“Someone brought us food,” I tell him as I enter the cave again. He’s poking at the fire, stoking the coals. My tea has burned down to nothing, and my stomach growls. I’m relieved to see there’s a waterskin full of slushy, half-frozen water and strips of jerky. I give him one and the skin, and then chew on a piece as I dig through the bag. “More herbs, and a tea, I think.” I lift the pouch to my nose and sniff it, then quickly hold it away again. “Ugh. Strong tea.”
He takes it from me, his nostrils flaring as he scents it. “Numbing tea,” he says. “For my head. A good idea, though I do not want it to numb other parts of me.” The look O’jek shoots me is heated. “Resonance still calls through me.”
I touch my chest as I chew the jerky. Mine is still humming, too. It’s less frantic right now, probably because we both need a nap, but I suspect the moment we wake up, we’ll be on each other again. “Me too. Are you okay with staying here overnight? Or do you want to go back to the tribe and see the healer? I worry about your head.”
O’jek pats the furs, enticing me to move to his side. They’re slightly damp, the furs, probably from sweat and a host of other fluids we’ve been creating. I should be grossed out, but resonance doesn’t seem to care. It just wants me to cuddle with O’jek and press against his skin. Press against other parts of him, too. “I want to stay with you,” O’jek says. “The numbing tea will help, and touching you helps even more.”
“I don’t want you to be in pain,” I protest, even as I settle in the furs, pressing my body to his.
He pulls me against him, turning me so my backside presses against his cock, and he nuzzles at my neck. I hold the jerky up and he takes a bite, and that’s something at least. “I would feel worse if I left you for a moment,” O’jek admits. “But if it will make you feel better, I will take tea.”
I hold the jerky out to him, waiting for him to let go of me. When he doesn’t, I can’t help but laugh. “I can make the tea a lot faster if you let me sit up.”
“I like you like this,” he says, resting his chin on the top of my head. His cock presses against my backside, reminding me that resonance is only giving us a temporary break. “In my arms, soft and naked.” He pops the rest of the jerky in his mouth and then his hand goes to my leg, lifting one of them and rubbing his now-rigid length against the cradle between my thighs. A hot skitter of need rushes through me. We haven’t had sex lying down…yet. I think it’s time to break that streak, because I love the feel of him curved around me and holding me tight.
“I like me like this, too,” I whisper, and my breath hitches when he pushes into me again, easing his cock into my needy body. “You’re right. Tea can wait.”
A full day later, I wake up stiff and sore and utterly replete. My hand brushes over my chest, and I realize it’s quiet in the cave. Very quiet. The endless, thrumming song of resonance has vanished.
Or at least, I think it has. The moment I wake up, it starts again, a low, gentle song, different than before. It’s no longer urgent and intense. It’s…satisfied.
I touch my stomach, tears forming as I realize what this means.
A baby.
I weep as I run my fingers up and down my belly, wondering when I’ll be able to tell that there truly is a child in there. I’ve wanted one for so long that it hardly seems real. That I’m truly pregnant in this moment, with the best man in the universe at my side. My sweet, devoted, stubborn O’jek. I’m so lucky to have him.
“D’see?” He wakes up, pulling me against him and rubbing my arm. “Why do you cry?”
“Listen,” I say softly. I take his hand and place it over my heart. “The song is different.”
That gets his attention. O’jek sits up, his braid falling over my hip as he leans over me. “It is done,” he says, a hint of wonder in his voice. “Resonance is fulfilled.”
“That means we have a baby,” I tell him happily. When he gazes down at me with that strange expression on his face, it makes me nervous. “What’s wrong?”
He rubs his mouth. “It…did not occur to me until now what it truly meant to resonate. We have made a kit, D’see.” Reverently, he touches my stomach. “I am to be a father.”
“You’re just now realizing that?” I smile, but I’m a little worried inside. What if he’s panicking? What if he’s not ready to be a dad? “Is this bad? Tell me what you’re thinking, please.”