Chapter 9
Raye awoke to coldness at her back, and emptiness in her bed.
She wrenched around in the near-darkness — had Gaelfr already broken his word, and left?
But no, no, he was crouching right there by the grate, putting another log on the guttering fire.
And then, his movements silent and graceful, he rose and strode back toward the bed, and sank his heavy weight down onto it behind her again.
The movement tipped Raye’s body a little closer into him, into the hard breadth of his bare chest, the easy strength of his heavy arm settling around her. Again as if he had every right to touch her, to make himself at home in her bed. You are mine.
Raye twisted away from him again, squeezing her eyes shut, willing herself to fall back to sleep.
But her heartbeat skipped strangely in her chest, and suddenly there was the memory from earlier, unfolding far too vivid behind her eyelids.
Gaelfr’s hand on her arse, Gaelfr’s breath on her skin, Gaelfr’s mouth tasting her, kissing her…
Mine to command, he’d breathed, with such satisfaction in his voice, such triumph. Mine to tend and feed and fatten as I see fit. Mine to touch, and taste, and keep.
And then… that. That huge, demanding ridge in his trousers. A ridge that — Raye’s eyes snapped open — she could still feel. Behind her. Here.
She stared unseeing at the wall, her breath frozen in her chest, but yes, it was here. Jutting against her arse through her dress. Where before it had only been a vague bulge, but now…
Shuddering. Swelling. Lengthening. Pressing just between her arse-cheeks, as if…
Raye squeezed her eyes shut again, gritted her teeth. But there was no ignoring it, no way not to feel its spasming… or its distinct warm wetness, now seeping through the thin wool of her dress.
“You realize,” she bit out into the darkness, her voice shaky but sharp, “I can feel you.”
There was a shift of Gaelfr’s body behind her, followed by a heavy exhale in her ear. “Ach, I ken,” he replied, his voice gravelly and low. “And I can scent you, woman.”
He could scent her. As if… he thought Raye wanted this?
As if she wanted that ridge grinding against her like that, smearing its fluid against her back.
Fluid she could already smell, just as rich and musky as the rest of him, and it was enough to make her mouth water, her swallow convulsing in her throat —
“Yes, you just smell Kalfr again,” she snapped, with as much force as she could muster. “He’s the only thing you can stand about me. Because I’m hideous. Remember?”
Gaelfr’s growl behind her was deep and exasperated, vibrating his chest against her back. “When did I say this?” he asked, his voice still thick, husky, like sweet hot syrup in the air. “My ástvinur would not choose a hideous woman for our mate.”
Our mate. Raye stiffened against him — she was not his mate, she was not — but his hand caressed her waist, drawing her closer against that invading ridge behind her. “I only said I wished to feed you, stubborn woman,” he murmured. “As any good Bautul mate would.”
Raye groaned into the darkness, but Gaelfr’s hand kept caressing, moving further up and down now, brushing against her belly, against the underside of her breasts. “It is now my duty,” he breathed, “sworn to the goddess. I must feed you, and tend you, and make you full and plump and hale again.”
Gods, he was obnoxious, and enraging, and his hand brushed higher, skimming over the curve of Raye’s breast through her dress.
The touch light, tentative, but it still made her gasp and tremble all over — and oh, hell, he did it again.
A little more certain this time, closer, his palm brushing against her nipple…
That ridge at his groin shuddered hard behind her, grinding deeper against her arse, while his warm thumb slipped to her nipple, stroking lightly against it.
So soft, but so utterly enthralling, easing back and forth, urging the sensitive peak harder with every touch, until it strained out against her dress, flushed and aching and longing.
But then Gaelfr hesitated, and he gave it a distinct little tweak.
A pinch, as though approving of it, or even satisfied.
And next, with easy, proprietary smoothness, his hand slipped to her other breast, and began all over again.
Stroking, caressing, teasing against her nipple, until it was just as hard and hungry as the first, straining beneath his touch.
He gave it a satisfied pinch too, firing yet more heat all through Raye’s body, along with — finally — a twinge of distant shouting awareness. She should not be allowing this. She hated him. She couldn’t trust him…
“What the hell,” she managed, “are you doing, Gaelfr?”
But it didn’t sound nearly as insulted as it should have, and again his name felt far too easy, too intimate, ringing out between them. And in return, she felt another swell of that ridge behind her, a gentle rock of his hips, oh fuck.
“I am only tending my mate,” came his husky voice behind her, too close. “As I have sworn to do, in my ástvinur’s stead.”
Gods, she hated him, and now — now his hand was moving again. Easing with slow, proprietary purpose down over the curve of her hip, her thigh. Scattering out more flares of succulent heat in its wake, until his hand… caught. Against her dress. His fingers bunching in the fabric, and —
Drawing it up. Pulling it up over Raye’s knees, her thighs, her hips.
Baring her, exposing her entire lower half to the open air, and she should have fought it, should have protested, should have slapped his hand away.
She should not have just stayed there, breathing hard, while the gooseflesh rippled over her exposed skin.
But at least Gaelfr wasn’t shifting up to look, was he? No, it was just his hand, now settling warm and powerful against the bare skin of Raye’s hip. The touch trembling her all over, because oh, it had been so long, and the feel of skin to skin, it was — it was —
“Good,” Gaelfr murmured behind her, almost too quiet to hear, but yes, this was good. Being touched by that big warm hand, his skin both soft and rough, his claws slightly scraping against her. Sliding up her hip to her waist, and back down again. Touching her. Tending her.
Raye’s eyes fluttered, her lips parting, and it was all just this, now.
Just feeling those steady strokes of his hand, so smooth and encouraging.
Easing further now, wider, nudging against her inner thigh, the crease of her hip.
Even skating over her coarse wiry hair, while that ridge behind her rocked again, grinding harder.
Enough to make her gasp, her hips twitching, her thighs trembling — and when his hand gently gripped one of her knees, guided it upwards, she didn’t pretend to resist. Allowing him to spread her legs, open her thighs, so he could —
Touch her. There.
Raye choked and quivered, her eyes squeezing shut, because fuck, it was good, it was everything.
That big warm hand now caressing over the curve of her, stroking so soft, so gentle.
His palm brushing over her coarse hair, his fingers skating against her open heat beneath, and she could feel his breath too now, his exhale tickling into the crook of her neck.
Because maybe he had raised his head, maybe he was looking, after all.
Watching his hand stroke her, smoother and deeper with every breath, spreading her wider apart.
Brazenly streaking into her slick wetness, swiping it back and forth, the sounds wet and flagrant beneath his touch, and —
A finger. A thick, warm finger, sinking inside her.
Raye gasped and throbbed around it, clutching hard against it, feeling the breadth of it, the strength.
The way it already felt so full, so impossibly, stunningly present, with its claw-tip just a light jut at the end, a blunt scrape in the fullness.
And fuck, it felt good, so damned good, sliding into her like that, invading her, filling her.
So slow and steady and certain, deeper and deeper, until it was buried all the way to the knuckle.
Raye couldn’t bite back her moan, or her full-body quiver against him, and that might have been a satisfied grunt from Gaelfr in return, or even a huff of a laugh.
But he kept throbbing behind her, his hips rocking slow but steady, and oh, his finger began slipping in and out.
Keeping pace with his hips, as if he was burying that inside her instead, and Raye was not thinking of that, she was not…
But already Gaelfr was drawing that finger out a bit further, and then — Raye moaned again — nudging a second finger in beside it.
The feeling so much fuller, her body so much tighter, clinging and throbbing against him.
His fingers needed to push against her resistance now, and he gasped as he did it, delving further and further, slower and slower, until they were both buried deep inside her.
There was no way for Raye to hide her shudders now, her hips rocking back against him, her swollen heat spasming tight and desperate around him.
Needing this, craving more of it, and yes, both his fingers slid out and in again, smoother and faster, greedy and possessive.
Until they were invading her again and again, the sounds slippery and obscene, his breath so close and hot at her throat.
“More,” he breathed, maybe a request, or a command, or both — but Raye’s legs spread wider, obeying, agreeing.
So he could settle a third finger against her clutching heat, alongside the other two — and again sink them inside.
But this time it was so full, it was so much, Raye’s body tight and resisting, his fingers a dizzying solid demand, an overpowering plundering threat —
“More,” he hissed again, so close against her throat, enough that his lips grazed her skin. “How shall you take even my ástvinur’s prick, if you cannot bear this?”
How shall you. As if she would, as if Kalfr really would ever do that again… or maybe as if there might be more beyond it. More like that impossible ridge, still grinding hard and demanding against her, and if her dress still wasn’t caught there between them, he would be — it would be —
And against all reason, Raye shuddered, and gasped, and — nodded.
Agreeing, obeying, and spreading her thighs wider, drawing up her knees.
Giving Gaelfr more room, while desperately fighting to relax, to soften, to open.
To welcome in all that hard invading strength, to surround him with warmth and softness, to take him deep where he belonged. To make him hers.
Gaelfr growled with triumph as his fingers thrust in, sinking all the way, while Raye writhed and arched beneath him, clamping hard and fervent around him. She’d taken him, made him her own, and she couldn’t contain it, couldn’t hold it any longer, the threads tightening and fraying, ready to —
She cried out as the relief shot through her, convulsing her all over, clamping her against Gaelfr inside her.
Blazing hotter and brighter than anything she’d felt in years — maybe in her entire life — and oh, Gaelfr felt it too, his hand spasming against her, gripping almost painfully hard against the curve of her.
While his sharp teeth scraped against her throat, his mouth so wet and hot and perfect, his hips grinding up with sudden, straining purpose —
And with a jolt, a slick sucking slide of skin, he was — gone. Gone, reeling away from the bed, over toward — the half-full washbasin. And with a jerky movement, he yanked down the front of his trousers, and —
Sprayed. Spewed out into the washbasin, in sharp, streaming jets of white.
The angle just enough that Raye could see it pouring from his fat rounded tip, could catch a glimpse of his thick grey shaft straining with every fresh pulse.
Until finally the streams began to slow, his hard length slackening, his rigid body sagging, his head tipping back with a long, shuddering exhale.
And only then, in that intimate, unguarded breath, did Raye really…
see him. His tall, bulky body. His wide shoulders, with his long black hair fanned out over them.
His smooth, scarred grey skin, gleaming with a sheen of sweat in the firelight.
Even his face, with its strong stark features now distinctly softened, relaxed, turned into something warm, something appealing, something… handsome.
And when he cast a rueful glance toward Raye in the bed, her mouth went dry, her swallow scraping against her throat. And she felt a sudden, alarming urge to reach out toward him, or maybe even to slip out of bed, to go spread her hands against that scarred skin of his back…
But then — he turned away. Fastened up his trousers with swift, abrupt movements. And then swiped up the full basin, and strode for the door. His hand fumbling with the bars and latches, and he wasn’t leaving, was he leaving…
“Gaelfr,” Raye said, her voice choked, almost pleading — but beyond a shake of his head, he didn’t acknowledge her. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even look at her, still sprawled and debauched in the bed, after what they’d just done.
And instead, he yanked the door open, and stalked out into the darkness, alone.