He obliged at last, the press of his finger on me keeping rhythm with the beat of the pulse in his erection behind me. I caught my breath and squirmed, then, still holding breath, squirmed some more.
The beat increased, and every unique sensation suddenly resolved into one—the orgasm built and built as he panted into my ear until it speared through me, peaking with familiar fireworks.
“Uhh…uhh.” I moaned with conscious restraint, not yet comfortable enough with this man to give full utterance to the acknowledgement of how easily he could rock my world. But I couldn’t stop the sway of my head against his bare chest as I pitched over the peak before beginning the long, shuddering slide down the other side.
I took a moment to compose myself as Mark held me pinned yet to him, until a hard prod from behind reminded me this was a team sport.
Not that I would have forgotten for long. I was more than curious to see what lay behind the flap of his shorts. Would it match the rest of him—comfortably large, comfortably muscled, comfortably built? And could I manipulate it with the same ease with which he manipulated me?
I was anxious to find out. In my own way.
Reaching up and back so my breast stretched under his hand, I caught the nape of Mark’s neck and rubbed my cheek against the light stubble of his beard that had grown in since yesterday.
“That was…nice,” I murmured.
“Nice, huh? Yeah, well, I know something even nicer.”
“Nicer than this?” Rolling in his arms, I came front-to-front with him. The points of my breasts smooshed against his bared chest, and the hand that had pleasured me there spread now across the firm globes of my butt. Bending my knees. I lowered myself with excruciating slowness, enjoying the taste of his most lickable chest, moiling first one hard-nubbed pap and then the other, nipping and sucking at them like tiny appetizers to the entrée to come.
He replanted his feet as I turned to his centerline, licking a trail of anticipation to the edge of the strips of bandaging that swaddled him. Looking up at him with my most wicked smile, I knelt before him, the feel of his strong hands a tingle of electricity as they tracked their way up to my shoulders.
Hooking a finger in the waistband of his shorts, I tugged. Mark gasped as the living thing captured behind the zipper twitched in anticipation. Parts of me already recovered twitched in return. I slid the first button then the second from their holes in the double-buttoned band, leaning my head in closer to better see the task at hand.
Mark’s fingers dug into my shoulders as I tweezed the zipper tag between my fingers. The khaki bush shorts outlined his eagerness for me to get on with the task. Inversely proportional to that mounting desire, I began an excruciatingly slow pull, unzipping him millimeter by millimeter. His legs, to either side of my head, trembled. What glimpses I had behind the parting cloth told me that, like me, Mark had been sleeping in the nude and had stepped hastily into his shorts before running out to confront the morning’s threats.
I tugged down the last millimeter, expecting him to burst free. Mark even twerked his hips to help, but he was caught in the folds behind the right flap of the gaping shorts. Better anyway, because I needed those shorts off of him. Completely.
It was the work of a moment between us, and the shorts went sliding down his long, lean legs. I had to back my face away when, sprung free at last, his cock levered out. One look and I was pretty sure those shorts wouldn’t have held it much longer.
I gulped a bit at the unexpected length, unsure how—even if—I would be able to accommodate him. But I was damn sure I was going to give it my best try. Especially when it waved like a challenge in front of me.
I locked my eyes to Mark’s as I stretched out my tongue, licking the sensitive underside from mid-point to tip. I liked the way he shuddered when I closed my lips around him, licking my tongue across him before settling in to suck.
My hands sought the backs of his thighs, enjoying the cords of hard muscle before working their way up to his firm, flat flanks. I let my hands play there a moment, roaming and kneading that tight butt that kept getting tighter by the minute.
Then I drew him close.
His moan started in his eyes. They flashed with a bright blaze before deepening into a dark lust that his throat gave voice to.
I wanted to hear more.
Closing my eyes, I hugged his hips to me as I nipped and nibbled my way down the length of him, swallowing as much of him as I could manage. The pulse of him beat in the warm pocket of my throat as I clung to his hips to keep us both balanced.
He raised one hand to the back of my head, fisting my hair as he undulated against my mouth. Muscles deep inside me clutched in rhythm to every beat, every suck.
Then he was shaking against me, in me, his moans turning to groans as he ground against me, then into a growl as he fountained within.
Half-choking, I nevertheless held him inside, letting him contract naturally from my throat before backing away and letting him slide from the circle of my lips.
Holding him yet in the circle of my arms, I lifted my eyes back up to his. They were slitted now, still shrouded with ecstasy. As they cleared and his breathing steadied, his voice came back to him. “That was… nice,” he murmured.
“Nice, huh?” I smiled seductively. “Well, I know something even nicer.”
He grinned with renewed anticipation. I liked that enthusiasm—enthusiasm my own body echoed, loudly.
“Unfortunately, it’ll have to wait for later.” I used the brace of his arm to help me stand. “Right now, we have hungry babies to feed.”
Suddenly, I was thinking how short a time this next week was going to be.
CHAPTER 17
MARK
I couldn’t help but remember the feel of Kayla’s exquisite body beneath my hands as she led the way to the shower. Not that I could join her unless I wanted to redo all the bandaging work, but I could enjoy watching her strip out of the shirt and shorts barely hanging on her to begin with, then step naked behind the translucent shower doors as she let the water run over her pixelated body.
Her promise of later looped like a video on permanent replay through my head. Far from getting my jollies once and moving on after that taste of her, my body craved more. In fact, watching her shower, I had to slap down that craving more than once. And again when she stepped out, toweling herself briskly with a brightly colored square of terrycloth.
I’m sure she saw—how could she missed seeing—my naked response to her, from the shape of her to the warm color of her skin to the bright smile she threw my way.
She nodded toward the pair of shorts I held forgotten in my hands. “Will you be dressing for breakfast?”
“Huh? Oh.”
We slid back into our clothes together. I had the idea of buttoning her up, but she had the idea of turning a coy shoulder to me when I approached and doing it herself.
“What happened to the fun Kayla?” I gave her my best mock pout.
“You mean the Kayla who doesn’t have watoto to feed and men to meet and a plantation to run?”
“Right, that would be the one.”
“She’ll be back. Later.”
There was that promise again. The one I was determined to hold her to. The one I desperately hoped she wanted to be held to.
In the kitchen, I warmed milk on half the stove while Kayla fried eggs and wild boar ham on the other half. She pointed to three tins lined up against the wall. “That’s what turns cows’ milk into okapi, rhino and gorilla milk. Different powdered cocktails for each. Protein, brown sugar, molasses, vitamins, enzymes. One scoop each for Nyota and Jengo, two of the bigger scoops for Tamu. The blue bottle top is for Jengo and the red is for Nyota.”
I hadn’t noticed the supplements before and was impressed by her diligence. Nor had I realized she was color-coding which bottles to feed the okapi and gorilla from once we were out with them. Each tin, labeled with the animal’s name, held its own scoop, and it was the work of only a moment to
add the right amount of powder to each bottle. If I could prescribe and juggle ten or more drugs in a therapy regimen for some of my patients, I was pretty confident I could match the right amount of the right mixes to the right bottles, but I felt Kayla’s watchful eyes on me while I did.
While it was a bit of a personal insult, I wasn’t such an ass that I didn’t recognize her concerns came a mother’s heart. Oversight around every detail of her orphans’ lives came as naturally to her as it had been drilled into me for my own patients’ care. And it wasn’t as though I hadn’t watched how she’d cared for my wound with equal concern. It was how we protected ourselves and those we loved in a world filled with more than enough accidents and negligence beyond our control.
She left the plating of our breakfast to me while she opened a large can of dog food and spooned it into Gus’s dish. “None of that nasty dry stuff this morning,” she crooned to him as his tail thumped the floor. “You’re my hero today. And all heroes deserve a reward.”
“Is that what this morning was between us?” I asked. “My reward?”
“And if it was?”
“Then tell me what I need to do to earn another.”
She laughed. “Fight off a leopard with your bare hands?” She crossed to the table where I was setting down the first plate. “Or just keep doing what you’re doing—helping out, making me laugh, making me forget, making me feel. I don’t need more of a hero than that.”
The gorilla put his feet against the edge of the table and rocked it to get attention. He got it all right, in the form of a stern frown from Kayla. Abashed, he lowered his feet and covered his eyes.
“Asante,” Kayla told him. It was one of the words I knew: thank you—gentle reinforcement for his better behavior. I brought the second plate to the table while Kayla took one of Jengo’s prefilled juice bottles from the fridge and handed it and a bowl of dry cereal to him. The little O’s of oats kind, with minimal processing and no sugar, I noted.
Kayla’s phone rang just as she sat down. “You got my list?” she asked into it after exchanging pleasantries with Mosi, then, “You’re leaving when?… No, keep the Jeep and the pickup. Just bring the van back for now… How’s Lisha?” She listened a moment, her face falling with whatever news it was. “Nguvu. Be strong. I’ll see you soon.”
When she hung up, she picked at her breakfast.
“Lisha?” I asked.
“She’s not responding. They think she’ll be in a coma soon.”
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t surprised, though. She’d been a naturally thin woman with no reserves from what look I’d had of her before she left. Tribal genetics tended to the tall and lean even when food was abundant and the lifestyle neither overstressed nor overworked. The advantage to such a muscle mass distribution and low fat ratio was clear given the environment. The downside, however, was when some extreme was introduced—such as drought or disease—it was harder for that body type to adapt and cope.
I caught myself. That was me being analytical again, distancing myself from the patient and her family and friends. At this stage, no one close to her cared what genetic predispositions she had. All they cared about was her chance of recovery and her comfort.
Taking Kayla’s free hand in mine, I squeezed it in shared concern. Only when I had caught her eye did I repeat myself, slower and more emphatically this time. “I am sorry. But sometimes a coma can be a blessing. No more pain.”
Kayla nodded. “For her, yes, it’s likely for the best. For the rest of us, well, that doesn’t ease our pain.”
“No,” I agreed. “That’s a pain no doctor can ease. Only love and time and each other can do that.”
Again she nodded, sniffing once, as close to tears as I’d seen her come. “The men’ll be back around noon. They’re picking up the list of supplies I texted them last night.”
“So you’re still staying?”
“Do I have a choice?”
I took a breath. “And if I went into Hasa with you?”
“You already laid out the reasons you can’t do that. And I agree with them.”
“But if I did?” I insisted. “Would you go then?”
She gave me a blank, uncomprehending look, then shook her head. “Of course not.”
“But—”
“I’m not leaving my babies or my home.” It was a quiet statement, but I didn’t doubt the resolve behind it.
“Nothing’s to that point anyway,” I agreed. “I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t the reason you’re not following the other families into the city.”
“Apologies to your ego, but you’re not.”
“This isn’t about my ego.”
The sneer she threw me said she thought otherwise.
The twelve-year-old in me gathered himself to retort before the adult in me acknowledged that maybe I was out of line, and that this moment was about her pain, not my circumstances.
“I’m really glad to have your company,” I told her. “And since neither of us is going anywhere, I want to help out here. I may not be up for plowing a field or chopping down trees just yet, but I’m not an invalid either.”
Her expression softened, and her tone teased when she asked, “Ever milk a cow?”
I shook my head.
“Can you tell the difference between an eggplant seedling and an African tulip?”
Again I shook my head.
“Then you won’t be much good with the cows or in the gardens. The arabica trees won’t be ready for harvesting for a few weeks and it looks like we’re heading into a week of rain, so no irrigation needed. You can help unload the van when it gets here. Otherwise, you can help cook and clean and feed the babies, and keep me… entertained.”
“That sounds remarkably like you just asked me to play at being a house husband.”
I couldn’t read her dark eyes as her head crooked into a thoughtful tilt.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s exactly what it sounds like.”
I thought about that as we moved the breakfast dishes to the sink, scooped warm milk into the bottles, and went out to feed the babies—watoto, as she called them in Swahili.
Husband duties, it turned out, felt comfortable. And while I was especially looking forward to fulfilling my…entertainment…duty later, the rest of the duties weren’t work at all. They were, in fact, privileges and pleasures.
Why had I never thought about marriage like that before?
And why was I thinking about it like that now?
CHAPTER 18
KAYLA
I had to admit, having Mark around these last few days—and for the next few, too, I highly suspected—was a welcome distraction from the building tension and anxiety.
I had to admit, too, I missed my father’s presence most acutely as the storms gathered and families fled, leaving me to face Zahur’s future alone.
I was quick to examine my relationship with Mark, to assure myself I wasn’t simply seeing my father in the stranger from the West. But no, I looked to Mark for a different kind of grounding and strength from what Baba had supplied. I had looked up to my father—who enjoyed the Swahili term Baba I used for him as much as he enjoyed my using the Swahili Mama for my mother—for his leadership and knowledge. I looked to Mark as a peer, leaning on him to support not lead.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t lead or wasn’t knowledgeable, just that he was the one not in his element here. Anything to do with medicine I was happy to defer to him. Anything to do with the plantation or Ushindi—that is where I excelled. I had seen too many of my female classmates, even women right here on Zahur, roll over in submission the moment a man entered the room. Any man. Any room. I was determined to respond to a man solely on his merits and what respect he earned by more virtue than the simple possession of a penis.
Right now, though, I was vulnerable, missing my father—his dry wit, his capacity to face any problem head-on, his great yet gentle strength upon which so many had relied, and his unflagging desire and ability to care f
or those he loved. His willingness, especially, to sacrifice his very self in an effort to save my mother from cervical cancer, an enemy he could neither fight nor defeat.
Perhaps I idolized my father too much, and set too high a pedestal for any other man to achieve.
It was an interesting combination, my vulnerable self searching for the impossibly perfect man. I was confident that man wasn’t Mark, and that I wasn’t looking to Mark as a father-replacement.
Of that I was certain.
Wasn’t I?
The hyenas were gone from the paddock, and Tamu and Nyota raced up, bleating and squealing, when they saw us. It would have been nice to believe it was because they recognized Mark for saving them earlier, but the truth was more likely that we were late with their bottles.
“Nyota could easily be force-weaned right now and survive,” I told Mark. “But where would that put her mental state if suddenly Tamu was getting all the attention?”
“Are you sure it isn’t the mental state you’ll be in when you finally wean these girls and set them free that worries you?”
I looked sharply at Mark, not because I thought he’d overstepped, but because I knew he hadn’t.
I also knew when Tamu and Nyota pressed close to us as we walked into the forest that they stayed so close, not because they were hungry, but because they were still frightened by the hyena attack. My watoto were nowhere near ready to be on their own.
When they were fed and we heard the distant growl of engines making their way up the mountain, I told Gus to watch the babies so they’d feel safe out in the forest alone. It was easy work for Gus, and he could nap in the shade while he recovered from his bite wound. I fed him a last treat, then gathered up the empties, while Jengo glommed onto Mark’s hand, clearly smitten now with the doctor.
Mark reached out his free hand. I could either hand him the bottle bag or…
We walked back hand-in-hand to greet the men who had returned.
Their body language conveyed so much more than their quick texts had of the rising tensions on all fronts. I knew these men—Mosi, Chiku and Adhama— they were strong, steady men grounded in common sense. They were a-political for the most part, with only one agenda—to keep their families safe. Seeing their agitation was a clear marker as to how far the effects of the Subs on one front and the unrest on the other had spread.
Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) Page 10