As I get to her side, she straightens her shoulders, stabbing the butt of the spear into the snow and taking another step forward. She gives me a reproachful look. “If you’re going to yell at me again, I’m moving as fast as I can.”
“I am not going to yell,” I say patiently. I move to her side and sweep her into my arms, carrying her like a tired kit. “Come. We are close to our camp for the night.”
She does not protest. She does not say anything, but I hear her sniffle again and it wounds my heart.
We head back to the cave, and I set her on her feet to walk inside. Immediately, I kneel next to the fire pit and begin working on creating a tinder pile.
“Do you want me to try and learn how to do that?” D’see asks behind me, her voice dull.
I think about last night, and how excited she was when she’d stoked her fire once more, eager to please me. That eagerness is gone this day, and I have destroyed it. Truly, I am the worst of males. “You can unroll the furs,” I say, not looking up. “Prepare a bed for us.”
She says nothing and gets to work, and I start the fire. When it is flickering and warm a short time later, I put a tripod over it, preparing a pouch for tea. Once I have it filled with snow, I turn toward D’see. She sits on a nearby stone, one set inside for use as a seat, her hands twisted in her lap. The bed furs are spread out nearby, but she deliberately avoids glancing their way. She looks anxious, and it frustrates me that I have caused that look on her face.
I move toward her on my knees and begin to untie her layers of furs. “I am a bad mate to you. Perhaps you should choose another.”
She sniffs again, wiping at her eyes. “What makes you think I want another? I don’t want to do this with anyone else. I just…wish you liked me more.”
Liked her more? I do not think it is possible for me to like her more. Already I am obsessed with her. “You know I like you. I just…do not like it when you mention Johani.”
“Yeah, well, he never made me walk up a mountain.” She swipes at her wet cheeks.
I do not point out that I have not asked her to walk up a mountain, either. We have gone up a few gentle hills, nothing more. I peel off her first layer of furs and then move on to the next one. “I do not like hearing his name, because it makes me think of how he was cruel to you.”
D’see’s posture changes. The look she gives me is confused. “Cruel? He was never cruel to me.”
Does she not see it that way? “He told you of all the ways you should be a good mate to him constantly. How you should look. How you should act. How you should speak.” I pull another layer of furs off of her and toss it aside. “He made you think you are not perfect as you are. And you were in his bed for ten long turns of the seasons and he never touched you. To me, that is cruel.”
Her breath hitches as my hands go to the front of her tunic, and I pull at the tie at her neck. “Are you going to touch me?”
“I am.” I meet her gaze. “If you want me to.”
She nods, her eyes wide.
I loosen her tunic and then move to the ties at her waist. “Hearing his name makes me jealous, too,” I confess, tugging on her leggings. She shifts in her seat, allowing me to drag them down her thighs.
“Jealous?”
I nod, pulling off her boots and the rest of her leathers, until she is wearing only the loose tunic over her torso. I slide my hands over her legs, feeling her soft, cold skin. My thumbs graze the insides of her thighs, and I think about what U’dron said earlier. My cock and sac are tight with hunger, but more than that, I want to make D’see feel good. I want to give her pleasure. Mine can wait.
“Why were you jealous?” she prompts again, her thighs quivering when I stroke my hands over them. She sounds breathless. Nervous.
Needy.
Good, because my pulse is throbbing with just how much I need her. “Because you speak of him with such fondness,” I admit, skimming my thumb up the inside of her thigh. “Even though he could not give you what you wanted, you still care for him. And I want to be the only male on your lips.”
Her thighs part slightly, and a wave of her arousal scent hits me. I growl low in my throat, pushing her thighs farther apart at the realization. I want more of this.