all of it felt.
That was when his hands moved. The one on my cheek slipped back into my hair and grabbed a handful of it, tangling his fingers in the braided strands.
The other found my hip, turning me carefully, and then Zasen guided me back.
I let him, knowing I didn't need to look - until he pressed me against a tree.
I gasped, wrenching open my eyes to find him smiling. "I don't want to topple you over," he explained before bending even lower to kiss along my jaw. "And all you have to say is 'stop.'"
"No," I breathed, tilting my head back so he could keep kissing. "I trust you, Zasen."
"No, little Phoenix, you really don't." And he nipped the skin of my neck.
That made my breath hitch, but my entire body felt like it was on fire.
His tongue traced the tendon along the side of my neck, and the hand on my hip began to move higher.
Slowly, torturously so, he followed the curves of my body, pressing into each one.
My waist, my belly, and then his hand shifted, pausing just beneath my breast.
"What do you know of men, Ayla?" Zasen asked, his voice deep and gravelly.
"Enough," I promised.
So he leaned his hips closer, pressing a hard ridge into the side of my belly. "Do you know about that?"
I nodded, the movement a subtle little jiggle of my head. "It's not your tail."
Ducking his head forward, Zasen laughed. "It's definitely not. Scared yet?"
"No." And I shifted my own hips closer, wanting to feel that part of him against me.
The sound he made was low, deep, and wild. It also sounded pleased. Not angry. Not dangerous. It was the sort of sound I wanted to hear him make again, so I shifted one more time.
Zasen caught my waist with the hand that had been in my hair. "Woman, if you grind against me, I'm going to make a mess here."
"Should I stop?" I asked, trying to mimic his tone from before.
"Should I?" he countered, "because I promise I can make you moan like that too."
"No stopping," I decided.
His thumb swept out, sliding across my nipple. Sparks shot up my spine, and while I didn't moan, there was a sound - but his hand stilled.
"Do I stop now?" he asked.
All I could do was shake my head. My eyes had closed at the sensation, but I liked it.
I wanted more of it, more of this. Yet instead of touching me that way again, Zasen simply kissed me deeply.
I felt like I was drowning, or flying. I couldn't decide which, but it was amazing.
I was surrounded by him, and lost in him, and it all felt so damned good!
Again, his hands moved, and this time both of them were there, on my breasts and doing that thing.
I could feel my pulse throbbing between my legs, and my pants were cool down there, like they were damp, but I didn't care.
Nothing else mattered but the next kiss, the touch that would come after, and the feel of this strong, powerful man making me delirious.
Then he began to kiss down my neck - on the front. Zasen bent, then knelt, and still his mouth moved lower until it was on my chest, then down my breast. Through my shirt, he sucked at the part that felt so good, nipping at the cloth between us on one side while his hand moved on the other.
I had to hold on to something, so I clutched at his head for balance. The way he murmured made me think that was the right choice. After a moment, his mouth and hand switched sides, but the hand he wasn't using? It dropped to slide up my thigh, pausing there.
"It's supposed to feel good," he whispered against my chest as he began to rub.
"I'm still dressed," I reminded him as if he didn't know that too.
His mouth moved to kiss my belly. "I think you should stay that way, Ayla."
Yeah, but I didn't. I was tired of holding back, being good, and obeying rules that had been made to keep me in my place. I killed Moles now. I fought for the chance to do what I wanted, and right now, I wanted this. Him. Here.
So I grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my head. Zasen's mouth was in the way, and he had to jerk back to keep from being caught in it, but the hand between my legs didn't slow. Yet when I was about to throw the fabric to the side, he let go of me to catch it.
"We don't have a blanket," he warned.
I didn't really know what he meant, and I didn't care at all. I simply reached behind me to release my bra. "So?"
He growled out something that sounded like, "Fuck," and then pulled his own shirt over his head.
Throwing both mine and his on the ground, he reached for his pack and began digging. I wasn't sure what he was doing, but I wasn't going to let him stop now. I tossed my bra by my shirt, then moved to my belt, wrenching open my pants so I could get those off too.
"If you're doing this," he said as he pulled out the long, narrow, and black strip of amazingly soft leather, "then boots too, Ayla.
" And he spread that over the two shirts almost like a blanket but narrower.
"And I've made you a bed." It looked like the leather strip he often used as his loincloth.
Which meant we were doing this! He wasn't saying no. I wouldn't get pregnant. This was okay, and happening, and real! A trickle of worry ran down the back of my mind, but I pushed it out of the way. My heart began to move even faster.
I didn't know what to do.
I did know I was safe. I knew this shouldn't hurt. I wasn't sure it wouldn't, but I'd been told enough times that it shouldn't, and I believed them all. So, once I had my boots off, and my pants pooled on the ground, I moved to the leather wearing only my socks and panties.
Zasen held up a hand, helping to ease me down as he once had so long ago before we could talk. When I was sitting, he moved in again, kissing me so I couldn't lean back while he knelt by my hip.
"Ayla, look at me?" he begged.
I did, not knowing what to say, but feeling that tingling in my body that always came before a battle. Nerves? That had to be it, because I would not be afraid.
"We don't have to do this," he said.
"I want to know," I insisted.
His eyes lowered, running across my body in a split second, then back. "Do you trust me?" he asked.
I nodded.
"No, you have to say it."
"Yes." The word was only a breath.
He slid his arm around my back and leaned in. "Then do not scream, because your dogs will kill me if you do." And one more time, he kissed me.
Each pass of his tongue guided me lower to the ground until I was lying.
Beside me, I could feel him move, but he was still wearing pants.
I knew that wasn't how this was supposed to work, but it was just cool enough out that my nipples were standing hard.
Every pass of his satin skin made me want to whimper, and those were only accidental touches.
So when he began to kiss his way down my neck again, I couldn't help but arch into the heat of his mouth.
"I'm going to..." He kissed between my breasts. "...take off your panties, Ayla."
"Uh-huh," I mumbled.
He kept kissing. My belly now, and I felt when his hands hooked in the cotton and pulled it lower.
I had to lift my rump, then move my legs, but Zasen stripped me more efficiently than I could do myself.
Then, he shifted between my legs - still kissing down my belly - and guided my hands to the back of his head.
"It's supposed to feel good," he said before kissing me down there.
I forgot to breathe. It wasn't that I sucked in a breath. My lungs simply did nothing because his mouth was so hot. And good. And in a place I hadn't expected it to go.
Then his tongue dragged across me. I'd thought I'd felt sparks when he'd touched my breasts, but this? My knees flexed on their own, finding him between them. He licked again as he shifted my knees over his shoulders, and then he began to suck at something that felt so very good.
I grabbed at the dreadlocks I could reach, needing to hold him right there.
I didn't even know everything his mouth was doing, but it all felt good.
Warm, wet, and alive in a way I'd never imagined.
There was a need I wanted to move to find, so I did.
My hips rocked with the pressure, looking for more, trying to make it better.
Using my calves, I gripped his back as well as I could, but my body was overwhelmed with sensations.
The cool air, the pleasure he was causing, the rustling of dying leaves in the breeze, and my own panting, moaning breaths.
It all turned into something bigger, something that was growing in the pit of my stomach.
Sliding one hand higher, Zasen reached for my breast to toy with that. His other? It held my thigh open a little more - and then his tongue dove inside my body. He moaned the way he had before, a wild sound that proved he liked it, and then his mouth was back.
The drags of his tongue grew harder, my hips pressed into it even more, and my knees were trembling.
When he sucked again, something unimaginable happened.
My entire body shattered into a million pieces.
Time stopped. Euphoria took over, and all I could do was grasp at his head desperately, not knowing if I was going to fly into the stars or evaporate into every nerve that had just come alive.
Sensation. Pleasure. Perfection.
And then he pulled back and I felt like everything snapped back into place. I was still here, gasping like I'd just run across the entire surface of the world, bare like God had made me, with Zasen kneeling between my legs.
"That, Ayla," Zasen said before kissing the inside of my thigh and lifting himself higher, "is how a woman has an orgasm."
"So that's sex?" I asked.
He chuckled as he eased my legs off him and turned to find my discarded clothes. "No. That's what we call foreplay."
I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling much too exposed. "I don't understand."
He didn't answer for a moment. Instead, he got my boots, pants, bra, and panties together, then brought them over. When he handed them to me, he knelt at my side.
"It's supposed to feel good," he said once again, jerking his head in a way that made it clear I could get dressed. "Did it?"
I nodded as I got my panties on. My bra came next. "I don't even know how to explain that feeling."
"An orgasm," he said, reaching out to cup my cheek, making me look at him. "Ayla, are you okay?"
"Yeah." But I was caught between trying to get dressed because it seemed colder out now than it had a second ago, and blushing while trying to see the man who'd just done that to me.
"I need more," he said. "I need to know I didn't make a mistake this time."
So I flopped back and yanked on my pants. "I have decided I like all of that, Zasen." I quickly secured the front, then buckled my belt and rolled sideways to get my shirt - toward him. "And I don't know if it's okay to say, but I like that it was you."
Finally, he relaxed. "Yeah?" Without looking, he found my shirt and passed it to me. "Me?"
One shake got the dirt off the fabric, then I pulled it on. Once I was covered enough to not be cold anymore, I palmed both sides of his face and leaned in to kiss him soundly.
"I was almost scared. I thought... I don't know what I thought, but you let me take off my clothes, and I realized it was happening, and the fear tried to come back, but it's you.
You don't ever hurt me. You show me how to win, and that.
.." I glanced away as a little giggle slipped out.
"I like that. I..." The smile faded as my eyes landed on his face again.
"I'm done being scared, Zasen. Thank you. "
"So, never again?" he asked playfully.
"Lots again!" I said, pushing him so he fell backwards and then following him down to the dirt so I could pin his hands beside his ears. "But I'm scared of something else now."
"No, there's nothing to be scared of," he hurried to assure me.
"What if this means you can't love me now?"
"I'm not leaving you, Ayla," he swore. "I knew that before I gave you that token."
Letting him go, I flopped down beside him. "So this is real?"
"Feels like a dream sometimes, huh?"
"Yeah," I agreed. "But we still have to hunt."
This time, his groan wasn't the pleased kind. "Insatiable." But he turned his head to look at me. "So you know, that's another one of those things I like about you."
I didn't know what to say to that, but I felt it. It was warm, soft, and trapped deep inside me somewhere, right beside the way I felt about my dogs.