The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [118]
Jondalar sighed with relief. The first and biggest hurdle had been easy. “Frebec is only one. You can’t let one person spoil everything. Talut … and Tulie … would not have invited us to stay with them if they didn’t like you, and didn’t feel that you had something valuable to offer.”
“You have something valuable to offer, Jondalar. Do you want to stay and become a Mamutoi?”
“They have been kind to us, much kinder than simple hospitality requires. I could stay, certainly through the winter, and even longer, and I’d be happy to give them anything I could. But they don’t need my flint knapping. Wymez is far better than I am, and Danug will soon be as good. And I’ve already shown them the spear-thrower. They have seen how it’s made. With practice, they could use it. They just have to want it. And I am Jondalar of the Zelandonii …”
He stopped and his eyes took on an unfocused look as though he were seeing across a great distance. Then he looked back the way they had come and his forehead knotted in a frown as he tried to think of some explanation. “I must return … someday … if only to tell my mother of my brother’s death … and to give Zelandoni a chance to find his spirit and guide it to the next world. I could not become Jondalar of the Mamutoi knowing that, I cannot forget my obligation.”
Ayla looked at him closely. She knew he didn’t want to stay. It wasn’t because of obligations, though he might feel them. He wanted to go home.
“What about you?” Jondalar said, trying to keep his tone and expression neutral. “Do you want to stay and become Ayla of the Mamutoi?”
She closed her eyes, searching for a way to express herself, feeling that she didn’t know enough words, or the right words, or that words were just not enough. “Since Broud cursed me, I have had no people, Jondalar. It has made me feel empty. I like the Mamutoi and respect them. I feel at home with them. The Lion Camp is … like Brun’s clan … most are good people. I don’t know who my people were before the Clan, I don’t think I will ever know, but sometimes at night I think … I wish they were Mamutoi.”
She looked hard at the man, at his straight yellow hair against the dark fur of his hood, at his handsome face that she thought of as beautiful though he’d told her that wasn’t the right word for a man, at his strong, sensitive body and large expressive hands, at his blue eyes that seemed so earnest, and so troubled. “But, before the Mamutoi, you came. You took the emptiness away and filled me with love. I want to be with you, Jondalar.”
The anxiety left his eyes, replaced now by the relaxed and easy warmth she had grown used to in the valley, and then by the magnetic, compelling desire that made her body respond with a will of its own. Without any conscious volition, she was drawn to him, felt his mouth find hers and his arms surround her.
“Ayla, my Ayla, I love you so,” he cried in a harsh strangulated sob that was filled with anguish and relief. He held her tight against his chest, and yet gently, as they sat on the ground, as though he never wanted to let go, but was afraid she would break. He released his hold just enough to tilt her face up to his, and kissed her forehead, and her eyes, and the tip of her nose, then her mouth, and felt his desire mount. It was cold, they had no place of shelter or warmth, but he wanted her.
He untied the drawstring of her hood, and found her throat and her neck, while his hands reached beneath her parka and her tunic, and found her warm skin and full breasts, with their hard, erect nipples. A low moan escaped her lips as he fondled them, squeezing and pulling firmly. He untied the drawstring of her trousers and reached in to find her furry mound. She pressed up to him when he found her warm moist slit, and felt a tightening, a tingling.
Then she felt under his parka and tunic for his drawstring, untied it, then reached for his hard, throbbing member and rubbed her hands along its shaft. He breathed a loud sigh of pleasure