But as they’d both quickly learned, there were a great many pleasurable activities that didn’t necessarily involve skin-on-skin.
“And did you tell her,” he whispered, gently moving aside the cup of her bra beneath her shirt, “that you’re mated to that hot, passive aggressive orc just in time for the holiday?”
“I—” Nelly’s sentence ended on a hiss as he carefully bit down on one taut nipple and rolled it between his teeth.
“Hm?” His right hand slipped between them to deftly slide under the waistband of her stretchy leggings and panties. He both thanked the gods for and loathed the gloves he’d begun to wear nearly twenty-four hours a day when he felt how wet and warm she was for him already.
Need to touch her taste her have to feel—
Clark ruthlessly clamped down on the boiling instinct to claim, channeling the ferocity of it into a sharp, punishing bite to her breast.
Nelly’s back arched. Her fingers clenched in his shirt as her hips rolled into his hand, seeking friction as he rubbed slow circles. She made an impatient sound in the back of her throat when he slid his fingers down. Though he was reluctant to leave her breasts, Clark sat up enough to stare down at her as she dropped her head back against the cushion.
Moving slowly, he speared her with two fingers, inch by inch, as he watched her expression transform with pleasure. “So pretty,” he breathed, pumping twice before he ground the heel of his palm down, giving her everything and more. “I want to kiss you so fucking bad right now, sugar.”
He wanted to kiss her just about every second of every day, but the wanting got especially intense when he made her come. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t a sight more beautiful in the whole world than his mate showing him how much pleasure he gave her.
But even though Nelly’s lips parted for him in invitation and even though she made that sweet, needy little sound, he didn’t take the chance. Clark gritted his teeth and doubled down on his efforts between her thighs instead.
When I kiss her for the first time, it’ll be when she asks me to. Not when she’s too far gone to care.
And that wouldn’t happen until she trusted him enough to believe knowingeverythingabout him wouldn’t hurt her.
Soon,he promised himself as he thrust his fingers faster and felt her begin to tighten around his gloved fingers.Soon.
ChapterThirteen
Goingby how often he caught her smiling to herself or looking at him with those soft eyes, he thought they’d made leaps and bounds toward progress. His hopes rose higher every day — and so did his tension as he struggled to keep a lid on his needs in such close proximity to her.
But on the morning of the third day they woke to discover sunlight streaming through their windows and cell signal restored. He’d been relieved and dismayed to discover a fair amount of snow had melted off already. If he was careful, he could make it to the ranch on foot or have Nelly drive him.
He didn’t want to leave, of course, but he needed new clothes and to check on his horse.
They were both quieter than normal during breakfast. He wondered if she felt the same dread that he did over the end of their time together. While he knewlogicallythat it was really the beginning of the rest of their lives, Clark couldn’t help but feel a heavy stone plop into his stomach at the thought that they were returning to the real world.
It wasn’t just that, he realized, listening to his mate speak to her parents for the first time in days. Of course he dreaded the blissful bubble popping, but he also couldn’t help but feel a little hurt when she didn’t tell her parents that she was mated.
Oh, she told them what had happened and all about being snowed in, but Nelly didn’t say a word about her bonding, nor his kohl. As far as her parents knew, she’d spent a few interesting days cooped up with her neighbor. He knew how close she was with them and how much their opinion mattered. He could hear it in her voice with every word she spoke. That she didn’t tell them about him was… not great.
She didn’t claim me.
Not like he would have if he called his parents. Not like he desperately wanted her to.
Clark sat across the table from her, his throat bobbing as he forced himself to swallow past the lump in his throat.
He didn’t blame her. They’d only been together for a few days. Though they’d made so much progress and she’d given him an extraordinary amount of trust, his mate had been badly scarred. She needed time and patience.
But the kohl didn’t give them that, and it didn’t make his volatile emotions the forgiving sort. Nesting with her, making her come, justexperiencingher — those things had taken some of the edge off, but days and days of close proximity without fulfillment couldn’t be nullified.
Every day he was strung tighter, waiting for her to give him the go-ahead. To hear her talk to her family without claiming him was an added torture he hadn’t anticipated.
The more he thought of it, the worse the feeling of dread grew. He thought back to her conversation with her sister. Had she ever answered his question about whether she told Clementine that they were mated? No, he didn’t think so.
His first instinct was todosomething. Surely there had to be some task he could accomplish, some feat he could pull off to show her that she could trust him. After all, that was what he was good at — earning his place,makingpeople like him enough to keep him around.
Clark sucked in a deep breath and held it. The sound of his mate’s voice was a pleasant hum in the distance as he grappled with conflicting desires.
The kohl pushed him to throw her over his shoulder and show her exactly who she belonged to, but the thought of pushing Nelly into something she wasn’t ready for filled him with a potent mix of rage and helplessness.
