The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“I ask, because I want to please you. If you like a beard, I’ll let it grow.”

“It does not matter. Your beard is not important. You are important. You give me please … No.” She shook her head angrily. “You give me pleases … Pleasures … you please me,” she corrected.

He grinned at her efforts, and the unintended double meaning of her word. “I would like to give you Pleasures.” He pulled her to him again, and kissed her. She snuggled down beside him, on her side. He rolled over, then sat up and looked down at her. ?

??Like the first time,” he said. “There’s even, a donii to watch over us.” He looked at the niche with the firelit ivory carving of the motherly figure.

“It is the first time … in a place of the Others,” she said, closing her eyes, feeling both anticipation and the solemnity of the moment.

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed both eyelids, then gazed for a long moment at the woman he thought more beautiful than any woman he’d ever known. There was a quality of the exotic about her. Her cheekbones were higher than Zelandonii women, her eyes more widely spaced. They were framed with thick lashes, darker than her heavy hair that was gold as autumn grass. Her jaw was firm, her chin slightly pointed.

She had a small straight scar in the hollow of her throat. He kissed it, and felt her shiver with pleasure. He moved back up and looked down at her again, then kissed the end of her fine, straight nose, and the corner of her full mouth, where it turned up in the hint of a smile.

He could feel her tension. Like a hummingbird, motionless but full of quivering excitement he couldn’t see, only sense, she was keeping her eyes closed, making herself lie still and wait. He watched her, savoring the moment, then he kissed her mouth, opened his and sought entry with his tongue, and felt her receive it. No prodding this time, only gently seeking, and then accepting hers.

He sat up, saw her open her eyes and smile at him. He pulled off his tunic, and helped her off with hers. Easing her back down, he leaned over and took a firm nipple in his mouth, and suckled. She gasped as a shock of excitement coursed through her. She felt a warm wet tingling between her legs, and wondered why Jondalar’s mouth on her nipple should make her feel sensation where he hadn’t even touched.

He nuzzled and nibbled lightly, until she pushed toward him, then sucked in earnest. She moaned with pleasure. He reached for the other breast, caressed its full roundness and turgid tip. She was already breathing hard. He let go of her breast and began to kiss her neck and throat, found her ear and nibbled on a lobe, then blew in it, caressing her arms and her breasts with both hands. Shivers shook her.

He kissed her mouth, then ran his warm tongue slowly over her chin, down the middle of her throat, between her breasts, and down to her navel. His manhood had grown again, and pushed insistently against the restraints of the drawstring closure. He untied her drawstring first, and pulled the long pants off, then starting at her navel, continued in the direction he was going. He felt soft hair, and then his tongue found the top of her warm slit. He felt her jump when he reached a small, hard bump. When he stopped, she gave a small cry of dismay.

He untied his own drawstring then, and let his striving member free as he pulled off his trousers. Ayla sat up and took it in her hand, letting it slide back and forth over the full length, feeling the warmth, the smooth skin, the hard fullness. He was pleased that his size did not frighten her, as it had so many women when they first saw him, not even the first time. She bent down to him, and he felt her warm mouth enclose him. He felt pulling as she moved up and down, and he was glad he had already released his strongest urge or he might not have found the control now.

“Ayla, this time I want to Pleasure you,” he said, pushing her away.

She looked at him with eyes dilated, dark and luminous, kissed him, and then nodded. He held her shoulders and pushed her back down on the furs, and kissed her mouth and throat again, giving-her chills of Pleasure. He cupped both breasts in his hands, held them together, and went from one sensitive nipple to the other, and in between. Then his tongue found her navel again, and he circled it with an ever-increasing spiral, until he reached the soft hair of her mound.

He moved over between her thighs, spreading them, then spread her folds back with his hands and savored a long slow taste. She shuddered, half sat up, cried out, and he felt himself surge anew. He loved to Pleasure her, to feel her response to his skill. It was like drawing a fine blade out of a piece of flint. It gave him a special feeling of joy to know he had been the first to give her Pleasure. She had only known force and pain before he had evoked in her the Gift of Pleasure which the Great Earth Mother had given to Her children.

He explored her tenderly, knowing where her pleasurable sensations lay, teasing them with his tongue, and with his skilled hands, reaching inside. She began to move against him, crying out and tossing her head, and he knew she was ready. He found the hard bump, began to work it, while her breath came fast, his own thrusting manhood eager for her. Then she cried out, he felt a wetness, as she reached for him.

“Jondalar … ahhh … Jondalar!”

She was beyond herself, beyond any knowing except him. She wanted him, wanted to feel his fullness inside her. He was on her, she was helping him, guiding him, then he was sliding in, and felt a surge that brought him to that inexpressible peak. It backed off, and he plunged in again, deep; she embraced him all.

He pulled out, and then pushed in again, and again, and again. He wanted to draw it out, make it last. He wanted it never to end, and yet he couldn’t wait for it. With each powerful push, he felt closer. Sweat glistened on their bodies in the flickering light as they matched their timing, found their stride, and moved with the rhythm of life.

Breathing hard, they strained to meet at each stroke, reaching, pulsing, all will, all thought, all feeling concentrated. Then, almost unexpectedly, the intensity peaked. In a burst beyond them both, they reached the crest, and broke through with a spasm of joy. They held for a moment, as though trying to become one with each other, and then let go.

They lay unmoving, catching their breaths. The lamp sputtered, dimmed, flared up again, then went out. After a while Jondalar rolled over and lay beside her, feeling in a twilight state between sleeping and waking. But Ayla was still wide awake, her eyes open in the dark, listening, for the first time in years, to sounds of people.

The murmur of low voices, a man’s and a woman’s, came from the bed nearby, and a little beyond it, the shallow rasping breath of the sleeping shaman. She could hear a man snoring at the next hearth, and from the first hearth, the unmistakable rhythmic grunts and cries of Talut and Nezzie sharing Pleasures. From the other direction, a baby cried. Someone made comforting sounds until the crying stopped abruptly. Ayla smiled, no doubt a breast had been offered. Farther away voices of restrained anger rose in an outburst, then hushed, and still farther a hacking cough could be heard.

Nights had always been the worst time during her lonely years in the valley. During the day she could find something to do to keep busy, but at night the stark emptiness of her cave had pressed heavily. In the beginning, hearing only the sound of her own breath, she even had trouble sleeping. With the Clan, there was always someone around at night—the worst punishment that could be inflicted was to be set apart, alone; avoidance, ostracism, the death curse.

She knew only too well that it was, indeed, a terrible punishment. She knew it even more at that moment. Lying in the dark, hearing the sounds of life around her, feeling the warmth of Jondalar beside her, for the first time since she met these people, whom she called Others, she felt at home.

“Jondalar?” she said softly.

“Hmmmm.”

“Are you sleeping?”

“Not yet,” he mumbled.

“These are nice people. You were right, I did need to come and get to know them.”

His brain cleared quickly. He had hoped, once she met her own kind of people and they were no longer so unknown, they would not seem so fearful to her. He had been gone many years, the Journey back to his home would be long and difficult, she had to want to come with him. But her valley had become home. It offered everything she needed to survive, and she had made a life for herself there, using the animals as a substitute for the people she lacked. Ayla did not want to leave; instead she had wanted Jondalar to stay.