12. All the Ways
~ VOSKI ~
The days that followed were incredible. My mate was stunning. Eager to learn. And quick to obey. Yet, her skills were oddly mismatched.
Grace knew roughly how to gut and skin a prey animal, because her father had taken her hunting on horseback since she was small.
But she possessed only marginal skill in butchering a carcass, lighting a fire, and cooking the meat.
I used the clean up from the meal as a reason to put my arms around her and show her the correct way to wash a plate, or hang leftover meat in a bag so it wouldn’t be stolen by wildlife.
“I’m too short!”
“I have arms enough for both of us. But you need to understand the knot…”
She instinctively knew how to throw a blade and rarely missed her target.
Yet she’d never thrown a punch, and recoiled from the very idea.
Holding her hips and positioning her legs, teaching her how to use the power of her core to throw a fist was pointless, because she froze the moment I put flesh and blood in front of her and told her to hit me.
“I don’t want to.”
“It’s the palm of my hand, Grace. I promise, you won’t damage me…”
She could sneak through the forest on feet silent enough to evade the notice of animals. Yet she possessed only rudimentary skills in identifying the signs of a campsite or an animal’s burrow.
“It just looks like a forest to me!”
“Focus. You aren’t just searching for signs of passage. You’re watching for worn trails through thin grass. Use your nose to identify cold ash, or fresh scat…”
But it was a joy to show her. Every time. She listened with a humility the men usually lacked. Trying new things with an eagerness to please that was almost childlike, though she was far from a child.
“Like this?”
“Lower your shoulders, let your lower back arch. Yessss…”
I held her hips as I eased into her from behind, groaning at the rush as she took me, deeply aroused by the sight of her hands clawing into the quilt until her knuckles turned white.
“Oh… oh, I like that one,” she murmured. Her breath caught as I drew out.
“So do I,” I growled through my teeth, taking her again, doing my best to be careful. She was still so new to this. And though Koa and the bond seemed to have healed her, I was still wary of frightening her.
Though, perhaps I had misjudged. A moment later, it was difficult to remain gentle when she dropped a shoulder and pressed back to meet me as I thrust, her voice breaking in small cries.
“Grace, are you—”
“Again!” she gasped.
God, I could have eaten her whole. Round ass in the air, her spine hollowed, shoulder blades rolling under her pale skin, her hair loose and messy, scattered over her shoulders and the quilt, she was beauty, and heat, and mindless need.
Teeth gritted, I planted a hand between those pretty shoulder-blades, where the muscle was now defined, splayed my fingers, and held her in place, cursing with delight when her head snapped back and her cry rose higher as I thrust.
She already tightened, pulsing around me, and I’d barely had her naked two minutes. The battle to hold myself in check never waged harder than when she lost her self-consciousness and began to vocalize—short, wordless cries, tiny mewls, broken sobs. My name.
She was succulent and ripe, and no matter how many times I had her, the fire inside me never died.
In an attempt to slow this down, but keep her moving toward her peak, I slid my hand down, down, let my fingers slide hard up the back of her neck, then curled my fist into her hair, fingernails scraping, squeezing the handful of golden strands until goosebumps pebbled the skin of her back and thighs.
“God, you’re beautiful,” I rasped and thrust again. And again, teeth gritted, fighting for control.
“Don’t… stop… please!” she panted, bending her neck into my grip like a cat searching for a stroke.
Her plea hit me like a punch. My hips bucked and I pulled her back, moaning her name, reveling in her cries, praying for the control to bring her to her peak before I exploded.
Yet, even as she clenched and pulsed, I walked a line that could spell disaster if I lost control. The sound of my thighs slapping on hers, punctuated by her gasps and cries, sent my body into bliss, and threatened to end this far too soon.
Panting, rasping, I tried desperately to focus.
But the sight of her, sprawled in front of me, gasping, the rounds of her ass bouncing with each new joining, tested my restraint.
While she keened and pleaded, I cast around for something, anything to focus on, but the tide of my own need only rose higher.
Grace, shaking, desperate, grabbed for purchase on the quilt and braced, pressing back against me so that we met harder. Harder.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit—
I tipped forward, over her, so her back brushed my chest. She sucked in a breath as the angle changed and I drove into her.
But in order not to crush her, I had to let go of that fistful of her hair.
I grabbed for her hands, twined my fingers between hers, pinning them to the bed.
My breath was hot on her bare neck. I tasted salt on her skin, then let my teeth graze her nape as I thrust, again and again, fighting the rise of my own ecstasy that threatened to—
“Oh! Vos—Oh!”
Her head snapped back against my shoulder, baring her neck, her jaw slack and mouth open in a silent O. I latched onto that tender skin, sucking, as she clenched around me, then drove into her again with such force, I lifted her hips.
Her cry was wordless, sheer bliss, as her body sparked. Every inch of her skin prickled, and the hairs rose. She tightened on me a second time, and the final thread of my already frayed control was snapped.
I thrust and shouted against her skin, bucking, trembling, twitching—while the bond flooded with blinding, white light that sent my heart into orbit and pierced me to my core.
Grace collapsed under my weight, and I rolled us, curling her up, my body still twitching in the final throes of that orgasm.
When the reality returned, I hadn’t caught my breath, and Grace trembled in my arms.
“Grace—shit. I did hurt you?”
“No!” she gasped, and then she laughed.
I slumped with relief, shudders rocking through me, keeping her pinned to me, curled up, her knees bent up almost to her chest, her heels scratching my shins.
I don’t know how long we lay there, or when breathing returned to normal.
I’m not quite sure when I left her body, or when she turned so our eyes locked, and I pulled her into my chest. But as darkness fell outside, and the candles became our only light, I still stared, stunned, at the golden glow on her skin—now pebbling, as sweat dried and our bodies cooled, though my ardor did not.
I was mostly under control again, though the occasional shudder still skated down my spine, when Grace combed her fingers into my hair, pushing it back and smiling up at me.
“I liked that one,” she said with an eager smile.
“I do too,” I admitted. “I just don’t want to hurt you. If—”
“It doesn’t hurt, it’s wonderful.” Her brows pinched. “Why do you worry so, about hurting me?”
“Because you’re so small,” I said, which was true, but not the true reason.
She leaned up on one elbow, pressing her breasts together, and making my mouth go dry again, but her expression was serious. She lay one, elegant hand to my cheek, her nails scratching into the stubble because I hadn’t shaved in two days, and she held my gaze.
“We have the words. I’ll tell you if it hurts,” she said. “I promise.” I wanted to smile, to make light of it, but she was solemn. Her thumb stroked my cheek. “I like it, Voski. A great deal.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. “I am very, very pleased to hear that.”
“That was a new way,” she said a moment later, her lips curling into another bright smile. “Are there more?”
I had to swallow an outright laugh. “Yes. Many more.”
Her smile grew playful. “I want to learn all of them. All the ways.”
All of them? I swallowed. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, her eyes sparkling. “With you, yes. Show me. All the ways you like it.”
A fist of emotion shoved the air from my lungs. I reached up to cup her face as she’d cupped mine, but instead, clapped that hand to the back of her neck and pulled her down into another kiss.
When we came up for air, I met her searching gaze, and nodded. “I’ll teach you everything I know.”
Her smile lit the room. It blazed in my chest, sending the bond glowing and pulsing again.
But that tiny little voice that I’d worked so hard to keep silent when we were alone, raised a distant shriek.
She was innocent. And beautiful. She’d been protected and sheltered her entire life.
She had no idea the beast that prowled in the darkest reaches of a man’s self.
She didn’t really want to know all the ways.
What true lady would?