Kehl came up behind me as I straightened, grabbed a pot to fill with water and heat up on the stove, and turned my back on him.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. “You don’t get to expect every part of me, while withholding so much of yourself from me. It’s not fair.”
Kehl made an unhappy noise but made no move to close the distance between us.
Knowing I wasn’t being fair to him either and I knew it, I blew out a deep breath. “Maybe you were right in putting some distance between us before.”
“No want space my Purr-roo no more,” Kehl rumbled out softly.
I don’t know what possessed me— that’s exactly what I felt like, like there was a demon inside of me calling the shots— when I whipped around and snapped, “It’s not all just up to you to say, now is it?!”
Kehl, back to his Lo denaii form, blinked down at me in surprise.
Tense, shoulders hunched, I fought for calm. “Take those with you,” I muttered, motioning to his discarded horns atop the table.
Kehl leaned towards me suddenly and gave a sniff. Swatting him away from me, I threw him a dirty look over my shoulder. Kehl stared down at me in confusion. That made two of us. I had no clue what the hell was wrong with me but him being this close yet so far out of my reach felt like a punishment.
“My Purr-roo ‘kay?” he asked.
Staring off into the pot on the stove, I muttered, “I’m just tired and want to be alone.”
Kehl hesitated. “My Purr-roo be ‘kay? No want help clean mess?”
“I’m fine.” I sounded anything but. My tone was angry, this ache in my chest full of defeat.
Kehl looked reluctant to go but I was looking anything but friendly.
Despite my insistence he leave, Kehl stayed.
While I scrubbed the hut of every trace of him, taking with it that peppermint scent I wanted to wrap myself up in and breathe in forever, he was right there alongside me, working in tandem.
“Kehl stay,” he announced as he walked the pot back inside from dumping the dirtied water on the vegetation outside.
“I don’t recall inviting you to stay,” I muttered.
“Dades say,” Kehl grunted out as he followed behind me like a puppy, right up to my bed.
Ignoring him, I slid in, snuggling up in Cy’s pelt. Studying the small cot bed, Kehl turned and blew out the candles I had lit and walked back over to me. Without a word, he scooped me up, pelt and all, and then carefully laid down with me.
“Sleep on the floor,” I muttered petulantly.
“No,” he said simply. I felt him smiling against the top of my head as he nuzzled against my skin and wrapped himself around me, like my sudden case of prickliness amused him.
“I’m hot. You’re smothering me,” I lied hotly.
Kehl’s purring response made me squirm in his sweet embrace. “My Purr-roo cold. Kehl keep my Purr-roo warm.”
Lips pursing, eyes narrowing, I grumbled, “Whatever you say, Kehlro.”
Kehl laughed then. I’m lying here trying to be an asshole and put a little space between us and he’s laughing and loving on me.
Annoyance itched at me.
Kehl placed a kiss to the back of my head, then lower, down my neck.
Starting to squirm in place, I grumbled unkind things under my breath, digs to get him to feck off already, but this just egged him on.
A soft gasp left me as he found a spot on my neck and teased and nipped, lapped at the sensitive bit of flesh. That sound turned into a moan as he bit down gently, to immediately release the pinched flesh to kiss his way down my shoulder.
