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We do not talk, but it does not matter. Hemalo’s presence at my back is comforting, and his body heat keeps the worst of the cold away. My eyelids grow heavy with sleep, and I am just about to drift off when his tail brushes against mine. It is an intimate touch, and it fills me immediately with longing. I think of the kisses we shared yesterday and how I was too afraid to go further.
And then I think of Hemalo, on the ground, with the metlaks standing over him. Every moment we have suddenly seems precious. I clutch his hand, pressed over my shoulder. “Hemalo?”
“Mm?” He sounds drowsy.
“You know how you said it would be my choice to decide when I touched you again?”
“I remember.” His khui begins to sing, telling me that he is suddenly very aware of me.
“I wanted to yesterday.”
He chuckles, and the sound is low and delicious, his voice moving over me like a rippling blanket. “I wanted to yesterday as well. Why did you stop?”
I hold his hand tightly to my chest, anchoring him against me. “I am afraid.” The words squeeze out of my throat, half-choked. It is so difficult to speak them, to bare myself to him and hope he will understand. That he will not abandon me a third time.
To my surprise, Hemalo nuzzles against my throat, his mouth warm as he presses it against my skin. “I am afraid, too.”
That is not what I expected him to say. “Why are you afraid?”
“The same reasons you are, I imagine. I worry you will hate me and we will struggle again. I worry about the kit we will make. I worry if anything happens to it, it will destroy what we have again.” He kisses my cheek. “But I do know that I am more afraid of not trying.”
I want to cry, because I know just what he means. “I have lost a kit and survived. But I do not think I can survive if I lose you again. Please, never leave me again. Not because you think it’s good for me or because it is what is needed—it’s not. I need you at my side. I need you with me, supporting me, no matter how dark things get.”
He nods slowly, and his fingers tighten against mine. “I was a fool to leave before. I thought I was helping, but I see now I have only made it worse.”
“You did,” I reply, trying to make my response light and teasing. “But I forgive you.”
“You forgive me?” He presses another kiss to my neck. “Then I am the luckiest of males to have such an understanding mate.”
“You are.” I slide his hand to my teat, resting over my nipple. My entire body is aching for him, and my khui is singing so loudly it feels as if it is going to echo off of the rock cliffs nearby. “If you swear you will never leave me again, I want to be yours. Now. Tonight.”
“Tonight? In this cold?”
“There are parts of you that are very, very warm,” I say encouragingly. “Your warm parts could give my warm parts a greeting.”
“While I would like nothing more,” he murmurs into my ear, his tongue flicking against my lobe, “I do not like the thought of a metlak chancing upon us while mating.”
I smile. He has a point.
“I want to wait until we return to our howse back in the vee-lage,” he continues. “I want to take you home so we can start our family again. So we can do this right.” His hand slides from my teat down to the waist of my leggings and pushes inside. He cups my cunt, his fingers stroking through my slick folds. I moan as he pushes a finger inside me and continues to nuzzle my throat. “I want you in my furs every night for the rest of our lives. Even when you are angry at me.”
I cling to him, gasping. “I want that, too.”
“I want a howse with you. I do not want to live with the hunters, and I do not want you to live with Farli. You belong with me.” His finger pumps inside me, as quick and desperate as I feel. “In my furs. Taking my cock. Bearing my kits.”
A shudder of pure pleasure rocks through me. I want all that, too. “Yes,” I breathe.
“You will not share a howse with Farli. You will come to my bed, and you will wrap your tail to mine and spread your legs for me, because you are my mate.”
“Always.”
“Tell me that you are mine, Asha,” he growls into my ear, and then nips the edge of it with his sharp teeth. I cry out, because my body is so sensitive that even that small action sends me into an avalanche of pleasure. My cunt clenches around his finger, and then I am coming hard, the air leaving my lungs as he continues to whisper in my ear about how I belong to him.
It is the most erotic thing he has ever told me, and I savor every moment of it.