THIRTEEN

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I wasn’t entirely surprised when Helen approached me after the meal; not least because I could sense what was on her mind. Yesterday she’d been in doubt, or entertaining the thoughts idly, or something; now, though, she knew it was her time. As she drew breath to speak, I held up a hand, silencing her, and merely smiled as I rose to my feet. She took it as both a game and as practise for me, which were both right; at any rate, she obligingly didn’t speak, but that didn’t prevent me from knowing how much she craved a closer look at me, yearned to know the heft and shape of my manhood, ached to have it sliding into her – I shivered. She had my lust building high and we hadn’t even walked away from the tents yet.

I remembered her thoughts from the prior night, though, and knew that a tent was not what she had in mind; her ears perked somewhat as I led her out of the camp, over to a little depression in the midst of the heather, someplace that a boulder had once filled before tumbling down the slope. There I held her close to me, kneeling on the heather, kissing at the hollow of her throat as I started undressing her. She gripped my shoulders, breath quickening, as I peeled clothing out of the way.

I was tempted to simply do the same to my own, but that wasn’t what she’d craved. She had wanted the chance to do so for herself; and so I stood again and smiled down at her, letting my hands fall to my sides. There was a surge of embarrassment in her, as she realized that I’d caught a glimpse of her thoughts the night before. But when I might have hesitated, started to draw back, she put that nervous rush aside and moved on.

We’d gone beyond words, at some point, and I wasn’t quite sure when. But as she tugged on my belt, there wasn’t any coherent phrase going through my mind; there was only excitement, longing – raw emotions.

A sigh freed itself of me as she brought my manhood into the open, free of the confines of my breeches and exposed to the chilly air. She was kneeling before me by now, her breath washing across my flesh in brief, sharp counterpoint to the cool all around, fingers sliding from the base of my length to its crown and back. What she might have expected to find, I didn’t know; what I could tell was that she found it good, and I scarcely needed any special talent to know that, not beyond merely being attentive to her breath, her touch, and her expression.

While she was working on my breeches, I did go so far as to slip out of my cloak and chemise – setting the latter carefully atop the former, this time. I lay back right upon the heather itself; a few branches poked through my fur, but nothing a bit of fidgeting couldn’t put to right.

She knelt over me, straddling me, eyes wide and intent as she gazed down upon me. I simply gazed up at her – I didn’t need any artifice to keep my eyes wide; it wasn’t often that a woman had wanted to be the active party, had wanted the man to lie under her, to take her pleasure from him instead of having him give it to her. Perhaps in other circles there was more of a balance, but in my line of work, I was accustomed to being the one who served in all respects.

For a few moments she stayed poised over me, drinking in the sight of me. Her fingers combed through my fur, first tracing over the shorter fur that marked the mask around my eyes, then gliding over my throat, parting the longer fur of my chest and tracing the contours of it. Her free hand kept hold of my manhood, idly toying with it, stroking along it – with her weight on my thighs, I could do little more than squirm under her, couldn’t properly rise to answer her touch.

Then she leaned over me, sliding forward somewhat. As though we’d rehearsed the move a hundred times, I lifted my hands to her shoulders to support her; she slid one hand behind my head, tilting my muzzle toward hers… then, just as the crown of my manhood touched her sex, so too did her lips touch mine.

At first, she took her time; she slid onto me with no particular rush, savouring every finger’s breadth of the motion no less than I was myself. Even once she had lowered herself onto me entirely and was stretched out atop me, she lingered, stirring somewhat against me, flesh shifting against flesh. It wasn’t all that long, though, before subtlety was entirely abandoned; she rose over me, hands pressing down upon my chest, and she rose and fell upon my length, taking me into herself time and again.

Pinned down as I was – perhaps I could have wrestled free, but neither of us had any interest in more than a token squirm on my part – what little motion was left to me only served to add some complication to our coupling. Which, of course, was a very nice thing to add; it kept the motions just erratic enough to keep them from starting to feel routine. Every shift, every stroke, was as fresh and felt as strong as the first.

Attempting to divine her thoughts and feelings was not without its hazards, pleasant ones though they were. I could feel the need and the pleasure seething in her, more clearly by far than the tremors racing through her long body – as clearly as though they were my own. But my own were hardly feeble in their own turn. In combination, mine threatened to rush out of control, to well up and spill over in far too swift a release. I tried to draw back, to lessen the connection, to hold the sensations at bay – but then she seized my jaw, keeping my eyes on hers, forcing me to see the hunger in them, to remain aware of her own cresting ecstasy.

What followed was… remarkable. The very instant her pleasure struck in force, so too did mine; the first squeeze of her sex was matched exactly by the first jerk of my manhood in it. Our pleasure wove together so tightly, I think I was feeling some of her sensations – feeling how it was to be penetrated, not under the tail, but as only a woman could be; feeling the hot, thick flesh, the splash of seed. All else receded until there was only our union.

When that began to fade, the world didn’t quite return in its place, not right away. The intensity of it left me dizzy – I felt a hoarseness in my throat, but couldn’t hear even my own breaths, much less whatever cries or moans I might have let out. For some moments, I felt as though I was falling off the world itself.

My next awareness was of my shoulders being shaken, my name urgently spoken into my ear. I tried to take control of my body, to shake off the lassitude that had swept over it, to open my eyes and focus.

Worry assaulted my mind before I could quite make sense of what I saw – Helen, still atop me – in every salient way, though my manhood had lost most of its rigidity – hanging onto my shoulders, trying to shake some sense into me. Once I’d managed to focus on her, to speak her name, the shaking stopped, at least, though she still kept hold of me.

“Are you well, Edmond?” she breathed. “You were… quite still for some moments, there. I thought I’d knocked you on the head and sent you out of your senses.”

“I believe I rather was out of them,” I admitted, “but not from anything so unwelcome as a bump on the head. I feel fine, now – more than fine.” I convinced one hand to rise up and press against her cheek. “I simply let myself get more into the experience than was wise, I think. It quite overwhelmed me.”

She thought that over for a few moments, then dipped her chin in a slight nod. “I suppose I can understand that. It was quite a strong feeling, strangely so – not unwelcome, I assure you.” One of her hands moved up to rub behind my ears. “For a moment it seemed as though I was feeling what you were.”

“Much the same, though for me there was no seeming about it.” Had I somehow pressed my own sensations upon her in turn? That wasn’t a thing I’d intended, and it wasn’t a thing I fancied would be of much use, not with what Rebecca and Elizabeth had said about the lack of subtlety involved in such things. “A valuable lesson, but perhaps I should avoid doing so in the future – if only to avoid unnecessary worry.” I let a smile steal over my muzzle.

Laughing, she lifted off of me at last. “Worry is a thing we don’t need, Edmond, it’s true. We already have it aplenty.”

“That,” I sighed as I reached for my breeches, “is all too true.”

I couldn’t quite escape curiosity over the whole matter, though; when, in the tent we shared, Rebecca confessed she’d overheard Helen’s alarm while gathering berries, and had been near to coming to our aid, I felt obliged to explain. She listened to my explanation of what I’d done with this other woman with the same quiet attention that had marked that first night at Blue Ribbon House; hearing every word, interrupting only to clarify and that rarely, asking questions that were quick and to the point.

“I wish I knew more of that gift,” she sighed when I was done. “I can’t say if this is usual or not. I will say this, however: when I first realized how you must have learned of the plot, I was a trifle unnerved. When you then proved you had the gift, answering a thought unspoken, I was more so. Those of the breed whom I’ve encountered before – both of them – have been more than a little eerie. Distant, as though not quite a part of our world.” She brushed her lips against mine. “I’m most relieved to know that it can connect you closer to others, not only keep you apart. I’d hate to be denied your company; I’ve rather grown to like it, of late.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle when I felt her fingers straying down over my stomach. Not half an hour after I was with another woman, and here she was… wrapping her fingers around my shaft, her thumb stroking over its crown, gently caressing, coaxing it back to life. “You’ve certainly not minded some aspects of it, that much is plain.”

“Oh, you!” She gave my ear a tweak – the right one, the one with the jewellery, but far enough away from the still-healing puncture that it didn’t cause any special discomfort. As her fingers slid up to brush against the white-gold stud, she said, “This isn’t the only thing about you I enjoy. You’re so giving of yourself I wonder that there’s anything left, sometimes… and then you keep giving more. You’re a treasure, and I don’t want you to forget that.”

The affection in her words and in her thoughts was more intimidating by far than any amount of lust, somehow. Less familiar, perhaps. I schooled myself to not withdraw from it, but to let it embrace me, flow through me.

All these days together, and I confess I still didn’t truly know her, not well enough to respond to her affection in kind. But what I knew, I liked. If we were back in the city and back to our normal lives, but somehow keeping the experience we’d gained on this journey, I’d have had no objection in the least to accepting another stud from her, or even two. She was good company, and a comfortable lover as well.

She seemed to know, too, when all I could manage was a gentle coupling; between the day of travel and the intense experience I’d had with Helen, I certainly didn’t feel particularly energetic. But she was content to slip me into her, then to roll onto her back, pulling me atop her, and to have our hips churning together – not the vigorous motions that we would both crave if she were on heat, but a much more subtle pleasure.

She invited me to taste what she felt, just a little, not enough to take me down the dizzying spiral I had gone through earlier. I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about that, but I tried – tried to focus on her while keeping some more attention on my own… sense of self.

Perhaps that was the right course, or perhaps the gentleness of our coupling didn’t allow for the deep connection, or perhaps my mind was still reeling from it somewhat. Whatever the cause, I could feel some echo of her enjoyment, her pleasure, her fondness for me, but it didn’t add to my own as Helen’s had before.

And this time, I stayed very much aware of her through the course of each pulse of my seed, and after, as our breaths grew calm and our hearts steadied.

We spent a few quiet minutes basking in the pleasant haze of release. When, as sometimes before, I nuzzled at her brow and made to go to my own bedroll, she touched my arm.

“Join me for the night?” she invited.

Beneath the words I couldn’t help but notice a thread of worry. At some point, I would need to go into town and village, seeking clues; she would need to remain out of sight. She wanted to have me near while she could.

And that was more than acceptable to me.

She held up the roll for me to slip in, and then she slid in in front of me, her back against my front. It needed no special talent to know to slip an arm over her waist, to nuzzle at the side of her neck. Her tail wove between my thighs, nestling up against my balls; and after a few shifts to get our weight pleasantly settled, that was how we drifted off to sleep, entwined as lovers. It was the most restful sleep I’d known since we’d left Nordport.

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