I giggle. “Do you think I do not know what mating is?”
His chuckle feels warm against my skin. “It’s not that. I mean, when I met you, you were naked. But sometimes I think you know about something and you surprise me. So just humor a guy on this, all right? I don’t want to make you run away screaming if I try to touch you.”
“Am I screaming with pleasure?” I ask, trailing a finger across his hard chest. “And am I running slow enough so you can catch me?”
“Woman, you are entirely too much of a tease. Be serious for a moment.”
Be serious? He is already far too serious for the both of us. Besides, I like making him smile. “If you are asking where kits come from, I know already.” He relaxes against me, and so I cannot help but add, “They come from the magic basket.”
“Uh…what?”
“Yes,” I say firmly, doing my best not to laugh. I avoid looking him in the eye as I trail my fingers up and down his abdomen. Such a nice, firm, flat abdomen. “When a khui sings to another khui, it tells the mated pair that it is time to make a magic basket. They work for many days and nights to make the basket as perfectly woven as they can, and when they are done, they put the basket out in the snow. They wait for the suns to fill the basket up with light.”
“Gods help me,” he whispers.
I smother my giggles, continuing in a choked voice. “Then, when the basket is full, the male sa-khui takes out his cock and fills the basket with his seed—”
“What?”
A giggle-snort escapes me, because I cannot hold it back any longer.
“Oh, I see how it is.” There’s laughter in Mardok’s tone, and he grabs the hand I have on his chest and tugs it over my head, pinning me down to the furs. He leans in close, an amused smile on his face. “You little tease.”
I flutter my lashes at him. “You do not think I believe in a magic basket?”
“I think you are a minx.” He leans in closer again. “So I guess it was a dumb question, huh?”
I chuckle, wiggling under him. “There is much I do not know, but I know how to do that. I just have not practiced it myself.”
“So I’m your first?” He looks proud, and I am suddenly glad I waited.
I nod. “Am I your first, too?”
A look of chagrin crosses his face. “Not…exactly. I wish you were, though.” He presses a light kiss to my mouth. “Are you disappointed?”
I shake my head. “Nothing about you disappoints me. I could not have asked for anything more in a mate.”
He kisses me lightly again, and I flick my tongue against his lips as he does, encouraging him to kiss me deeper. He does, and for the next while, we are lost in a tangle of tongues, our mouths mating over and over again. Heat pools in my body, focused between my thighs, and I raise my hips to rub up against him.
The feel of him is driving me wild, and I roll him onto hisback, kissing him hard before I break free. “I want to touch you everywhere. Can I?”
“Of course.”
I sit back on my haunches, my tail flicking with excitement. His tail grabs mine and wraps around it, and I gasp. It feels as if he’s touched me in my most intimate of spots with that small gesture. Tails have taken on quite an appeal suddenly.
“Did I distract you?” he asks, putting his hands behind his head. His body is long and lean like this, and I cannot help but admire the breadth of his shoulders and the finely muscled arms…and the way his cock juts, thrusting upright from his body.
I will play with it soon enough, I decide. “Is there anything you do not want me to do?”
He shakes his head. “I’m yours, Farli.”
I like the sound of that. I lean forward and decide I will start at the top. I skim my fingers along the bristles of his shaven scalp. With his mane cut away, it makes his horns look even more prominent than usual, and I decide I like it. It is different, and I like all the changes he has that make him unique. I rub his head for a moment, and he closes his eyes with pleasure. It makes me smile, but I move on, because there is so much to explore.
I let my fingers glide up the length of his horns, moving over the shiny stuff. “What is this that covers them?”
“Metal. I guess you guys don’t have it here.”
How very strange. “Does it hurt to have your horns covered?”
