The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [103]
If he seemed contrite or acted sorry—feelings that were usually genuine—people tended to accept that. Even when he was a young man and had beat Ladroman so badly that he knocked out his permanent front teeth, Jondalar didn’t have to find the words to say he was sorry, then face him, and say them. His mother paid a heavy compensation for him, and he was sent away to live with Dalanar, the man of his hearth, for a few years, but he didn’t have to do anything himself to make amends. He didn’t have to beg forgiveness, or even say he was sorry for doing something wrong and injuring the other boy.
Though to most people he was considered an amazingly handsome, masculine man, Ayla thought of him in a somewhat different way. Men of the people who raised her, men of the Clan, had features that were more rugged, with large round eye sockets, generous noses, and pronounced brow ridges. From the first moment she saw him, unconscious, almost dead, after being attacked by her lion, the man had aroused an unconscious memory of people she hadn’t seen in many years, a memory of people like herself. To Ayla, Jondalar’s features were not as strong as those of the men with whom she had grown up, but they were so perfectly shaped and arranged, she thought that he was incredibly beautiful, like a fine-looking animal, a healthy young horse or lion. Jondalar had explained to her that it was not a word usually used to describe men, but though she didn’t say it often, she did think he was beautiful.
He looked at her as he lay beside her, then bent his head to kiss her. He felt the softness of her lips and slowly moved his tongue between them, which she obligingly opened. He felt a tightening of his loins again.
“Ayla, you are so beautiful, and I am so lucky,” he said.
“I am so lucky,” she said. “And you are beautiful.”
He smiled. She knew it wasn’t quite the word to use, though she used “beautiful” correctly in all other instances. Now, when she said it to him in private, he just smiled. She hadn’t closed the ties at the top of the opening of her tunic, though her breast had slipped back inside. He reached in and pulled it out again, the same one she had just used to nurse, and ran his tongue around the nipple, then suckled on it, tasting her milk.
“It feels different inside me when you do it,” she said softly. “I like it when Jonayla nurses, but it doesn’t feel the same. You make me want you to touch me in other places.”
“You make me want to touch you in those places.”
He undid all the ties and opened her tunic wide, exposing both breasts. When he suckled her again, her other nipple dribbled milk, and he reached over to lick that one.
“I’m coming to like the taste of your milk, but I don’t want to take what belongs to Jonayla.”
“By the time she’s hungry again, more milk will be there.”
He let go of the nipple and ran his tongue up to her neck and then kissed her again, this time more fiercely, and felt a need so strong he wasn’t sure he could control it. He stopped and buried his face in her neck, trying to regain his composure. She began tugging on his tunic to pull it over his head.
“It’s been a while,” he said, sitting up on his knees. “I can’t believe how ready I am.”
“Are you?” she said, with a teasing grin.
“I’ll show you,” he said.
He stripped off his tunic with a two-handed pull over his head, then, standing, untied the drawstring around his waist and pulled off his short-legged trousers. Under those he wore a protective pouch that covered his man parts, tied on around his hips with thin strips of leather. Usually made of chamois or rabbit or some other soft skin, the thong pouches