and he just looks frustrated. “Why would I not talk of my mate’s cunt?”
I’m his mate? Of course he thinks that. I’m practically sitting atop his dick in his lap while he nibbles on my ear. God, I’m the queen of mixed signals. “I came out here to apologize, nothing more,” I blurt out, scrambling to my feet. His cloak falls onto the ground and I quickly grab it, then toss it at his lap, trying not to notice in the starlight just how big of a bulge his Louisville Slugger is. Jesus. “We’re not mates. I don’t want to resonate, okay? I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
J’shel just sighs and rubs a hand down his face. “Go, H’nah,” he says as I back away. “I will not chase you.”
I nod, and then race back toward the campfire. My knees feel weak and my legs are shaky as I stumble back into camp. I don’t say anything to N’dek, just head straight for the girls’ cave and crash into my blankets. I don’t care that I’ve got my boots on and they’re still gritty with sand. I draw the blankets up over my head and try not to think about J’shel or his mouth against my ear, or the hardness of his cock against my thigh.
Or his nipple.
Because if I think about all that stuff, I’m afraid of where it’s going to take me.
J’SHEL
K’thar was right. Twice now, H’nah has come to me. The realization is pleasing even as my frustration grows. She sat in my lap this night. She let me put my mouth on hers, let me taste her skin, breathe in her scent.
She was so close I could smell her arousal on the sea air.
I groan, closing my eyes. I must be patient. I must.
My hand steals to my loincloth, and I jerk at my clothing. If I cannot have H’nah now, I will take myself in hand again and finish myself off, as I have every day since I resonated to her.
There will be an end to this soon. There must be.
She is softening to me…I think?
I hope.
5
J’SHEL
It is another day of sitting by the fire.
I do not know how N’dek does it. How he remains so calm. I am restless most days, but today is beyond frustrating. My khui will not stop singing, I cannot sleep, and no matter how much I pace, I cannot get H’nah out of my head.
I keep thinking of last night by the beach. How she let me touch her. The scent of her, the feel of her. The taste of her small, pink ear as I took it between my teeth. My cock will be permanently hard if I do not find some sort of distraction to occupy my mind. So I get wood from the shore, though less is washing up over time, and we are burning only the smaller pieces that will not make good building materials for huts. Soon there will be no more wood at all, and the thought fills me with intense sadness.
When we first landed here, we were just happy to have a place to go that was safe from the Great Smoking Mountain. It is a place with food and with females, so it seemed too good to be true. Now we are here, and it is very different than what I expected. The cold is never-ending…and so is the ache in my cock and in my heart. It all seemed so simple. I never imagined that I would resonate and that my female would deny it. I never thought such a thing was possible, but the humans here do not think the same way the People do.
“You are pacing,” N’dek tells me from his spot by the fire. “Either sit or go away.”
I throw a small branch on the fire. The leaves on it are wilted from being in the water for so long, and they curl against the flames, hissing. “I will sit.”
“It would be better if you left,” N’dek says. “Go hunting with the others.”
I watch him and try not to feel frustrated. I have gone hunting a few times since we arrived here, but each time I felt so guilty at leaving N’dek’s side that I could not stay out for long. He cannot take himself anywhere, and he needs me. So because his wound is my fault, I stay.
“I will remain close.”
He rolls his eyes at me and stares at the fire, and I resist the