“And if you did it sooner rather than later, I might actually be grateful to you.”
Bael leaned over and brushed his lips over hers, before his fingers slipped across the uninjured part of her thigh and parted her legs a little. Kett held her breath but the bastard didn’t go where she wanted him to.
“I need you to move,” he said, his voice low and husky, and rolled her gently onto one side so he could tend to the gash that tore over her hip to her buttock. His eyes on hers, he stroked her carefully, his touch light, massaging the ointment into her abused flesh.
It was incredibly arousing, and at the same time hideously frustrating. All she wanted was for him to slip his hand between her thighs and touch her swollen, sensitive pussy lips. To touch her where she needed to be touched-where he knew she needed to be touched, dammit! If he touched her clit right now she’d probably explode instantly.
But while his fingers strayed over her hip and buttock, they never went any farther. Kett was ready to scream when he suddenly kissed her mouth, a long, deep, drugging kiss, rolling her onto her back and finally, finally moving his hand between her legs.
Kett tensed and Bael’s fingertip brushed her clit.
She came with a gasp, surprising herself and him. As his fingers continued to move over her slippery, wet flesh, his lips burned a trail down her neck and his other hand moved to stroke her injured shoulder. Kett winced, but Bael started to smear the healing paste on the wound, his touch soothing.
Her shoulder had been the most painful of the wounds, torn and discolored with some hideous infection that she now realized could have killed her. But under Bael’s gentle fingers, the pain receded, the soreness faded, and the extremely pleasant sensations he was creating between her legs overwhelmed her instead.
For the first time since she’d met Albhar and his pack of hunting dogs, she felt more pleasure than pain.
Bael kissed down one side of her neck, nibbled along the length of her collarbone and back again, then he started on her injured shoulder. Very, very gently, he kissed the torn, bruised flesh, and where his lips touched, the pain vanished.
Kett’s fingers slid through his hair, holding him to her, almost delirious, and it took her a few seconds to realize he’d lifted his head and was speaking to her.
“Kett, look.”
She focused blearily on her shoulder, squinting to see from the wrong angle.
“It’s gone away,” Bael said. “Where I’ve been kissing it. Look.”
Kett couldn’t see where he was pointing, so she moved one hand up to feel. And where she’d previously encountered sore, half-healed skin, now she was touching flesh that felt smooth, barely hurt at all.
“It looks like it’s been healing for weeks,” Bael said in wonder. “Months.”
“Did you know you could do this?”
“Me?” he said. “It’s that stuff Chance gave-”
“No,” Kett said. She smoothed away some of the paste on her hip. The wound, although less inflamed, was still there. “It’s you.”
They stared at each other for a moment, then Bael grinned at her and bent his head to her shoulder again. He kissed it all over, stroked, caressed and soothed it with his lips and tongue. Kett wondered vaguely if the healing paste tasted bad, but Bael never complained.
His fingers were still busy between her legs, rubbing her labia between his fingers, running his thumb around her clit, delving deep into her pussy. Kett arched against him, her hips moving in time with his thrusting fingers. She wanted more, but at the same time she never wanted him to stop what he was doing.
Stop he did, but only to lay a kiss on each of her tight nipples before moving south and starting to lick the wounds on her stomach. Kett peered at her own shoulder, and what she could see did indeed look as if it had been healing for weeks.
“Must be some kind of magic,” she murmured, and Bael looked up, grinning.
“My mouth has been called that before,” he said, and Kett began to correct him but his hands moved up and tweaked her nipples, distracting her into blissful silence.
He left her stomach, the wounds healing almost as Kett watched, and started on the painful gash across her hip. By now Kett was feverish with desire, her body bucking against his hands, her pussy so wet his fingers were slipping around. He turned her on her side again, and Kett pressed her legs together to keep his hand there. Bael, chuckling, pushed her over onto her stomach, trapping his hand under her, and she ground against it as he licked and kissed the cuts on her buttock. The sheets, tangled from all her writhing, caught against her puckered, sensitized nipples, and Kett’s fingers made fists in the crumpled linen as another orgasm rose inside her, ready to break.
But it didn’t come, because Bael raised his head, moved his hand and left her lying on her stomach, legs spread, panting with need.
“What-?” she began, but then he moved, pushing her legs farther apart, tilting her hips and pressing the head of his cock against her sodden entrance.
“I wanted to wait,” he rasped, pushing inside her, making her shudder, “but I couldn’t. Gods, I need to be inside you, Kett.”
Kett, incapable of words, just moaned as he filled her.
“I wanted to lick you all over,” Bael said in her ear, his body hot and hard against her back, the rough hairs on his chest tickling the skin between her scars. “Not just where you’re hurt. I wanted to make you better so I could fuck you ragged.”
“Yes,” Kett gasped as he withdrew and thrust deep.
“I wanted to stick my head between your legs and lick you until you screamed,” he said. “I wanted to make you come over and over, so hard you blacked out. And then I wanted to put your legs over my shoulders and ram myself so deep into you that my balls were coated in your sweet, hot pussy juices from the very first stroke.”
Kett could only moan. Bael grasped her hips and pulled her to her knees, yanking her back against his groin and shoving inside her as deep as he could possibly go. His balls slapped against her clit and she shuddered, on the brink of orgasm again.
“And I wanted to fuck you from behind,” Bael went on, his voice ragged, “like I’m doing now. You are so hot and tight, Kett, I love fucking you like this.”
Kett buried her face in the sheets, panting, so nearly there she could hardly breathe.
“And I was thinking about doing you here,” he said, running a hand that was coated with her juices down the crease of her ass to the sensitive, puckered hole there. “Slipping my cock into your tight little hole. What do you think, Kett?”
Kett orgasmed, her whole body flying into spasms, her teeth closing on a fold of the bed sheets, stifling the screams she couldn’t hold back. Bael continued to thrust into her and before her climax had even subsided, she felt him coming inside her, roaring out his pleasure as his come spurted into her, his fingers digging into her hips.
It didn’t hurt. He was gripping flesh that had previously been too sore to touch, but now it didn’t hurt at all.
Breathing hard, Bael withdrew and collapsed on his side next to her. He pulled her into his arms, holding her against his chest, slick with sweat and heaving with uneven breaths.
“Gods, I’ve missed you,” he said, and Kett let out a shaky laugh.
“Likewise,” she said, and they shared a smile.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bael looked at the woman sleeping in his arms, his chest tight with an unfamiliar emotion. He thought it might be love, but he wasn’t entirely sure. He’d never been in love with anyone before.
Well, he’d thought he might be once or twice, with girls who’d been particularly amazing in bed, but out of bed he’d realized he wasn’t really interested in them. But with Kett, he cared about everything she did. The way she walked, the throaty tone of her voice, the flashing silver of her eyes all turned him on, but it was more than that.
He loved her defiance, her courage, her stubbornness. He loved the way she behaved like a wild animal but thought like an intelligent human. He loved how she cared for people she pretended she had no time for, respected and trusted them.