by Cat Marsters
Kett’s fingers slid through his hair, holding him to her, almost delirious, and it took her a few seconds to realize he’d lifted his head and was speaking to her.
“Kett, look.”
She focused blearily on her shoulder, squinting to see from the wrong angle.
“It’s gone away,” Bael said. “Where I’ve been kissing it. Look.”
Kett couldn’t see where he was pointing, so she moved one hand up to feel. And where she’d previously encountered sore, half-healed skin, now she was touching flesh that felt smooth, barely hurt at all.
“It looks like it’s been healing for weeks,” Bael said in wonder. “Months.”
“Did you know you could do this?”
“Me?” he said. “It’s that stuff Chance gave—”
“No,” Kett said. She smoothed away some of the paste on her hip. The wound, although less inflamed, was still there. “It’s you.”
They stared at each other for a moment, then Bael grinned at her and bent his head to her shoulder again. He kissed it all over, stroked, caressed and soothed it with his lips and tongue. Kett wondered vaguely if the healing paste tasted bad, but Bael never complained.
His fingers were still busy between her legs, rubbing her labia between his fingers, running his thumb around her clit, delving deep into her pussy. Kett arched against him, her hips moving in time with his thrusting fingers. She wanted more, but at the same time she never wanted him to stop what he was doing.
Stop he did, but only to lay a kiss on each of her tight nipples before moving south and starting to lick the wounds on her stomach. Kett peered at her own shoulder, and what she could see did indeed look as if it had been healing for weeks.
“Must be some kind of magic,” she murmured, and Bael looked up, grinning.
“My mouth has been called that before,” he said, and Kett began to correct him but his hands moved up and tweaked her nipples, distracting her into blissful silence.
He left her stomach, the wounds healing almost as Kett watched, and started on the painful gash across her hip. By now Kett was feverish with desire, her body bucking against his hands, her pussy so wet his fingers were slipping around. He turned her on her side again, and Kett pressed her legs together to keep his hand there. Bael, chuckling, pushed her over onto her stomach, trapping his hand under her, and she ground against it as he licked and kissed the cuts on her buttock. The sheets, tangled from all her writhing, caught against her puckered, sensitized nipples, and Kett’s fingers made fists in the crumpled linen as another orgasm rose inside her, ready to break.
But it didn’t come, because Bael raised his head, moved his hand and left her lying on her stomach, legs spread, panting with need.
“What—?” she began, but then he moved, pushing her legs farther apart, tilting her hips and pressing the head of his cock against her sodden entrance.
“I wanted to wait,” he rasped, pushing inside her, making her shudder, “but I couldn’t. Gods, I need to be inside you, Kett.”
Kett, incapable of words, just moaned as he filled her.
“I wanted to lick you all over,” Bael said in her ear, his body hot and hard against her back, the rough hairs on his chest tickling the skin between her scars. “Not just where you’re hurt. I wanted to make you better so I could fuck you ragged.”
“Yes,” Kett gasped as he withdrew and thrust deep.
“I wanted to stick my head between your legs and lick you until you screamed,” he said. “I wanted to make you come over and over, so hard you blacked out. And then I wanted to put your legs over my shoulders and ram myself so deep into you that my balls were coated in your sweet, hot pussy juices from the very first stroke.”
Kett could only moan. Bael grasped her hips and pulled her to her knees, yanking her back against his groin and shoving inside her as deep as he could possibly go. His balls slapped against her clit and she shuddered, on the brink of orgasm again.
“And I wanted to fuck you from behind,” Bael went on, his voice ragged, “like I’m doing now. You are so hot and tight, Kett, I love fucking you like this.”
Kett buried her face in the sheets, panting, so nearly there she could hardly breathe.
“And I was thinking about doing you here,” he said, running a hand that was coated with her juices down the crease of her ass to the sensitive, puckered hole there. “Slipping my cock into your tight little hole. What do you think, Kett?”
Kett orgasmed, her whole body flying into spasms, her teeth closing on a fold of the bed sheets, stifling the screams she couldn’t hold back. Bael continued to thrust into her and before her climax had even subsided, she felt him coming inside her, roaring out his pleasure as his come spurted into her, his fingers digging into her hips.
It didn’t hurt. He was gripping flesh that had previously been too sore to touch, but now it didn’t hurt at all.
Breathing hard, Bael withdrew and collapsed on his side next to her. He pulled her into his arms, holding her against his chest, slick with sweat and heaving with uneven breaths.
“Gods, I’ve missed you,” he said, and Kett let out a shaky laugh.
“Likewise,” she said, and they shared a smile.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bael looked at the woman sleeping in his arms, his chest tight with an unfamiliar emotion. He thought it might be love, but he wasn’t entirely sure. He’d never been in love with anyone before.
Well, he’d thought he might be once or twice, with girls who’d been particularly amazing in bed, but out of bed he’d realized he wasn’t really interested in them. But with Kett, he cared about everything she did. The way she walked, the throaty tone of her voice, the flashing silver of her eyes all turned him on, but it was more than that.
He loved her defiance, her courage, her stubbornness. He loved the way she behaved like a wild animal but thought like an intelligent human. He loved how she cared for people she pretended she had no time for, respected and trusted them.
He loved her resilience, her complete refusal to back down or give in. How she’d fought her way into the world, a frightened, backward child with no friends or family, and clawed herself a place. How fearless she was when faced with pain and misery that would overwhelm anyone else.
She was scarred, bitter and more than a little insane, and Bael loved her.
After an hour or two of lying there watching her sleep, he felt her stir and idly stroked her shoulder, which was now as healed as if the injury had occurred months ago. As Bael was wondering whether this newfound healing power might erase some of the scars on her back or ease the mangled muscles of her leg, Kett opened her eyes and silver flashed at him.
Bael’s heart swelled in his chest and he felt himself smiling without even intending to. Kett smiled back, her face sleepy, and she rolled her shoulders, frowning a little in confusion.
“Better?” Bael asked as she shoved aside the covers to check the wounds on her stomach and hip. They too were healed.
You think love hurts. Looks to me like it heals.
“Much.” She looked up at him. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
That I’d fall madly in love with you? “No,” he answered honestly.
“It’s not a Nasc Mage power?”
“Kett, I don’t know what Nasc Mage powers are. I only know what my parents didn’t bother to hide from me, which wasn’t much. No one ever taught me how to use what I’ve got. I never thought I had any power, except Var changing his shape.”
Kett ran her fingers over the scars on her hip. “Somehow I don’t think this was Chance’s ointment.” She suddenly rolled to her feet. “Wait.”
She left the room, totally naked, and Bael watched her go. He doubted Kett had forgotten to get dressed. It was more like she didn’t care.
A moment later she was back, closing the door and leaning against it. Her brow was creased.
“What?”
“Jarven’s not healed. I mean, he’s getting better, but it’s not like
this.” She gestured to her body.
A flash of jealousy stabbed Bael. “You went to see Jarven completely naked?”
“He was asleep,” Kett said dismissively, walking over to the bathroom.
“What if he wasn’t?”
“Bael, he’s seen me naked before.”
That had him on his feet and in the bathroom before he knew what he was doing. “Naked?” he repeated.
Kett gave a slow sort of smile, which had his cock stirring, as she leaned over to turn the shower on. Had he not been naked with the woman of his dreams, Bael might have taken a moment to appreciate the beauty and modernity of the bathrooms in Nuala’s house, but right now he had more pressing things on his mind.
“Jealous?” she asked.
“No,” Bael said sulkily, and Kett rolled her eyes. “Let me rephrase that.” He grabbed her waist. “Yes.”
“You are?
“Hell yes. How come he’s seen you naked? He said he’d never slept with you.”
“No, but he has seen me change shape and he’s cared for me when I’ve been injured…and Bael? You can’t possibly pretend that’s your sword pressing against my hip.”
He grinned. “I could, but I didn’t think you’d appreciate the pun.”
She slid her fingers into his hair and kissed him, long and slow, a soft morning kiss despite that it was the middle of the day.
“I need to take a shower,” she said, “because I’m still covered in that ointment, among other things.”
Bael grinned, because he’d been responsible for those other things. “I’ll help.”
“I’m a big girl. I can wash myself.”
“Yeah, but I want to. Besides, I’m dirty too. I need to wash.”
It didn’t take much to convince her. Stepping under the warm water, he beckoned her into the tub and picked up a bar of soap. It smelled warm and woodsy, not what he’d usually call a feminine scent, but it suited Kett perfectly.
Kissing her again, he ran the soap over her back, her shoulder, taking care on the newly healed skin.
“Does it hurt at all?” he asked.
“Hardly. Feels like it’s been healing weeks. Months.”
He kissed the pink skin then moved down to kiss her breast as he ran the soap over her hip.
“See, I knew you didn’t really want to get me clean,” Kett said, but he heard the smile in her voice.
“I do,” he protested, “but then I want to get you dirty again.”
He washed the remains of the ointment from her skin then kissed the scars it had healed. Well, maybe they were scars he’d healed. He still didn’t entirely understand how it had happened.
Kett shifted, restless, and Bael breathed in the scent of her arousal. Smiling, he slipped the soap between her legs and massaged it back and forth over her pussy lips. She widened her stance to accommodate him, and Bael lifted one of her feet to rest on the edge of the tub. Kett tensed, but instead of moving his head between her legs, he ducked to the side and kissed the outside of her thigh.
Kett went utterly still, because his tongue was darting over the rip of pink flesh where the tiger had crippled her.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, looking up, and she shook her head in tiny jerks. Smiling, Bael resumed kissing and licking the length of the terrible scar, dropping the soap as he did and letting his fingers take over between her legs.
“What are you doing?” Kett gasped as the water poured down on them both.
Bael flicked her clit with his fingertip. “What’s it feel like?”
“Like you’re licking my scar, you sick man.”
Bael rolled his eyes. “Last time I licked your scars, what did it do?”
Kett said nothing.
“You mad woman,” he added, and her foot lightly kicked his back. Smiling, he carried on, but when he’d kissed and licked his way along her thigh half a dozen times, he figured it was time to stop. He lowered her foot to the ground, brought up the hand he’d been stroking her with and sucked her moisture off his fingers.
Her eyes never left his face.
“Turn around,” he said, his voice low, and she did. Bael pressed against her back, feeling her body twitch as her bare breasts touched the cold, wet tiles. He brushed her hair from the back of her neck and kissed her there. She shuddered delightfully.
He started kissing and licking over the crosshatch of scars on her back, his fingers once more delving between her legs and finding her even hotter and wetter than he’d left her. And while she writhed and his cock ached, he concentrated on covering every inch of her scarred back with his mouth, healing her bit by bit.
Some other asshole had created these marks. But maybe Bael could ease them.
He was using both hands now, one curving around between her belly and the wall to stroke her clit, rub up and down, make circles around it, and the other delving into her hot, wet pussy to find that sweet spot inside that made her convulse.
She came to one shuddering orgasm like that, his fingers inside her and his mouth on her back, and then he slipped his hand back a little, probing at the tight ring of her ass.
She tensed, and he murmured against her skin, “Do you want me to?”
“Sure,” she said, her tone almost nonchalant. Almost. “If you want.”
Smiling, he stroked her there and she gave a low moan. His fingers were slick from her orgasm and he slipped inside easily, his other hand still stroking her clit and her swollen, puffy labia. When he’d pushed one finger all the way into her ass, he did the same with her pussy and finger-fucked her, feeling how close his fingers were inside her. Wondering if she’d ever done this before—she doubtless had. Had she ever done it with two men? Felt one thick cock push into her pussy while another filled her from behind?
He decided he didn’t care. His cock was full to bursting and he’d kissed all the way down her spine to the white lines crossing the top of her buttocks. He needed to be inside her, now, before he came all over the bathroom tiles.
He hadn’t prepared her enough for a rear entry and he wasn’t brutal enough to try. So he kept his hand where it was between her buttocks, his finger pressed inside her, and angled her hips to line his cock up against her hot, wet folds.
“We’ll do it this way later,” he promised, flexing his finger inside her, and a moan was his reply.
Bael pushed inside Kett’s hot, tight pussy, loving the way her slick flesh fit around him so well. He stayed motionless for a long moment, until she writhed against him, then reluctantly he withdrew his hand from her ass. He couldn’t move properly that way, and he wanted to thrust into her.
The water, by now running cold, pounded down on them both. Bael slid his hands around to cup her breasts, knead her firm flesh and pinch her nipples as he rocked inside her, but that wasn’t enough. He needed to thrust, hard, and he grabbed her hips to plunge into her relentlessly, driven by a fierce need to possess her.
She moaned as he pounded into her, biting the back of her neck and quickly going mindless. How did she do this to him? How did she affect him this way? No one else ever had. Only Kett could turn him into a total animal, desperate to brand her as his, to hold her and keep her and pleasure her until they were both senseless with it.
The pleasure inside him built to a crescendo, spurred on by Kett’s moans and cries, and as he succumbed to his massive orgasm, he heard himself gasp her name.
“I love you,” he murmured, as the water cascaded onto them and her body trembled in his arms.
Driven to distraction by his mouth and hands and fierce, pounding cock, Kett felt herself tip over into orgasm at the same time Bael gasped her name and emptied himself into her. He gripped her tight, his body tense and hard against her back, his arms gradually sliding around her body to hold her close.
His breath was harsh in her ear. She thought she heard him murmur something but the sound of the water drowned it out.
They stayed still and close for a while, until the chill of the water negated the heat from Bael�
��s body and Kett shifted away. Silently, she soaped and rinsed herself, and was about to step out of the bathtub when Bael slid his arm around her waist and kissed her with infinite sweetness.
“Kett,” he said, his face earnest and his eyes serious, as if he wanted to tell her something, but then he closed his eyes, fingers tensing at her waist, and shook his head. “You’re cold,” he said lamely.
She nodded, disconcerted, and wrapped herself in a towel. “I have to talk to Nuala,” she said, “and make some calls. You should get some rest. Nu said you were exhausted.”
He gave her a cocky grin, much more like the Bael she knew. “You should know.”
She rolled her eyes but she was smiling as she went to get dressed.
Leaving Bael to take a post-coital nap, she took herself downstairs in search of some coffee and solitude. Despite the immense size of Nuala’s house, it proved difficult. Family members prowled in every room. Rain hammered on the windows, which always made her father moody like a little boy.
“Does it on purpose,” her father accused.
“But you weren’t going to go anywhere anyway,” Kett said.
“I might,” he said mulishly.
“So get wet. You ain’t made of sugar.”
He scowled at that, and Kett shook her head and took her leave of him. She found Beyla with some of her extremely giggly, extremely young and extremely annoying friends, occupying one of the sitting rooms.
She backed out fast.
“Kett!” Beyla called.
Not fast enough.
“What?” Kett asked sharply, in no mood to put up with anything girlie.
“Dierdra’s having problems with her crochet. Can you help?”
Kett blinked, trapped. Dammit, of all the secrets to confess to her sisters.
“I—ain’t got a needle,” she fudged, unwilling to show anything that looked like a softer side to these girls. All of them were wearing frills and hairstyles that must have taken a pointless age to finesse.
One of the girls, presumably Dierdra, since she was the one holding a ball of wool, giggled. “You can borrow mine,” she said, a slight smirk on her face. “I’m afraid the wool is very soft though. No wire in it.”