The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"I'd rather dry off a little first," she said, noting that the horses were grazing on the steppes nearby, but not seeing any sign of Wolf. She felt a twinge of worry, but it wasn't the first time he had gone off alone for half a day. "Why don't you spread out the ground cover on that sunny patch of grass. You can relax while I make the tea."

Ayla got a good fire going while Jondalar got some water. Then she selected the dried herbs from her store of them, thinking about them carefully. She thought alfalfa tea would be good, since it was generally stimulating and refreshing, with some borage flowers and leaves, which made a healthful tonic, and gillyflowers for sweetness and a mild spicy taste. For Jondalar, she also chose some of the deep red male catkins from alder trees that she had collected very early in the spring. She remembered having mixed feelings when she picked them, thinking of her Promise to mate with Ranec, but all the while wishing it was with Jondalar instead. She felt a warm glow of happiness as she added the catkins to his cup.

When it was done, she carried the two cups of tea to the patch of grass where Jondalar was relaxing. Part of the ground cover he had spread out was in the shade already, but she was just as glad. The heat of the day had already warmed away the chill of the swim. She handed him a cup and sat down beside him. They rested together companion-ably, sipping the refreshing drinks, not saying much, watching the horses standing together head to back, flicking flies away from each other's faces with their tails.

When he finished, Jondalar lay back, his hands behind his head. Ayla was glad to see him more relaxed and not pushing to be up and going right away. She put her cup down, then stretched out on her side beside him, putting her head in the hollow below his shoulder, and her arm across his chest. She closed her eyes, breathing in his man scent, and felt him put his arm around her and his hand moving across her hip, in an unconscious gentle caress.

She turned her head and kissed his warm skin, then blew her breath toward his neck. He felt a slight shiver and closed his eyes. She kissed him again, then raised up and pressed a series of nibbling little kisses up his shoulder and neck. Her kisses tickled him almost more than he could bear, but it gave him such excruciating tingles of excitement, he resisted moving and forced himself to lie still.

She kissed his neck and throat, and his jaw, feeling the stubble of whiskers on her lips; then she lifted herself up until she reached his mouth and moved across his lips from one side to the other with her soft nibbles. When she reached the other side, she pulled back and looked down at him. His eyes were closed, but he had an expression of anticipation. Finally he opened his eyes and saw her leaning over him and smiling with absolute delight, her hair still damp and hanging over one shoulder. He wanted to reach for her, crush her to him, but he smiled back.

She bent down and explored his mouth with her tongue, so lightly he could hardly feel it, but the breeze blowing across the wetness sent unbelievable shivers through him. Finally, when he thought he could stand it no longer, she kissed him, firmly. He felt her tongue seeking entrance and opened his mouth to receive her. Slowly she explored inside his lips, and under his tongue, and the ribbed roof of his mouth, testing, touching, tickling, then barely kissed his lips with her light little nibbles until he couldn't stand it. He reached up and grabbed her head and brought her to him as he lifted his head to give her a firm, strong, satisfying kiss.

When he dropped his head back and let go, she was grinning mischievously. She had made him react, and they both knew it. As he watched her, being so pleased with herself, he was pleased, too. She was feeling innovative, playful, and he wondered what other delights she had in store for him. A surge of sensation pulsed through him at the thought. This could turn out to be interesting. He smiled and waited, watching her with his startling, deep blue eyes.

She leaned across and kissed his mouth again, and his neck and shoulders and chest, then his nipples. Then, in a sudden shift, she got up on her knees at his side and leaned over him the other way, reached down and grasped his enlarged organ. As she took as much as she could hold into her warm mouth, he felt her moist warmth enclose the sensitive end of his manhood, and go farther. She pulled back slowly, creating suction, and he felt a pulling that seemed to draw from some deep internal place and extend throughout every part of him. He closed his eyes and let himself feel the growing enjoyment, as she moved her hands and warm, pulling mouth up and down his long shaft.

She probed the end with her exploring tongue, then made rapid circles around it, and he began to want her with more urgency. She reached down to take the soft pouch below his member in her hand, and gently—he had told her to always be gentle there—felt the two mysterious, soft, round pebbles within. She wondered about them, what they were for, and felt they were important in some way. As her warm hands cupped his tender sac, he felt a different sensation, pleasurable but with a touch of concern for this sensitive place, which seemed to stimulate him in another way.

She pulled away then and looked at him. His intense pleasure in her and what she was doing showed on his face and in his eyes as he smiled at her, encouraging her. She was enjoying the process of Pleasuring him. It stimulated her in a different, but deep and exciting way, and she understood a little why he so loved to Pleasure her. She kissed him then, a long lingering kiss, then pulled back and put her leg over him, straddling him, facing his feet.

Sitting on his chest, she bent over and took his hard throbbing member in her two hands, one above the other. Though he was hard, extended, his skin felt soft, and when she held it in her mouth, he felt smooth and warm. She made her soft nibbling kisses down its length. When she reached the base, she reached farther down for his pouch, and took it gently in her mouth, feeling the firm roundnesses inside.

He shuddered as jolts of unexpected Pleasure eddied through him. It was almost too much.

Not only the tumultuous sensations he was feeling, but the sight of her. She had lifted up to reach him, and with her legs straddling him, he could see her moist, deep pink petals and folds, and even her delicious opening. She let go of his pouch and moved back to take his exciting, throbbing manhood into her mouth to suckle again, when she suddenly felt him move her back a little farther. Then, with an unexpected shock of excitement, his tongue had found her folds, and the place of her Pleasures.

He explored her eagerly, completely, using his hands and his mouth, suckling, manipulating, feeling the joy of Pleasuring her, and at the same time, the excitement she caused within him as she rubbed him back and forth while she suckled him.

She was ready quickly and could not hold back, but he was trying to, straining not to let go just yet. He could easily have given in, but he wanted more, so when she stopped as her charging senses overcame her, arching back and crying out, he was glad. He felt her wetness, then gritted his teeth as he struggled for control. Without their earlier Pleasures, he was sure he would not have been able to, but he held back and reached a plateau just before he peaked.

"Ayla, move around the other way! I want all of you," he said.

She nodded, understanding. And, wanting all of him, too, she backed off and then straddled him the other way. Lifting up, she eased his fullness into herself, and then lowered down. He moaned and called her name, over and over, feeling her deep warm well receive him. She felt pressures in sensitive different places as she moved up and down, guiding the direction of the hard fullness inside her.

At the plateau he had reached, his need was not quite as urgent. He could take a little time. She leaned forward, in yet another, slightly different position. He pulled her closer so he could reach her enticing breasts, held one to his mouth, and suckled hard; then he reached for the other, and finally, holding them together, both at the same time. As always, when he suckled her breasts, he felt the quivering excitement deep and low inside her.

She could feel herself building again as she moved up and down and back and forth on him. He was rising above the plateau, feeling his stronger urges coming over him again, and when she sat back, he grasped her hips and helped guide her movements, pushing up and pulling down. He felt a surge as she lifted up, and then, suddenly, he was there. She moved down on him again, and he cried out with the quaking tremor that rose from deep in his loins in a towering eruption, as she moaned and shuddered with the burst that roared within her.

Jondalar guided her up and down a few more times, then pulled her down on him and kissed her nipples. Ayla quivered once more, then collapsed on him. They lay still, breathing hard, trying to catch their breaths.

Ayla was just beginning to breathe easy when she felt something wet on her cheek. For a moment she thought it was Jondalar, but it was cold as well as wet, and there was a different, though not unfamiliar, smell. She opened her eyes and looked into the grinning teeth of a wolf. He nosed at her again, and then between them.

"Wolf! Get away from here!" she said, pushing his cold nose and wolfish breath away, then rolled over on her side beside the man. She reached up and grabbed Wolf's ruff and pulled her fingers through his fur. "But I am glad to see you. Where have you been all day? I was getting a little worried." She sat up and held his head in her two hands and put her forehead down on his, then turned toward the man. "I wonder how long he's been back."

"Well, I'm glad you taught him not to bother us. If he had interrupted us in the middle of that one, I'm not sure what I would have done to him," Jondalar said.

He got up, then helped her up. Taking her in his arms, he looked down at her. "Ayla, that was ... what can I say? I don't begin to have the words to tell you."

She saw such a look of love and adoration in his eyes, she had to blink back tears. "Jondalar, I wish I had words, but I don't even know any Clan signs that would show you what I feel. I don't know if there are any."

"You just did show me, Ayla, in much more than words. You show me every day, in so many ways." Suddenly he pulled her to him and held her close, feeling his throat constrict. "My woman, my Ayla. If I ever lost you..."

Ayla felt a quiver of fear at his words, but she only held him tighter.

"Jondalar, how do you always know what I really want?" Ayla asked. They were sitting in the golden glow of the fire, sipping tea, watching sparks from the pitchy pine wood pop and send showers of sparks up into the night air.

Jondalar was feeling more rested, contented, and at ease than he had for some time. They had fished in the afternoon—Ayla showed him how she tickled a fish out of the water by hand—then she found soapwort and they had bathed and washed their hair. He had just finished a wonderful meal of some of the fish, plus the slightly fishy-tasting eggs of marsh birds, a variety of vegetables, a doughy cattail biscuit cooked on hot rocks, and a few sweet berries.