“Yes.” Her voice is muffled against my skin.
“This is a good thing,” I promise her. “Because I intend on stopping at every hunter cave along the way to ensure we are not caught in a storm.”
She chuckles, pressing a lazy kiss to my skin, her fingers tracing patterns on my hip. “Exactly how many are there between here and there?”
I consider the path in my head, one I have traveled a great many times before. “Six.”
“Six?” she sputters. “What, are we going just across the hill and stopping for the day?”
“Possibly. Is that a problem?” I reach up and cup one of her teats, toying with the sensitive nipple. Her teats have grown larger, I think, the nipples darker. I decide I like the change, just like I like the way her hips and bottom are spreading larger. It is just more of her to enjoy. “I thought you wished for us to reconnect. I have lots of parts that need connection to my mate. Very, very frequent connections.”
She just rolls her eyes at me and settles in against my side. “Your hand feels good,” she admits after a moment when I keep rolling her nipple.
“Another connection,” I promise. “Shall I connect my mouth to your nipple and feast?”
Kira lets out a dreamy sigh, rolling onto her back. “God, yes.”
Six days of connecting with my mate. I like this idea a lot. Even as I nuzzle my way down her soft skin toward her teat, I wonder if I can find more caves along the way to extend our trip.
As long as we are safe from the weather, after all, what is the harm?
11
KIRA
It’s so odd to me how our roles have reversed, Aehako and I. In my pregnancy, I’m the easygoing one, the one that never worries about anything. Aehako is the one that stresses over the smallest of things. When we get ready to leave the hunter cave the next morning, a thick snow starts to fall, so we unpack our things and stay for another day.
And then another.
It takes three days before the weather lets up enough for us to travel some, and it takes another four days before we approach the valley that holds the main cave of the sa-khui.
“Well,” I tease Aehako as he hauls the sled through the snow, the smoke from the main cave on the horizon. “You did say it would take several days.”
“It might take one more,” he admits to me, pausing and looking up at the gray skies. “I do not like the sight of those clouds.”
If we stop right at the finish line, that just seems silly. “I bet we can make it,” I tell him cheerfully. “I can get off and walk—”
Before I finish the thought, he tugs the sled along, hustling through the snow at a breakneck pace. I smother a giggle behind my thick glove.
Really, even if we stopped for another day, it’d be all right. The “vacation” away from the South Cave has been good for us. I didn’t realize how much stress that being leader was putting on Aehako, in addition to my pregnancy. He worries all the time if his decisions are correct ones, or if the tribe would not be happier back at the main cave. He worries some—like Hemalo and Asha—are displeased with his leadership. He worries he is not as authoritative as Vektal, because he is usually a more laughing sort.
And me, I had no idea my mate was holding all this in. I thought he’d taken to leadership the way he takes to everything—with enthusiasm and a big smile. Turns out he’s been hiding his fears because he didn’t want to burden me.
The guy thinks I’m more fragile than glass, apparently.
So we talk, a lot. We organize supplies in each cave we stop in, and refresh what we need. I start sewing a blanket out of fur scraps just to give my hands something to do, and we talk more. Aehako laughs so much in this vacation that I realize he hasn’t been laughing much in the last few weeks, and I’ve been too preoccupied to notice it.
I vow to make him laugh more often.
So I start sewing something else with the scraps. I tell him that it’s just another blanket, but I make a small, fuzzy loincloth instead, and I stuff the backside full of more scraps so it’ll make the wearer have a massive bubble butt. Another idea occurs to me, and for a moment, I shake my head. That’s not who I am, making obscene things out of leather…but it’ll make Aehako laugh. So after smothering a few giggles, I go ahead and make an “attachment” for the front of the loincloth, too.
All of this happens under Aehako’s nose as we laze about in the hunter caves. He takes naps, so many of them I worry he’s been losing sleep, and he puts his hands on my belly and talks to our kit for hours on end. It’s so nice to be away, just the two of us, that I secretly hope for bad weather on our return trip, too.