I didn’t think I’d ever get used to this, Taylor grabbing my hand and smiling at me as if I were a harmless hunter and not a cursed male with a beast lurking under my skin.
We entered the cave and my heart rate increased even more than before.
“Um,” Taylor turned to me and bit her bottom lip, and just like before when she was cleaning my wound on the beach, seeing her nervous gesture somehow made me want to be brave for the both of us.
“Should we get started?” I broke the awkward silence first.
“Umm yeah, I’ll grab my supplies while you grab yours, and we’ll cuddle together on the bed where it’s most comfortable.”
She seemed more confident again, which made one of us. I watched as Taylor bent over and grabbed her basket, and all the logical thoughts left my head.
Supplies. Supplies. What supplies? My brain was not working at the moment. Bone carving! That was it. I don’t think I can concentrate on the small movements bone carving requires while Taylor sat on my lap, though.
I looked over and saw Taylor grabbing her knitting supplies, and decided I would do the same. The winter months were coming, and I needed a new sweater to replace my old one.
Neelu and Drondia would spend the summer weaving plant fibers together for us to use to make clothes in the winter. The hu-mans called the woven fibers yarn.
Jax’s sire was the most talented knitter among us. He would spend long days in the clearing knitting sweaters of all sizes for our dekes. Yesterday I saw him secretly knitting a tiny sweater which I assumed he planned to gift to Tarak and Gabby’s sietling when the little one arrives.
It will be both a welcome and strange experience having a sietling among us. With three mated couples and potentially more to come, we might soon be surrounded by children in our mountain home.
“You’re not doing your bone carving?” Taylor asked as I approached with my basket of knitting supplies.
I shook my head. “It will be easier to knit while we cuddle.” My voice caught on the last word, causing Taylor to smile at me.
“Sounds good to me. Why don’t you sit down first, and I’ll settle in on your lap.”
Taylor waited patiently as I sat down on the furs and leaned my back against the wall.
“Are you ready for me to join you?” she bit her bottom lip again, looking nervous.
“I’m ready.” I motioned for her to come sit.
She set her basket next to mine, and I held my breath as she sat down, settling herself onto my lap. She was so soft and warm, like a perfect blanket on a cold winter day, one that soothed my very soul.
“In through the tunnel,
Around the mountain,
Out through the tunnel,
Jump off the mountain.”
Taylor repeated the rhyme that Drondia and Neelu had taught the hu-mans when they showed them how to knit. It was the same rhyme I was taught as a sietling when I first learned it.
Having her weight pressed against me was pleasant, comfortable even. I hadn’t expected that. Every time we’d cuddled before, it had been an accident brought on by our circumstances. This was different. This was intentional. I thought it would feel strange or wrong somehow, but it didn’t. It felt right.
How did Taylor feel about it? She had made it clear that we were friends, and that she thought I was worth caring for, but it was one thing to cuddle with a friend to keep up a lie, and another to cuddle with someone simply because you wanted to.
Maybe there would come a day when she’d want to cuddle with me for the joy of it and not to practice.
I kept my thoughts to myself and enjoyed her sweet scent as it made its way to my nose. Soon my entire cave would smell like her, and once our fake mating was over, I’d never want to leave.
“How’s your project coming along?” Taylor asked as she craned her neck to look back at me.
I held up my half-knitted sweater. “It’s coming along. How about you?”
Taylor held up her sweater, which seemed a little lopsided. “Same. I don’t think I’ll win any fashion contests with this though,” she laughed to herself.
