The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [138]
When he neared the back, he pricked his ears. Was that breathing he heard? He reached across the platform and felt an arm, and a smile of joy warmed his face.
He went back out, picked up a hot coal from the central fire, and hurried back carrying it on a piece of wood. He lit the moss wick of a small stone lamp, then placed two planks across each other at the door, the sign that they did not wish to be disturbed. He picked up the lamp, walked quietly to the bed, and watched the sleeping woman. Should he wake her? Yes, he decided, but slowly and gently.
The idea quickened his loins. He removed his clothes and slipped in beside her, curling around her warmth. She mumbled and rolled over toward the wall. With long gentle strokes he caressed her, feeling her sleeping warmth beneath his hand and breathing her female scent. He explored every contour: her arm to the ends of her fingers, her sharp shoulder blades and ridged spine that led to the sensitive small of her back and the rising swell of her buttocks, then her thighs and the backs of her knees, her calves and ankles. She pulled her feet away when he touched the bottoms. He reached his arm around to cup her breast, and he felt the nipple contract and harden within his palm. He had an urge to suckle it, but instead covered her back with his body and began kissing her shoulders and neck.
He loved touching her body, exploring and discovering it anew. Not just hers, he knew. He loved all women’s bodies, for themselves, and for the feelings they caused within his. His manhood was already throbbing and thrusting, eager, but still controllable. It was always better if he didn’t give in too soon.
“Jondalar?” said a sleepy voice.
“Yes,” he said.
She rolled to her back and opened her eyes. “Is it morning?”
“No.” He got up on one arm and looked down at her while he fondled a breast, then bent to suckle the nipple he’d wanted to feel in his mouth before. He caressed her stomach, then reached for the warmth between her thighs and rested his hand on the hair of her mound. She had the softest, silkiest pubic hair of any woman he’d ever known. “I want you, Serenio. I want honor Mother with you, tonight.”
“You need to give me some time to wake up,” she said, but a smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Is there any cold tea? I want to wash my month out—wine always makes it taste terrible.”
“I look,” he said, getting up.
Serenio smiled languidly when he walked back with a cup. Sometimes she just liked to look at him—he was so wonderfully male: the muscles rippling across his back as he moved, his powerful chest of blond curls, his hard stomach, and his legs all strength and sinew. His face was almost too perfect: strong square jaw, straight nose, sensual mouth—she knew how sensual his mouth could be. His features were so finely molded and proportioned that he’d be thought beautiful if he wasn’t so masculine, or if beautiful was a word usually applied to men. Even his hands were strong and sensitive, and his eyes—his expressive, compelling, impossible blue eyes, that could set a woman’s heart racing with one glance, that could make her want that hard, proud, magnificent manhood jutting out in front before she ever saw it. It had frightened her a little, the first time she saw him like that, before she understood how well he used it. He never forced it on her, only giving as much as she could take. If anything, she forced herself, wanting it all, wishing she could take it all. She was glad he had awakened her. She got up when he gave her the cup, but before she took a drink, she leaned down and took the throbbing head in her mouth. He closed his eyes and let the pleasure surge through him.
She sat up and took a drink, then got up. “I have to go out,” she said. “Are many people still up? I don’t want to get dressed.