Raye might have bristled at that, argued that, but for the unmistakable catch in Gaelfr’s voice, in his eyes. As if… he was including himself in this, too.
“So…youfeel this bond, too?” she demanded, sharper than she intended. “This — sickness?”
Gaelfr hesitated, as if he’d been about to deny it, but then he sighed, and nodded. “Mayhap not as strong as you, but ach, I yet feel this. I have felt this each day, since I first left myástvinurbehind.”
There was genuine pain in his voice, and grief, too, and Raye kept searching his face, his shadowed quiet eyes. “And is that… also part of why you left?” she asked. “Why you left Kalfr behind, and went all the way across the sea?”
Gaelfr grimaced, but nodded. “The greater the distance, the weaker this bond becomes. But then” — he hesitated, exhaled — “it can also feel as though the bond, and thus the bondmate, is gone. As though they are lost, forever.”
Right. And wasn’t that what Kalfr had said, back when he and Gaelfr had been fighting below?Fearing with every day, every breath, that you were dead…
And then,I could not have borne this loss again, with Svein. Nor… with her.
So Kalfr… hadn’t wanted to lose his bond with Raye. He’d wanted to keep feeling her. To know she was alive.Safe.
“But… you don’tseemsick,” Raye said to Gaelfr, over that swooping, gut-twisting thought. “You seem… fine. Normal. Less hateful than usual, even.”
And why did she care, why was she still talking about this with him? But maybe she wanted him to keep talking to her, too. To keep touching her, to let her keep touching him, breathing him…
“Ach, mayhap,” Gaelfr replied, with a rueful half-smile. “But I also sparred with Kalfr earlier, and touched him, and tasted him, and near drank him. Whilstyou” — he raised his brows toward her — “have not once even touched him since we met, ach? And then you two fought thus, also, and made this even worse. By now, I ken your bond must be either driving you to tackle him, or mayhap to claw out his eyes.”
Raye’s mouth twitched up, and her hand stroked on its own against Gaelfr’s warm chest, spreading over his heartbeat. Which was thudding faster than she might have expected, and the fact that they were talking about this — being companionable about this — made her own heartbeat stutter, along with a low, whispering heat in her belly.
“But I ken,” Gaelfr added, as his own still-stroking hand slid further downward, and tugged at Raye’s skirts, “some tending will help you.”
Raye gaped at him, and then shivered all over, because wait, yes, he was pulling up her skirts. Truly about totendher, likethat, here in Kalfr’s house. And wait, he’d even told Svein and Kalfr he was going to do that, hadn’t he?
“Gaelfr,” Raye gasped, scandalized. “You can’t…tendme. Here.Now.”
“Ach, yes, I can,” Gaelfr replied, cool and steady, as he deliberately finished drawing her skirts up over her waist, and settled his warm hand to her bare thigh. “The door is thick and latched, and Svein is well cared for, so what better time to do this? You are sick and ill at ease over your bond, and this shall help you.”
Raye hauled in a breath, and shuddered at the feel of Gaelfr’s capable hand slipping up further between her thighs, nudging them apart. “But why,” she gasped, “would this help me? When you’re not…him?”
But curse her, maybe it was helping, and maybe it had already been helping, too. Gaelfr’s scent, his touch, his stubborn familiar safety. And it didn’t make sense, not that, or the way her body thrilled all over at his fingers’ first gentle touch between her parted legs.
“I have told you this, woman,” he said, as those audacious fingers slipped deeper, stroking up and down her slick, already-spasming crease. “Kalfr is myástvinur, and I bear much of his scent upon me. Thus, I will help you.”
And thus, you are mine, came the whisper, the memory.Mine to guard.Mine to command. Mine to tend and feed and fatten as I see fit…
Raye shuddered again, while Gaelfr’s warm stroking fingers nudged closer, right where she craved them most. “And will this,” her audacious, impossible voice gasped, “also helpyou?”
It was perhaps striking too close, because Gaelfr didn’t answer, even as those fingers slowly, inexorably, began sinking up inside. Filling her with casual, familiar ease, as if he had every right, and maybe he did, oh gods…
“Good,” he grunted, as his fingers settled all the way, his knuckles grinding against her stretched-open crease. “Three fingers to begin, this time. You are learning.”
Raye sputtered and glared at him, but he only flashed her his sharp, wolfish smile. “Better already, is it not?” he asked. “You ought to be thanking me, woman. Begging for more of my good fresh seed in your belly.”
Raye couldn’t deny her choked, helpless moan, or the thoroughly betraying spasm of her impaled body against him — while Gaelfr chuckled into her ear, the utter bastard, as he smoothly eased his fingers out, and sank them back in again. “That pleased you last eve, did it not?” he purred, over the slick wet sounds now emanating from around his sliding fingers. “Itpleased you, to have a strong Bautul handle you, and stopper your pouting mouth with his fat, leaking prick.”
Fuck. Raye moaned again, grimacing, shaking her head, but Gaelfr’s fingers kept working her, playing with her, sluicing in and out, sloshing in her wetness. “Ach, stubborn woman,” he drawled. “You loved this. You long to do this again. To suck me even deeper, this time. To draw out even more good strong seed from my full bollocks.”
Raye had to bite her lip, choke back her reply. She hadn’t been about toagree, had she? But in return, Gaelfr swept his fingers out of her with a loud sucking sound, and gave her open, quivering heat a firm, commanding little slap.
“Then do it,sæta,” he ordered. “Suck me. Now.”
And gods curse Gaelfr, because he was already sinking over onto his back on the bed, yanking his trousers open, and guiding Raye’s head downwards. And she didn’t have a single thought of protesting, or resisting, because his huge bare cock suddenly flexed up, bumping hot and demanding against her cheek. And oh, she could smell it, taste it, drown in it, gods, fuck, yes, please —
She sucked it down with deep, desperate abandon, guzzling it hard and greedy into her mouth. While Gaelfr bucked up beneath her with satisfying force, a choked howl scraping from his mouth — and Raye might have laughed, revelled in her victory, if she hadn’t been so fervently sucking him, drawing that slick sweetness straight up from his bollocks, and deep into her belly. Gods, he tasted good, and her trembling hands lightly squeezed his plump bollocks with one hand, stroking his considerable remaining shaft with the other. Milking out more of that decadent seed from him, and more, moaning as she gulped it down, drinking as though she’d been starving for it.
