“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. If I could do it all again I would. I wish I had. I shouldn’t have listened to you! I’m—”
“Josephine, calm.”
The hard command startled her out of her fit. She stilled, breaths puffing against his throat, and slowly curled her fingers into the flesh and wiry hair of his chest. “I thought I might lose you,” she whimpered.
Otto wrapped his arms around her slim back, noting the fact that she was dressed in nothing but a cotton nightgown, and pressed her more tightly against him. “Never.”
“You’ve been feverish for three days. I was starting to worry you’d never wake up again.”
“How could I die when I have not given you all I promised?” he asked, rubbing his lips against the soft, wispy hair that marked her hairline. “No,kone,I will not die until you and I are gray. We have many, many years yet.”
She shuddered, nodding frantically, and pressed a reverent kiss to her bite. The simple touch only inflamed him more.Nothingwas as pleasurable as attention to a mating bite. He felt that tiny kiss all the way to his fucking toes.
Trying to get a handle on the lust that threatened to make a fool out of his weakened body, Otto asked, “What has happened?”
Now stroking his chest, she answered, “After you collapsed, Lee said we needed to get over the border as soon as possible to get you help. The— the patron escaped with an m-gate, so we took his carriage. The men helped me make it comfortable for you and then we left with everything they could carry. Mother is with us too, but she’s kept apart from everyone because she won’t stop weeping. Mostly we’ve traveled at night. We passed over the border just this morning.”
That was all good news and plenty to digest, but all he could think was, “Were they kind to you,kone?Have you been frightened?”
A submissive around an entire battalion of strange war-hardened, dominant shifters? A submissive whose mate was unconscious and might be dying? The more he thought of it, the more he felt like an idiot for asking.Of courseshe was frightened. Guilt lodged in his throat like a ball of thorns.
Some mate I’ve been.
Perhaps feeling his agitation, Josephine reached up to stroke his cheek and the rough hair of his beard with her gentle fingers. “They have been very kind,” she assured him, sounding both shy and pleased. “They ask me at least ten times a day if I need anything, and they are very careful not to startle me. Lee said that anyone who scares me will get a week on latrine duty. It’s been— I am grateful. I don’t think I’ve ever been treated so respectfully.”
The tension left him in one great exhale.Thank the gods. I didn’t want to have to kill anyone.
“And you’re well?” he pressed, hands running up and down her slim frame, searching for bandages, splints, stitches.
Josephine’s breath hitched when his fingers skimmed the undersides of her breasts. “Yes. Only bumps and a few bruises.”
“Thank the gods.” He cupped her breast possessively, feeling its warm weight in his palm. The mating fever, forced to a simmer by his illness, roared to life.
Otto’s heart beat faster when the faintest scent of her arousal, rich and sweet, reached him.Need to touch her,instinct demanded, desperate for her after so many days without.Need her. Need her so bad it hurts.
He was too weak to fuck her, and wouldn’t do so in a moving carriage driven by a sharp-nosed and even sharper-eared shifter, but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching down to hitch her leg higher up on his hip, pressing her cunt against his straining cock. Even with the layers of her nightgown and the blanket between them, it was bliss.
The rock and sway of the carriage made them both groan.
“My mate,” he whispered, pressing kisses to her hairline and down her cheek. “I’m starving for you.”
Josephine made the softest, neediest sound in the back of her throat. Still, she managed to protest, “You need to rest—”
“I need my mate,” he growled, low enough that shifter ears wouldn’t hear it over the clatter of hooves and creaky carriage. After all the fear, after days of drifting in the fever without her, he felt the desire to touch Josephine like knives running over every inch of his skin. “I need to feel you,kone.”
Blood rushed in his ears as he grabbed a fistful of her nightgown and wrenched it up around her waist. Josephine made that needy sound again. Pressing one kiss after another against the bite, she began to rock her hips against him in time with the sway of the carriage.
Otto slid his hand around the back of her thigh, over the silky curve of her backside, to find her cunt hot, wet, and ready for him.
He had to squeeze his eyes shut and grit his teeth to avoid spilling under the damn blanket. “I promise I’ll take my time with you when we are settled,” he whispered, fingers stroking through the slick heat between her trembling thighs.
A swift nip to the tender bitemark made his hips jerk. “If you won’t rest, then touch menow.”
Otto didn’t need to be told twice. Giving her ass a quick pinch, he growled, “Get under the blanket. And unbutton your nightgown. Show me your pretty breasts.”
Josephine raised herself up until she was straddling him, pressing her center down against his cock with maddening pressure. Her elegant fingers worked the buttons of her nightgown free as her dark hair, long and shining, spilled over her shoulders. Moonlight limned her silhouette. All the while, her striking eyes watched him with the same furious hunger he felt gnawing at his gut.
“Never seen anything so beautiful as you,” he rasped, unable to stop himself from reaching up to cup her perfect breasts. They were little more than a handful and tipped with small pink nipples already budded with desire. He rolled them carefully between his thumbs and forefingers, his eyes on her flushed cheeks, her parted lips.
