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Khell purred, his beautiful, hard face solemn, and he drew me forward for another kiss, every tendon and muscle relaxing in me with the brush of his lips on mine.
I woke in the middle of the night, just as I had for weeks now, a heavy but comforting weight over my waist. I wasn't frustrated this time, though. My heart wasn't hurting. And while my sex was warm and slightly throbbing, it was undeniably from satisfaction, rather than a lack of it.
Still, it took me a moment to orient myself. I was in my bed, and the great lumpy mountain of muscle I was embracing was Khell. My Khell.
My…mate.
I could guess the meaning of the term, but Khell and I hadn't taken the time to really discuss it in depth yet.
Mine.
The word echoed in my head, a mix of both our voices.
I fumbled my hand over to my bedside table and found my phone. It was after five, and I was fairly certain Khell and I had collapsed in the sheets before midnight. Six whole hours of uninterrupted sleep in one night? Not bad.
I rolled in the cradle of Khell's arms, my pillow stuffed in his armpit for me to rest my head there. He was flat on his back, spread out over the majority of the queen bed. I bet even his feet were hanging over the edge. My gaze was studying the profile of his sleeping face, my hand sliding over his chest to find the tail of his braid, twisting it around my hand. His tusks were bright in the dark, his lips slightly parted and breaths heavy.
For the first time in weeks, I was comfortable. I was wide awake, my thoughts still cataloging everything that had happened last night, and Khell was fast asleep. His cock was half-hard, tenting the sheet we were under, and I was pretty confident that if I took him in my hand, Khell would be more than happy to meet my demand.
It was a tempting distraction. But also for the first time in weeks, I wasn't jittery with desperation. It was like finally having ownership of my body back.
Khell was here. He would stay until I told him to leave, whenever that was. He lived nearby. Being with Khell could be normal. As normal as it was to be with an orc twice my size, whose impatience had run out before we reached the top of the stairs, so he’d put me on my hands and knees and rutted me right there. As normal as it was to finally make it into the bed, to kiss softly and say goodnight and then both decide we needed each other once more, with me riding him until my thighs burned and I forgot to breathe through the orgasm that struck like lightning.
Khell slept through me sliding his arm aside and rising from the bed. I wasn't falling back asleep, and I wanted to take advantage of this new version of my normal. I snuck out of my bedroom, cleaned up briefly in the bathroom and grabbed a robe, and then tiptoed up the spiral staircase to my studio.
My studio had been the main subject of my blog for the last week, as I slowly worked on a mural over the walls. I was painting the subject of my recent work, the enchanted woods, on the sloping domed walls of the room, from the dark shady corners around to the bright sunlit glades.
I filled up my palette with bright tones and wheeled my cart of water jars and towels and fine-tipped brushes over to a tree laden so full of strange birds that the branches sagged toward my floor. I'd worked out the rough base of colors for this section of wall already, but I'd been looking forward to the challenge of details—tiny golden beaks and iridescent feathers and blood tipped claws. Having actually gotten some decent rest meant I could enjoy my work this morning instead of using it as a survival method.
I worked in silence, trying to bring the beautifully jeweled and ferocious little creatures of my imagination to life on the wall. I'd done a great deal of work before I heard Khell’s heavy footsteps from the floor below.
"Sunny?"
The sun was rising out the window, just a soft glow in the sky, and I turned my head toward the stairs. "Up here. I can come down."
"No, I want to explore," Khell answered.
I stared speculatively at the small opening. "Will you fit?"
There was a grunt from below, and a creak from the stairs, but Khell's head appeared a moment later, his glowing eyes glaring at me. "Are you teasing me?"
"Am I allowed?" I asked back, definitely teasing now.
Khell grinned. "Yes. I like it."
I beamed at him, and for a moment we were just staring at one another. Then Khell blinked and took in the room around us, lips parting. He twisted, forcing his shoulders through the narrow opening of the stairs, and then stepped the rest of the way up, turning in place. He hadn't dressed at all, and he looked huge and wild against the dark backdrop of my newly painted walls—one of my illustrated beasts come to life in front of me.
"Your imagination is even more impressive than I realized," Khell purred. He stopped and moved forward, hunching to study a canvas.
"It's not just kinky fantasies up here," I said, tapping my head with the end of my brush.
Khell was busy examining my art. It was the piece with the golden monster reaching out from the blinding light. He took a quicker look at a few nearby canvases before straightening and studying the room again.
"Girls and beasts in the woods," he said.
"I don't know if it's a metaphor, or a product of reading too many old fairy tales growing up, or—"
Khell's arm reached back, hand open, and I grabbed on, allowing him to draw me to his side. "It's you, petal. Your wonder and your hunger. I like them very much."
