"Those wee beasts don't belong to anyone. They need to not forget how to look after themselves. There won't always be someone to mind them . . . But I asked Thessa to put out food a few times a week. They’ll learn to like kibble from the market or remember how to make due on their own.”
That same afternoon, she sat before her screen on a team meeting, her microphone muted, attempting to look as interested and invested as she could. Tate had moved to her tiny kitchen with his own laptop, and she had been listening to him tapping away most of the morning. Now though, she heard his voice. Her ability to focus on her call diminished. She had no idea who he was talking to and what he was doing, but it was invariably more interesting that whatever this pompous bad executive was droning on about. Silva leaned back in her chair, attempting to hear him better.
He wasn't speaking the common. A Gaelic dialect of Elvish, too fast for her to attempt to pick out even a single word. She was forced to re-divert her attention back to her screen when the visuals for shared, the voice of her own supervisor catching her attention. But the time she was able to refocus on the call happening in her kitchen, it had changed. Still Gaeilge, although she was unable to tell if it was Trollish or something else.
Silva nearly fell backward out of her chair once her own meeting ended, scampering off to the kitchen as quickly as she could, trying and failing to look nonchalant. His call had ended.He sat before his open laptop scrolling through his phone, looking up with a sharp-edged smile at her entrance.
"Have you still managed to find a way to work?" she teased, squeaking when he searched upward from his chair, lifting her by the waist as he did so.
"Just some banking. It's a chore being mindful of the time difference."
He didn't offer anything else, and Silva hummed, stretching up to reach his lips.I suppose it makes sense that he still does banking overseas. Probably for his mother.
"I just have one more thing to finish up, and then I'm done. I was thinking we could go downtown today."
"Obviously we have to, Silva. If you don't visit the coffee shop, it will be a mark on your tally. You don't want to get run out of town, do you now?"
She gave him the sternest look she could muster, marred by her wide smile. "Anyway, I was thinking we could go downtown. There's this cool tea shop and a bookstore . . . I already drove you through Oldetowne, right? Ooo, I know! I can bring you to the history museum. It's a tiny little thing, but you'll love it. It's in an old carriage house, and they still have all the original everything inside."
She gasped as he lifted her higher, forcing her legs around his waist. Silva wrapped her arms around his long neck, knowing all too well that her smile was that of a cosseted house cat being spoiled with an extra dish of cream.This is everything you've wanted. The only thing that would be better is if we could fit in going to the kitten cafe.
"Whatever you want to do, dove. But before we leave to go anywhere, I think it would be wise to check on your injuries. Can't have you going septic on me."
She couldn't argue with his logic and had no complaints when he carried her to the bedroom, laying her down atopthe coverlet. Once he was on the bed, though, Silva got the distinct impression, as he peeled off her knit shorts and panties, spreading her legs open for his careful inspection, that his interest was not entirely rooted in merely checking on her physical well-being.
That first night in her bed, he'd been firm in her keeping her hands to herself.
"The only thing you're going to be doing naked is getting into the tub. We need to keep wounds clean. What do they even teach you in these Elvish schools?"
She'd not put up a fight, swallowing the pills he gave her for the inflammation and whining when he dabbed the bite with antibiotic ointment once more.
“It’s made for humans, dove. You have to take twice as much.”
She'd woken the previous night to the press of his erection, thick against her backside, and while she had been tempted to stroke him to completion, she wasn't eager to wake him, nor to be the recipient of this exact lecture about keeping her wound clean.
Her eyes fluttered closed when she felt his face lowering, biting her lip when he blew on her inflamed clit, cool and steady.
"Well, I suppose the good news is it doesn't look any worse."
She sucked in a breath when his fingers moved in, one on either side of the abused bud of nerves, neither touching it directly.
"You know, I think I've read that this bit here is only the tip of the organ. Like an iceberg, dove. The bit we lick is only the tip. There's a whole deadly threat just beneath the waves."
Her breathing was shallow as he moved his fingers in a gentle, steady rhythm, palpating around her clit without touching the abused hood. Silva bit her lip, wincing when she did so in the same spot he had punctured, a whine pulling from her throatas he continued to blow against the little bud of nerves, rubbing into the bulb beneath.
“Learned that in a book, you said? No practical, hand-on experience, Mister Smarty?”
He chuckled, dark and hot against her, remembering himself and blowing cooler air a moment later. “Book learnin’ and being miserable, dove. That’s practically Irish heritage.”
With his other hand, Tate slid two fingers into her, caressing her from the inside until she was canting upwards against his hand. It was simultaneously too much and not nearly enough. She knew that it would hurt to come again, the pulse of blood making her bite burn . . . but that burn was all she wanted. She needed him inside her, wanted to feel that white-tinged heat of pleasure and agony.
"This is how I want to spend the rest of my days, Silva. With your cunt on my mouth, hearing those little kitten moans. That's all I need to die happy. That's the sweetest thing there is in this world, on either side of the veil."
Yes. That’s all she wanted as well. The stroke of his tongue before stretching her with his cock. She had a hand in his hair, using his topknot to direct his head, for him to do exactly that, but he resisted the movement.
"Not now, you daft thing. It's as if youwantan infection."
At that, Silva gave an outraged laugh, pulling on his long ears. "Make up your mind! Fine, then I want you inside me." She didn't need to see his face to imagine his disgruntled look, hearing its accompanying grunt.
