The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [133]
She started to shiver, and felt a fur being wrapped around her shoulders, and turned to face Jondalar. He enfolded her in his arms and she snuggled up close to his warmth.
He bent to kiss her, then said, “It’s cold out here. Come back inside.”
Ayla let him lead her in, but stopped just past the heavy hide that she had used for a windbreak since her first winter.
“This was my tent … no, this was Creb’s tent,” she corrected herself. “He never used it, though. It was the tent I used when I was one of the women chosen to go along with the men when they hunted, to butcher the meat and help carry it back. But it didn’t belong to me. It belonged to Creb. I took it along with me when I left because I thought Creb wouldn’t have minded. I couldn’t ask him. He was dead, but he wouldn’t have seen me if he’d been alive. I had just been cursed.” Tears had begun to stream down her face, though she didn’t seem to notice. “I was dead. But Durc saw me. He was too young to know he wasn’t supposed to see me. Oh, Jondalar, I didn’t want to leave him.” She was sobbing now. “But I couldn’t take him with me. I didn’t know what might happen to me.”
He wasn’t sure what to say, or what to do, so he just held her and let her cry.
“I want to see him again. Every time I see Rydag, I think of Durc. I wish he was here with me now. I wish we both were being adopted by the Mamutoi.”
“Ayla, it’s late. You’re tired. Come to bed,” Jondalar said, leading her to the sleeping furs, but he was feeling uneasy. Such thinking was unrealistic, and he didn’t want to encourage her.
She turned obediently and let him guide her. Silently, he helped her out of her clothes, then sat her down and pushed her gently back, and covered her with the furs. He added wood and banked the coals in the fireplace to last longer, then quickly undressed, and crawled into bed beside her. He put his arm around her and kissed her, gently, barely touching her lips with his.
The effect was tantalizing, and he felt her tingling response. With the same light, almost tickling touch, he began kissing her face; her cheeks, her closed eyes, and then her soft full lips again. He reached up and tilted her jaw back, and caressed her throat and her neck the same way. Ayla made herself lie still, and instead of feeling tickled, shivers of exquisite fire followed his lambent touch, and dispelled her sorrowful mood.
His fingertips traced the curve of her shoulder and brushed the length of her arm. Then, slowly, with a whisper of touch, he drew his hand back up the inside of her arm. She shook with a tingling spasm that sensitized every nerve with quickened expectation. As he followed the outline of her body down her side, his skillful hand glanced over her soft nipple. It rose up firm and ready as an intense shock of pleasure shot through her.
Jondalar couldn’t resist, and bent over to take it in his mouth. She pressed up to him as he suckled and pulled and nibbled, feeling a warm wetness between her thighs as the acute sensations sent corresponding twinges deep inside. He smelled the woman-scent of her skin, and felt a drawing fullness in his loins as he sensed her readiness. He never seemed able to get enough of her, and she was always ready for him. Not once, that he could remember, had she ever turned him away. No matter what the circumstances, indoors or out, in warm furs or on cold ground, however he wanted her, she was there for him, not just acquiescing, but an active, willing partner. Only during her moon time was she a little subdued, as though she felt shy about it, and respecting her wishes, he held back.
As he reached to caress her thigh and she opened to him, he felt so strong an urge he could have taken her that instant, but he wanted it to last. They were in a warm dry place, alone, for probably the last time all winter. Not that he hesitated in the