16
MEGAN
I n fact, he’s silent for so long that I feel like an asshole for saying anything. For confronting what
we’ve both been skirting around for the past two weeks. “I’m sorry,” I finally say. “I know I’m not the
mate you wanted, but I shouldn’t have said that.”
His hand squeezes on my foot and he looks at me with a curious expression. “Why would you think you are not the mate I wanted?”
“You’re avoiding me. You don’t want to sleep with me. Ever since we fulfilled resonance…” I shrug. “You act like you don’t want anything to do with me.”
“Meh-gan,” he murmurs, voice soft. “You are exactly the mate I wanted. If I could tell my khui to choose one female, it would absolutely be you.”
“I don’t understand,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “You go out hunting all day long—”
He gives me an odd look, one of his huge smiles on his face. “Meh-gan, hunting is a part of life. Of course I must go out.”
“But did you have to go right after we resonated? Do you have to stay out so very late? And even when you come back, you don’t spend time with me.”
“You are always busy!” He gestures at my hands. “Every time I speak to you, you are working with others on a hide, or you are making a belt, or you have three things going at once. I do not want to bother you when you are getting so much work done—”
“I’m getting so much work done so no one will kick me out of the tribe!”
“No one is kicking you anywhere!”
My mouth twitches as I stare at him, and I can’t decide if I want to laugh or cry at that ridiculous statement.
He doesn’t get it. He was born here and he has always fit in. No one would ever think of booting Cashol for not carrying his weight. “It’s not just that,” I point out. “You immediately made another bed for yourself, right after we resonated.”
A flash of guilt shows on his expressive face. “I did not wish to disturb your sleep.”
“We’re mated. We’re together. Forever. Why would you think that means I don’t want sex? Why are you avoiding me?” Hot tears prick my eyes again.
He sighs, the sound heavy and defeated. “It is a long, complicated story.”
“I have nowhere to go.” I indicate our surroundings.
Cashol pauses, then adds, “It is a long, complicated story I have no wish to tell right now.”
I shake my head at him. “I don’t understand you. Or any of this. Is it some sort of ritual I don’t know about?
Is it that you can’t have sex during certain times of the month? What?” I haven’t heard anything of the sort, but a small part of me hopes it can all be explained away in some logical reason I haven’t thought of.
“No ritual. It is just me.” His expression is sad and somehow full of yearning.
“You mean it’s me,” I say bitterly. “You just don’t want me.” I shove his beautiful foot out of my lap and try to pull my own feet away. “Just tell the truth. Don’t sugar-coat it or play games with me, all right? I’m so sick of all of this—”
He doesn’t let go of my foot, his strong fingers locking around my ankle, and I kick at him again. And again, and then he captures my other foot. “Why are you convinced it is you?” he asks, even as he drags me forward on the furs, pulling me toward his now-crossed legs as if tugging me into his lap.
“Because no one ever wants me enough. There’s a saying that if you meet one asshole all day, that guy is the asshole. If everyone you meet is an asshole, then you’re the asshole. Well, no one ever wants to stay in a relationship with me, so I figure I’m the problem. I—” I twist as he tugs me even closer to him. “What are you doing?”
“I am going to kiss my asshole,” he says, grinning.
That makes me break into a furious round of giggles. He tugs me into his lap, my legs spread over his hips, until I’m straddling him, and I press my fingers to his mouth. “Do me a favor and don’t say that around the others. They’re going to think it’s a flexibility thing.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. I’ll tell you later.” I slide my arm around his neck and look him in the eye, so sad. I love his long face with the big grin and the prominent nose. I want to kiss every inch of him. Why doesn’t he want me back? “So…what are we doing? Really?”
“I am going to kiss you,” Cashol says slowly, his gaze on my mouth. His hands slide up my backside, squeezing, and I can feel the rock-hard length of him in his loincloth, pressing against my core. “And then I am going to lay you down in these furs and lick your cunt until all your tears wash away.”
Oh. Oh, that sounds rather delightful, even to my messed-up head. “You want to kiss me?”
“More than anything.” He says it with an ache, as if he’s waited forever to tell me that. He squeezes my ass, gazing at me fiercely. “My pretty Meh-gan. Will you let me?”
I nod. Of course I will. He’s my mate, and I desperately need to feel connected to someone right now. Our night together was incredible, so kissing is no hardship. His mouth brushes over mine, ever so gentle, and I moan at the sensation, burying my fingers in his hair.
I didn’t know how badly I needed this.
His mouth is exquisite, and when he dips his tongue against mine, I feel it all through my body. My cootie purrs a happy song, as if reminding me that Cashol has been its choice all along. My body responds to the kiss, to the slow, gentle sweep of his hands up and down my back, to the feel of his big frame against my smaller one. It’s been the two longest weeks of my life since our last mating, and I’ve spent every moment of it doubting myself, doubting that what we had together was truly that good. That maybe it was just a figment of my imagination.
But when Cashol rolls our twined bodies forward and I rest on my back in the furs with him over me, I know it wasn’t just the cootie. I feel it now, when his big hand skates down my belly. I quiver with need when he tugs at the waistband of my leggings and pulls them down my thighs. He lifts my ankle and kisses it once he tugs it free of my clothing, then kisses all the way up the inside of my thigh.
“Boy, you’re not wasting any time,” I breathe, watching him with utter fascination.
“I am not,” he agrees. “Because I have been dreaming of this every night. I have hungered for your taste, longed for your scent…” He leans forward, tucking one leg over his shoulder, and spreads my thighs. He gazes down at my pussy, as if feasting his eyes, and with a low groan, lowers his head and drags his tongue over the seam of my folds.
I whimper, my fingers curling into the furs.
“You taste better than I remember,” he murmurs, his breath hot against my skin. “I remembered the feel of this against my nose.” And his fingers brush over my curls. “I remembered the way your third nipple felt when I
sucked on it, and I—”
“W-wait, what?” Third nipple?
“This,” he tells me, and his tongue traces around my clit in a way that makes my entire body jerk in response. I whimper, letting my thighs fall wider. “Tasting your third nipple.”
“Clit,” I breathe, trying to think straight. “It’s called a clit.”
“I do not care what it is called as long as it is on my tongue.” He flicks it again, and then sucks powerfully, making me cry out. He says nothing else, returning to licking my clit with such enthusiasm that I forget everything but the feel of his mouth. He pushes a finger deep inside me and I arch with utter delight. God, he’s good at this.
He makes a noise of pure appreciation as he pumps into me with his finger, his mouth locked on my clit. I don’t last long—I’m in far too emotional a state and a release is exactly what I need. I let the sensations sweep over me, and when the orgasm erupts, I take it with a greedy whimper, enjoying every swipe of his tongue over my sensitized flesh.
Cashol lifts his head when I come down, and our eyes meet. I smile at him, breathless, and in this moment he might be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. “That went too fast,” he says mournfully, kissing the inside of my thigh over and over again. “I barely got started.”
“You act like we’re done.” I reach for him. “Come. I want you inside me.”
He sits up on his elbows, and gives me a thoughtful look. “Not right now.”
My happy, dazed release disappears, and I’m left with all those feelings of uncertainty. I draw my legs closed, trying to scoot away from him. “What do you mean, not right now?”
My big alien mate lets me sit up. He rolls onto his side, keeping a possessive hand on my knee, and his thumb brushes over my skin as he gazes up at me. “This was just for you, my Meh-gan. I will take my pleasure later.”
“When we get back to the main cave?” Surely we have time for a quickie.
“No. Later than that.”
“Er, how much later?” When he shrugs, I fight the urge to kick him. “What is going on with you, Cashol?
How can you say you want me and then act like this?”
He stares down at his thumb as he brushes it over my thigh. “Because I do want you, Meh-gan. I want you more than anything. I have never wavered on that. But I was weak on the night of our resonance. I let myself get carried away and I did not do what was best for my mate.”
Best for his mate? “And what the heck is that?”
“Waiting,” he says simply. “I want to wait until you are ready.”
“I’m ready right now,” I snap. “Didn’t I just tell you I wanted to have sex?”
“But do you want it because you can think of nothing but Cashol and his strong limbs? That you are beside yourself with desire? Or do you want it because you feel it will secure your place in the tribe better because I have given you my heart?”
That makes me stop. For all that Cashol is a laughing tease, sometimes he sees to the heart of the matter.
Do I really want him, or do I just want to have sex because it’s expected of resonance mates and I want so desperately to please everyone? “I…I don’t know,” I whisper. “I’m kind of ashamed I don’t know.”
“I overheard you speaking to Jo-see,” he confesses. “She asked if you were happy and you said you were not sure.”
I did? I don’t remember that. I shrug, opening my mouth to protest. I’m sure I say lots of things off the cuff.
Sometimes I say what people expect to hear, because no one wants to know what I’m really thinking. “I’m not sure I know if I can be happy here,” I admit to him. “I feel lost.”
“I lost my heart to you the first time I saw you,” Cashol admits to me. “You did not learn my name for many nights after that, but it did not matter. You have always held it in your hands.” He strokes my thigh, and I have to admit, that feels pretty good. Not quite as good as oral, but right now I just like being touched. I didn’t know how much I craved it, actually. “But I want a mate who smiles at me with her eyes and tells me her thoughts, not a mate who tells me that she is fine and her eyes are full of worry.”
Busted. Has anyone ever known me so well? “I’m just…trying to cope.”
“I know. I am not judging you. But I am also not pressuring you.” He leans in and kisses my knee, as if he can’t stand to not touch me, just a little. “I want to give you time. On the day you wake up and think, I cannot go another step without Cashol’s great cock inside me, I will be happily waiting for you.”
I chuckle at his words, and then a new worry hits me. “I…what if it takes a while?”
“I am not a patient hunter, but I am trying.” He smiles at me. “The prey this time is worth an extended hunt.”
I lift my foot and use it to gently push his shoulder. “Maybe you don’t call it a hunt.”
His smile broadens and he grabs my foot, kissing it and sending a flare of heat through my body. “What would you call it?”
“I have no idea. When I think of it, I’ll let you know.” It’s not exactly a wooing. It’s more like…a waiting. I hesitate. “So you and me…where are we?”
He glances around. “We are in a hunter cave.”
I shove him with my foot again, and he catches it, chuckling, and nips at my big toe. “I’m serious,” I tell him, getting all breathless again. He’s dangerous with that mouth, and I have far too much of a thing for feet. “You and I…where do we go from here?”
“I wait for you to be ready to love me,” Cashol says, nibbling on my toe. He really is the most distracting man.
“Does this mean you’re going to keep sleeping apart from me? Because…I don’t like it. It hurts my feelings.” Confessing this makes me feel like the biggest baby in the world. I feel like I’m whining, and that he’s going to tell me I’m clingy and needy like guys have in the past.
But Cashol just considers this. “I did not realize it would hurt your feelings.”
“How can it not?”
He gives me a sheepish look. “I am new to being mated. You are my first mate in all ways. There is much I do not know.”
Okay, fine, I’ll give him that. “Why would you think I wouldn’t want to sleep with you, though? Even as… friends?” God, it feels weird to say that.
“Because it is easier for me if we do not sleep together,” he admits. “If I touch you, I will want you, and I do not want to pressure you. I want you to come to me when you are ready.”
Oh. That makes sense, really. “I guess we can keep sleeping apart, then. I just wish you would have told me the reasoning behind it.”
“I wish you would have told me you were afraid of being rejected by the tribe. I would have told you how foolish that is. Look at Drenol and the elders. They can barely leave their caves on days that their bones ache.
I do not think Eklan has left the cave in many turns of the seasons. Yet no one would dream of casting them out.”
“Yes, but they’re your people. It’s different.”
“How is it different? You are my people.”
“No, I’m a human. An outsider. I don’t know how to do anything.”
He sits up and reaches for my hands, clasping them in his. “If this worries you, then I will teach you all that I know. If you wish to make fire, I will show you. If you wish to hunt fish with nets, I will show you. If you wish to make sinew out of dvisti intestine, I will show you. Anything and everything I know, I will share it.” He takes my hands and lifts them to his mouth. “Just do not cry.”
Maybe it’s the orgasm, or maybe it’s the smile on his face (or the conversation we just had) but I feel a lot better about things now. “I’m glad we talked.”
“I am glad we did a great many things,” Cashol says, grinning wickedly. “Talking among them.”
I hesitate, because I wonder if I should offer him a blow job. Go down on him to ease his aches. I want to do that because…because it’s expected of a woman? Because we’re not supposed to receive and not give?
Man, he’s right. How often do I do things because I expect that’s what people want from me? Cashol just
wants me to be me.
That might be harder than I realize.
