She pushes on my chest before I can start moving again and I pull back, confused, but she is already rising, her hands on my shoulders, guiding me onto my back. She climbs on top of me and straddles my hips and sinks down onto me in a slow motion that makes both of us groan, and the depth from this angle is different, deeper, and I can see every inch of her above me, her breasts, the claim mark on her neck, the way her stomach flexes when she rolls her hips.
She rides me slowly, her hands on my chest, her fingers spread wide over my heartbeat, and the rhythm she sets is unhurried and rolling, her hips circling before lifting and dropping, taking me deep and then deeper. I grip her hips and let her control the pace and I watch her body move above me andthe sight of her, confident and powerful and taking exactly what she wants from me, does something to me.
“You feel so good,” she says, and her head drops back and her hips grind down and I feel her body start to tighten around me again.
I sit up without pulling out, wrapping my arms around her waist, pressing her body into mine so her breasts are warm on my skin and our faces are level, and she gasps at the shift in angle and wraps her arms around my neck and we move together, her hips rolling into mine, my hands on the small of her back guiding her rhythm.
She comes with her forehead pressed against mine, her body clenching around me in contractions that I feel all the way up through my abdomen, and the sound she makes is my name, whispered into my mouth.
I lay her back and pull out and she makes a sound of protest that makes my Bouda stir for the first time since we started, a low rumble of amusement that fades as fast as it came. I turn her gently onto her stomach and she understands, pulling her knees beneath her, and I press into her from behind, slow and deep, my hands running up her back along either side of my ridge’s shadow, up to her shoulders where I grip gently and pull her into each stroke.
This angle is tighter and deeper and she buries her face in the mattress and the sounds she makes are muffled until I slide my hand beneath her and lift her slightly, my arm across her waist, her back pressed into me, and the new position lets me reach around her body and cup her breast while I move inside her. She turns her head and finds my mouth over her shoulder and the kiss is awkward and perfect and she moans into it while my thumb rolls her nipple and my hips press forward.
“I love you,” she whispers, and the words vibrate through both of us.
I pull out and turn her onto her back again. She reaches for me and I settle between her legs and slide back into her and the heat of her body welcoming me again after the brief absence makes my arms shake. I press my forehead to hers and move with a rhythm that is no longer slow but not frantic either, a steady building pressure that carries both of us toward the edge at the same speed.
Her breathing goes ragged and her hands move from my shoulders to my neck, her fingers sliding into the space beneath my ridge, and her grip locks. I feel the orgasm building in her body, stacking on everything that has come before it, her walls gripping me in waves that come faster and harder with each stroke.
“Don’t stop, please don’t stop.” Her voice is wrecked and raw and I give her everything she is asking for.
Her arms lock around my neck and she pulls me down and I feel her mouth find the place where my neck meets my shoulder. Something shifts in her body. Her grip changes from desperate to intentional. Her breath steadies against my skin even as her body shakes. I know what is about to happen.
“MINE.” She says it into my skin with a voice I have never heard from her, almost primal, and her teeth sink into my neck.
My orgasm hits at the same moment the bond seals and the force of it clears out my vision and locks my arms and tears a sound from my throat that is part roar and part cackle and part a frequency I have never produced. I press into her and hold myself there while my body empties, and for a few heartbeats the only thing that exists is the heat between us and the bond pulsing in both directions and her teeth still buried in my skin.
Her mouth loosens and her arms fall from my neck and her head drops back and her eyes close. Her breathing goes deep and even in a single exhale, and she is gone, unconscious, the bond taking her.
I hold myself above her and I look at her face, peaceful and slack with sleep, her lips slightly parted. I touch the mark on my neck with my fingertips and the scar is already forming, raised and warm, the pattern of her teeth preserved in my skin as mine is preserved in hers.
I pull out of her gently and lower myself beside her and I do what I did after the first night. I get the warm cloth from the bathroom and I clean her, careful strokes along her skin, her neck, her thighs, the sweat that has dried on her collarbone. I pull the blanket up to her chin and tuck the edges around her shoulders and press my lips to the crown of her head and her scent fills my lungs and it is rain on dry earth and wild honey and me, all three woven together, inseparable, permanent.
I lie beside her and the silence in my head stretches on.
Then, softly, from somewhere deep:She is ours, Alemayehu. Fully and completely ours. And we are hers.
I press my face into Kendra’s hair and close my eyes.
