I reach out with one finger and slowly draw it across the skin of Beh’s forearm. She covers the pot with a clay lid and turns to looks at me. Her eyes are intense, and they make me feel strange. I look down to the smooth rock floor of the cave and try to stop breathing so hard. When I glance back up, Beh’s eyes are staring at the fire, and I quickly shift so I am a bit closer to her before she can look back and notice.
Beh runs her hand through her hair and bites down on her lip as she glances over at me. I can see the color of her cheeks and neck deepen as she looks to her hands.
I scoot a little closer.
Looking at her sideways, I reach out and touch her arm with my hand again.
“Khhiss?” The sound I make is soft…pleading.
The corner of Beh’s mouth turns up as she pushes her lips together. She leans in, and I lick my lips in anticipation. A moment later, her warm mouth is on mine, and I feel her hand slide up my arm, over my shoulder, and into my hair. I sigh at the sensation and feel Beh’s tongue as it enters my mouth.
I can taste stew, the boar meat, and her all on my tongue at once. It is strange and wonderful, and my entire body seems to hum as she raises herself up onto her knees and wraps both arms around my head. From that position, she is angled slightly above me, and as we separate, I look up into her face.
So pretty.
I reach up and run my fingers over the edge of her cheekbone and down her jaw. My hand touches the edge of the boar skin wrap at her shoulder, and I feel very pleased with myself. Not only did I provide her with meat for her dinner and clothing for her body, but I made her something I know how to remove.
I pull at the leather strap, and it falls away from her shoulder. I can see the little pink straps around her shoulders, and I brush the edge of one of them with my nose. They smell different now—just like Beh and I do. The scent of the freshwater lake and soaproot are the most predominant scents of our skin and her clothing. I remember the scent in her hair when I first found her and wonder if she had rubbed fruit on the strands before I met her.
As I look back up to her face, Beh’s fingertips mimic my own. She runs her hands around my cheeks, my jaw, and my forehead—even over my eyelids as I close them. When I open them again, her breathing has changed, and I can see her chest rise and fall as rapidly as my own.
She releases me long enough to push the rest of the boar’s skin from her body. When she straddles me again, she is wearing only the little pink bits of cloth around her breasts and sex. I grasp around her middle, and her smooth skin feels warm even though she shivers at my touch. Sounds come from her mouth, and I hear both my name-sound and the hissing sound, which I try to repeat.
“Beh…khhz…”
Her mouth turns into a smile, but it does not make her eyes sparkle like they usually do.
Something has made her feel sad, but I don’t know what it is.
I don’t even know if it is something I can fix.
I do know I will do anything within my power to make her happy.
Finally, after looking into her eyes for a long time, I take her to our furs.
CHAPTER TEN
I kneel down slowly and place Beh in the center of the furs. I stay on my knees beside her, just looking down at her as she lies comfortably in the middle of the fur-lined depression. The air between us is different—charged. I can feel it in my skin and hear it in her breathing. Something is different, and for some reason, it’s scaring me.
I can feel the heat in my groin and the hardness of my flesh under my furs, and I know my body is straining to put a baby inside of her as soon as possible. Before long, the weather will be cold, and Beh will have to have a baby in her soon so it will be big enough to survive the next winter.
I also just…want.
I want to feel her body underneath mine. I want to know what it feels like to be inside of her. I only know what it feels like to touch myself with my own hand—I have never had someone to mate with before. When the urge to mate with her came over me earlier, it was more instinctual rather than rational, but now I’m thinking about it; I’m thinking about it in great detail.
I want to give Beh a baby, but there’s more.
I also want to see her, to touch her, and to feel myself inside of her body. I want to inhale the scent of her back as I take her, and I want to watch the rhythmic motions of her shoulders as we move together.
I want her to smile against the furs as we come together.
I want to see her eyes light up.
“Ehd?”
I realize I’ve been kneeling in the same spot for quite some time.
Beh’s fingers tentatively touch the edge of my leg. Her teeth capture her full bottom lip as she looks up to me and then back down to her fingers as they trace through the fur of my wrap where it lies across my thigh.
In the way.
I hesitate, wondering if I should remove it now or wait a while. I’m confused, knowing what I want to do but not completely sure how I will be received. The last time we were in this spot together, I had been so worried; I hadn’t known what else to do. I’m still worried, but the worry is of a different sort. I still want her to have my baby inside of her, but she doesn’t react the way I expect a woman to react. She is so strange, and she doesn’t appear to want a baby at all.