“Yes, Kendra.”
She blushes at that. The warmth rises in her cheeks. She tucks her face into my shoulder for a moment, then sits up straighter, turning toward me.
“It feels weird,” she says, “but it hurt to be away from you earlier. Like, it actually bothered me that you were going out to chop wood. Not because I was worried about you, but because the distance felt... wrong.”
“What you feel is the pull,” I tell her. “It is what keeps us bound together. The bond does not like separation. The longer we are near each other, the stronger it becomes.”
She considers this, her fingers tracing an absent pattern on my arm. “When will I get to meet your Bouda?”
“Soon.”
She smiles at that. She shifts on the sofa, straightening up, and her face is close to mine now.
“You are so sweet, Alemayehu,” she says, and leans in to press a kiss against my cheek.
I turn my head. I do not plan it. Instinct moves me, the pull she just described, and her lips meet mine instead of my cheek. The contact is soft and brief and it sends a current through me. The bond detonates. Everything fires at once, a roaring bright heat that starts where her mouth touches and radiates outward until my fingertips buzz with it. Her lips are warm, and they taste faintly of strawberries, and in the half second before I pull away I feel the shape of her mouth and I memorize it like a frequency I will never forget.
I pull back. My heart is slamming into my ribs,. My hands are shaking where they rest on the sofa cushion and I grip the fabric to stop them because I do not want her to see what one accidental kiss has done to a man who has killed without trembling.
“I am sorry,” I say immediately. “I did not mean to...”
“I’m not.” She holds my gaze.
I stare at her. She stares back. Her fingers are still resting on my chest where she placed them before she leaned in, and I can feel each one like a brand through the fabric.
Do not mind me,my Bouda says from somewhere deep and thoroughly unhelpful.I am just here waiting for my cubs. Take your time, Alemayehu. No rush at all.
“Did you like kissing me?” Kendra asks.
“Very much.”
“Kiss me again.” She commands.
I do not need to be told twice. She lets out a small, sharp sound when I lift her into my lap, my hands spanning her waist, placing her across my thighs so that she is facing me. Her knees bracket my hips. I cup her face in both hands, careful of my strength, tilting her chin up so that her mouth is level with mine. Her eyes are open. She is watching me come to her, and she does not flinch.
I press my lips to hers. Her mouth opens against mine and my hands slide from her cheek to the back of her neck. I can taste the chicken on her lips and I do not care. The feel of her is everything. Her hands grip the front of my shirt and she pulls me closer, and I let her take whatever she needs.
She kisses me back with a hunger that surprises me. Her fingers climb from my shirt to my jaw, tracing the line of it, and when her thumb brushes the corner of my mouth I make a sound low in my throat that is more Bouda than man. My ridge softens completely, every spike dropping flat, and I realize this is the first time since the highlands that my body has surrendered its defenses without my permission.
I kiss her until she is breathless, until her fingers loosen from my face and her chest rises and falls in quick, shallow pulls. When we break apart for air, her forehead drops to mine and we stay there, breathing each other in. I am looking at her, at the curve of her lashes on her cheeks, at the flush that has spread from her face down to her neck, and I am committing this to a memory I will carry for the rest of my life.
I press my lips to her neck, gentle, tracing the line of her throat where her pulse beats hard and fast beneath my mouth. She tilts her head to give me room, and the trust in that gesture almost undoes me.
“Will you please stay on my lap?” I murmur into her skin. “I would like to keep you here.”
She repositions herself, turning so that her back presses into me and her legs stretch across the sofa. I pull the blanket over her and she settles in, her head tucked beneath my chin. I can feel every breath she takes.
“All this forced proximity,” she murmurs, and I hear the smile in her voice. “I’m not going to last another day.”
I smile at that. I am hoping she does not last another hour, but I will take whatever she gives me, whenever she decides to give it.
My Bouda stirs, content but already hungry for more.When we finally claim our mate, Alemayehu, and she gives us cubs, I will teach them everything. How to read the wind, how to track by starlight, how to bring down prey twice their size. Our line will not end with us.
I want to tell him to be quiet, that Kendra is warm and still in my arms and he’s going to ruin it with his relentless hunger for the future. But he is not wrong.
So I hold her closer, press my chin to the top of her head, and I breathe her scent and let myself want what comes next.
