The Spawning (21 page)

Teron caught her attention when she discovered that he was holding out an

offering to her as Khan had. Feeling her discomfort deepen, she took the offering and unfolded it, discovering it was a pair of soft boots similar to those they wore. She could see they had been made from the skin of the beasts they’d been slaughtering for food.

They looked just her size, too. She glanced from the boots to Teron a little

questioningly. “For me? You made these for me?”

He nodded, his expression carefully blank, though she could see a question his eyes. A thrill went through her. Torn between the desire to examine them more carefully and the equal urge to fling herself at him and squeal like the ‘idiot’ had, she hesitated.

She didn’t want to offend Khan, but she was as thrilled with Teron’s gift. She didn’t want to make him feel less appreciated even though she didn’t want to make Khan angry.

Both anxiety and eagerness collided inside of her, but she set the boots and combs aside and moved to thank Teron as enthusiastically as she had Khan.

He ‘received’ without the slight hesitancy she’d sensed in Khan. Opening his

arms to her as she moved toward him, he gathered her close and sought her mouth before she could decide whether to merely give him a friendly peck or something a little more intimate.

A touch of amusement flickered through her a split second before his mouth came down on hers and then her thoughts scattered like a flock of startled birds. The sheer hunger in his kiss tied everything inside of her in a knot. She sank beneath a tidal wave of sensations. It was hard to say whether she enjoyed his taste and touch more than she had Khan’s, and in fact it didn’t cross her befuddled mind even to compare them, but the effect on her was no less powerfully arousing.

She felt like a jellyfish by the time he sucked at her lips and parted from her with obvious reluctance, boneless, so shaky and disoriented it was only by sheer dint of will that she managed to stay upright. Thoroughly drunk and disoriented, struggling with the effort to appear ‘normal’, she returned to her place a little awkwardly. Before she could pick her boots up to examine them, both Khan and Gerek shoved more gifts toward her.

Bemused, wondering if it was a sort of game—like the old game of spin the bottle THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 93

with her being the bottle—Miranda glanced uncertainly from Gerek to Khan several times. Khan settled her dilemma by withdrawing his offering, but he glared at Gerek and that made her more than a little uneasy.

Gerek, she discovered, had made her a pair of trousers like those they wore. They were as soft as the leather Teron had used to make her boots. When in the world had they found the time to make these things, she wondered? While they’d been supposedly sleeping? They worked from daylight to dark.

Setting the latest gift on top of the others, Miranda offered him a kiss, as well. He accepted with an enthusiasm to rival Khan’s and Teron’s.

She felt downright tipsy by the time he let go of her, sweltering hot with the blood surging through her. Her world had narrowed to the circle she sat in. She had a vague awareness that similar ‘games’ were being played out around them, but no more than a nebulous sense that she wasn’t the only one receiving gifts or expressing her gratitude in a similar manner.

In a way, it was somewhat comforting, though. Wryly, she realized it was the

pack mentality she’d always deplored—as if shared guilt lessened individual guilt somehow. It didn’t, she knew, and yet she couldn’t really think straight. She was uneasy on one level, anxious that she might be creating trouble, either for herself or between them, by being so even handed with her affection. It didn’t seem right, though, to behave so enthusiastically about one gift and then to merely smile and say thanks when someone else gave her a gift that they’d also worked hard on.

Adar gave her a comb fashioned similarly to the ones Khan had made, except it

had clearly been designed to rake the tangles from her hair. He also gave her a kiss that rivaled the others for enthusiasm—and effect.

She felt as if she’d been drinking hard liquor by the time they began the second round of gift giving. This time they gave her things they’d obviously traded for; a knife from Khan similar to his but smaller; soap for bathing and washing her hair, from Teron; a blanket from Gerek; some sort of shift from Adar that seemed to be made out of real cloth rather than leather.

She thought, if she hadn’t been downright punch drunk, she might’ve wept with

pure joy. Even as discomfort began to settle inside of her with the realization that she didn’t have anything at all to give in return, Khan grasped her hand and hauled her to her feet.

A little stunned, thoroughly mystified, Miranda stumbled along in his wake as he led her away from the group, away from the light of the fire. They passed several entwined couples along the way, and it had begun to sink in what he had in mind before Khan halted, turned and swept her against his length.

That
was Hirachi courtship, Miranda thought a little blankly?

He took her smoothly to the ground when he discovered the difference in their

height made an upright embrace both awkward and uncomfortable. She’d barely settled when he sought her mouth with his, though, banishing any ability to think, any room for doubts or uncertainty.

Her mind had indelibly imprinted the feel and taste of him. Welcome rose inside of her in a heated tide. The kisses they’d shared before—the kisses she’d shared with the others—already had her coiled tightly inside with need. She thought, in fact, that she might come before Khan ended the kiss and dropped his mouth to explore her throat.

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“You are as generous hearted as you are beautiful,” he murmured feverishly.

“You will not regret choosing me as one of your lovers.”

She’d chosen, she thought a little blankly?

Lover?

One
of her lovers?

He distracted her by grabbing the hem of her ugly gown and nearly ripping it off of her. Briefly alarmed, to say nothing of the burning discomfort, she didn’t manage more than a sharp intake of breath at the disrobing before he dove for one breast and latched onto her nipple with an enthusiasm that punched the air out of her lungs. Fire poured through her, following a direct path from the sensitive nipple he’d closed his mouth around to her belly as if the two were connected with a pipeline designed to carry molten desire to her womb. She gasped as tremors rippled along her channel, certain for a handful of seconds that she’d just come.

He lifted his head when she began gasping a little hoarsely, staring at her.

Sensing his intense gaze, she managed to pry her eyelids open enough to peer at him.

Shadows cloaked him so far from the fire, but his eyes glowed. They were tumultuous with his needs and notched hers a little higher.

He uttered a ragged breath. “I am clumsy with need,” he murmured

apologetically, swallowing audibly before he dipped his head to explore her throat.

“Gods! I have wanted you, Miranda. Tell me how to give you pleasure. I don’t know what will please you.”

Shivering, Miranda lifted a hand blindly, found his head and stroked it, heaving a shaky breath. “You were doing just fine a moment ago,” she said a little teasingly, breathless, dizzy, anxious for him to get back to doing what he’d been doing. “Just kiss me, touch me. Everything you do pleases me—or skip all that and come inside of me.”

His head jerked upward at that, but he didn’t need to be invited twice. Pushing her legs apart, he settled his hips between them.

Contrary to her hopes, however, he didn’t attempt to enter her. He fitted his mouth to hers and kissed her as he had before, scattering her wits, carrying her down into the heated abyss of pleasure where she’d swum before. Waves of pleasure rolled through her with each caress of his tongue along hers. She stroked her tongue along his, absorbing the feel of his mouth and tongue, his taste, with a sense of rising desperation.

She felt the instant rise of pleasurable tension again, felt the muscles along her sex quake with need, felt the hot excretion of moisture filling her channel in hopefulness for his intimate caress.

The shaking need she felt in his hands as he explored her body, the raggedness of his breath as he followed the touch of his hands with his lips, suckled at her flesh, drove her to distraction. She gasped for breath, moaned her appreciation for each touch. She arched her back to offer her breasts to him when he’d wove a path along her chest that was driving her crazy, groaning his name when he accepted the offering and tugged at the tight buds that ached for his attention with the heated suction of his mouth.

Her heart felt as if it would beat her to death with excited anticipation when he finally surged upward and she felt the knob of flesh she’d been aching for connect with her body. She gripped his waist frantically with fingers curled into claws as he pressed deeper, driving her along the sand twice as far as the meager ground he conquered inside of her.

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Desisting when it apparently dawned on him, he panted for breath. “Am I hurting you?” he gasped hoarsely.

“You’re killing me, damn it! Give it to me!” Miranda ground out mindlessly.

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Chapter Eleven

He seemed confused by her demand. Grabbing him tighter, Miranda curled her

legs around his hips and tried to mount him.

She heard him grinding his teeth. Slipping one arm around her hips and the other around her shoulders, he tightened them bruisingly and pumped his hips jerkily.

Miranda groaned as if she was dying as she felt him gain a little headway, felt the pressure mount to the edge of pain as his thick member slid slowly deeper. She ignored the threat of pain. The mindless need hammering inside of her left no room for concern about anything beyond feeling the rub of his thick flesh along the achy segment of her channel. She nearly came with the first brush when he’d finally managed to drive deeply enough to touch it.

She felt like she was going to pass out. She couldn’t tell, though, if it was from the pleasurable rush that went through her with his first pass, or if she was dying from oxygen deprivation, or if she was coming apart at the seams from the mass of hard flesh that had begun to feel as if it might rupture something. She didn’t care either. Only one goal held place in her mind, assuaging the maddening itch.

Her natural lubrication finally rescued her from the distraction of growing pain and the possibility of internal injury, coating his flesh with a generosity that allowed him to slide home and hit bottom hard enough she ground her teeth.

He withdrew almost at once, gliding more smoothly outward and then returning

with a force that nearly buckled her spine—might have hurt if she’d been in any condition to notice. She wasn’t. Three strokes—two in, one in retreat—were enough to send her over the edge. She shuddered and jerked against him as her body exploded with rapturous, glorious waves of release.

Khan uttered a choked grunt as her climax rattled through him, shook his

desperate hold on his control loose and his body convulsed in nearly agonizing pleasure.

He couldn’t decide whether to keep pumping or stop, but it didn’t seem to be a matter of conscious decision. He shook and jerked with the force of the paroxysms as his body expelled the fluids that would carry his seed when he entered his cycle. It seemed to take his strength with it. By the time the seizures had finally stopped it was all he could do to hold himself off of Miranda to keep from crushing her.

He didn’t want to. He wanted to plaster himself against her and feel every inch of her body against his, to gather her close and enjoy holding her. He wanted to stay just as he was, feeling her hot flesh wrapped around his cock.

Straining against the increasing sense of weakness, he reluctantly pulled his flesh from hers and settled beside her, gathering her as closely to him as he could. Gods!

He’d wanted her so bad he’d nearly disgraced himself. Thank the gods she’d been as needy as he had. If she hadn’t come so quickly he wasn’t certain he could’ve held out to please her.

He wanted nothing so much as to lie holding her until he’d recovered enough to explore her again, but he knew the others were waiting. She hadn’t chosen him alone.

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He hadn’t actually expected that she would, but he was vastly disappointed, nevertheless.

It was worse that he was so near his cycle. He could already feel it in the need pounding through him to take her again immediately, the insane urge to meld his body with hers and simply stay.

He stroked her back, abruptly needing assurance that he’d given her pleasure, that he hadn’t just imagined it—needing to know he hadn’t hurt her. He murmured the questions against her hair, listening keenly for her answer above the blood pounding in his ears with a combination of rising desire and anxiety. Relief flooded him when he heard her assurances and beyond that, heard in her voice that she hadn’t merely said it to make him feel better when it wasn’t true.

He swallowed with an effort when he sensed that Teron was growing impatient.

“The sprawning is upon me … but if you will still have me as your lover afterward, I’ll learn all the ways to please you and give you the time you deserve, not rush as I did this time. I was … too needy for you.”

Miranda stared at him blankly when he kissed her lightly on the lips and rolled away from her, sensing he’d gotten up and moved away even though she couldn’t see that well in the darkness, hadn’t been able to see his face well enough to gauge his expression. She was still trying to gather her wits and figure out what he’d meant by his remarks when Teron dropped his knees beside her and gathered her against his length.

She didn’t even realize, at first, that it
was
Teron.

She thought she would’ve known instantly when he kissed her, though, even if he hadn’t murmured her name hoarsely a moment before and she’d recognized his voice.