Page 172 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Carrie

F or a moment, I’m convinced that Endzoh is going to kiss me. It’s a very long moment - long enough for me to question whether I’m more panicked or excited, decide that it’s definitely excitement, that despite my inexperience and uncertainty, I want this.

But then, in a sudden rush of movement, he’s on the opposite side of the cave, leaving something behind him that’s more than just an absence. It aches all over my skin.

Confused, and a little cold, I turn back to the drawing wall, wondering if I’ve just horribly misread our situation.

Frustration bleeds into annoyance, my throat growing tight with it, and I pick up my chalk, sketching out the shape of a female body, drawing the familiar flowing lines of a gown over the top of it.

I have no need to design dresses here, but the motion of it comes to my fingers without need for thought, the ideas flooding out of me - this muscle I haven’t exercised in so long, grateful to finally be used.

I hold nothing back, adding all the embellishments I want.

Tufts of taffeta, layers of tulle, lace brocade, glittering diamantes, embroidered patterns.

Even the most outrageous of Ms Isserman’s clients never wanted something this gaudy, this over the top.

It’s the dress I dreamed of having for myself, when I was a little girl and still thought there was a chance that I could wear something like this one day.

Before I grew up enough to gain some sense - both fashion and common.

Pouring it out of that locked up place in my heart and onto the wall is like a release of pressure, and by the time I’m smudging some of the lines, blending areas to give the dress a sense of volume, of three-dimensional shape, I feel better.

And something Liv said drifts into the new space I’ve made in my mind.

There were rules about how mating works, and now there aren’t.

I glance in Endzoh’s direction. He’s absorbed in a project of his own, a piece of leather that he is scraping with some tool.

I’ve never seen him craft anything before, and I wonder why he’s doing it, why he doesn’t do it more often.

There are so many things I want to know about him, I realise.

Things we don’t have the language to discuss.

But most of all, I want to know what it would taste like to have his lips against mine.

And I don’t need any words to find that out.

Raskarran mates just are - there isn’t any approaching each other, stumbling around feelings and working out whether or not you want the same thing.

Endzoh has no rules to work by with me - they aren’t finished being invented yet.

I could wait until we have our bracelets and have introduced them to the raskarrans, but I find I don’t want to.

I take a deep breath, hold it for a count of four, then release it. Draw another in, then open my mouth. Speak.

“Endzoh?”

The syllables roll off my tongue as if there’s never been anything wrong with it. I’m surprised and somehow not. It feels like his name belongs on my lips.

He looks round to me, surprise in his expression melting into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on him.

“Carrie?”

The way his voice growls around my name sends a hot shiver through me.

He sets down whatever it is that he’s working on and comes over, kneeling next to me, his eyes lingering on me for a moment, before moving past me to my dress design.

He raises a hand, but doesn’t touch the wall, tracing his fingers over the pattern just above the surface of the rock so he doesn’t smudge it.

His careful admiration makes me smile, but I don’t want him focused on my design.

So I catch his hand in mine, drawing it toward my face.

My fingers tremble, my heart fluttering so much, I’m afraid it might burst. But he doesn’t have any rules, and if I don’t make them, we could dance around each other forever.

So I press his palm into my cheek, my hand over the top of his.

I hold him there for a moment before slowly removing my hand, freeing me to press my palms to his chest, run my hands up to his shoulders.

He’s so much bigger than me, I have to press up as high as I can go on my knees to reach my arms around his neck, then pull myself up on him until I’m tall enough to press my lips to his.

For a long moment, neither of us move. His lips are firm against mine, unyielding, and I don’t know what to do, except that I don’t want to stop.

I’ve never been kissed before, and neither has he.

In our shared inexperience, we just hover there, awkwardly frozen against each other.

My cheeks flush, heat building in me that isn’t just from his proximity, the way his breath tickles over my skin.

I go to draw back from him, words of apology bubbling up inside me that I’ll never be able to get out and he won’t understand.

And then his thumb brushes over my face, tracing my cheekbone.

The feather soft touch sends another shiver through me and my lips part as I lean into it.

Suddenly, our lips aren’t so much pressed together as locked together, fitting against each other in a way that’s intense and pleasurable and right.

Instinct takes over, and I move my mouth against his, caressing his lips with mine.

His hand sinks into my hair, cupping the back of my head, his other arm moving round my waist, pinning my body to his. Hot need boils just under my skin.

Our kiss grows more frantic, both of us tasting each other like we’ve been dying of hunger.

Endzoh’s hand grips my hair, the tight tug of it against my scalp sending flutters of pleasure through me.

I moan into his mouth, wrapping my arms tighter round his neck as I swipe my tongue along his bottom lip.

I’m pressed so close to him. When he growls in response, I feel it vibrating throughout my whole body.

His mouth opens to me, and I lick inside it, tasting him.

His hand kneads the flesh at my hip, gripping and squeezing, driving the heat building inside me ever higher.

The slide of our tongues over each other, the hot touch of his hands.

I didn’t know how fiercely I needed these things until this moment, and I’m desperate and searching in my kiss, giving and taking more with every passing moment, until it becomes a frantic thing.

Needy and grasping and intense and delicious.

My mind empties of everything except him, his taste on my tongue.

Abruptly, Endzoh draws away from me, his hands gone as quickly as his lips. He rocks back, dropping down from his knees to his butt, breathing hard, a look of startled wonder in his expression as he pushes his hair back from his face.

I’d be worried about this sudden withdrawal, but for the way he licks his tongue over his lips, as if savouring the taste of me.

The place between my legs clenches at the sight with a sudden and intense need, and it takes everything in me not to just launch myself at him.

My breaths are quick pants and my lips feel bruised.

I raise my fingers to them, feeling how puffy and kiss swollen they are, and it’s hardly surprising given that by the end it was more of an attack than a kiss.

It’s as if all the feelings I never had time to have for anyone back home have all hit me in one big tidal wave of want.

I’m blushing so hard, I’m pretty sure I’m my own light source at this point, but I feel good. So relaxed, I’m sure I could get a whole sentence out, if I could think of a single thing to say.

Instead, I just smile. He smiles back, the expression slow to get started, but growing in radiance until it’s blinding.

I bask in it, and when Endzoh reaches a hand out towards me, I fold into his side, settling against him as if I was made to fit him.

His arms and tail wrap around me, his big body surrounding mine.

You okay? He gestures to me after a little while.

Better than okay, but I’m not sure how to gesture that to him without letting him go, so I just squeeze my arms around him, burrowing closer into his side.

He gives a low chuckle. Pressed up against him, I feel it vibrating through me, and I love it.

Then his hands return to my body, stroking over my arms, my back, learning different paths over me, and I love that even more.

His lips press to the top of my head, my forehead, my cheek, my jaw, and I close my eyes, leaning my head back a little, giving him space to explore me.

And though I really don’t want to think about Larzon in this moment, it does strike me how his size intimidated me, while Endzoh only makes me feel adored.

When his lips finally meet mine again, he kisses me slowly, exploring my lips in the same gentle way he’s explored everywhere else. When his tongue strokes over mine again, I sigh with happiness, my whole body molten from the pleasure of his touch.

I’m not sure how long we stay like that. Kissing, touching, exploring. Time melts away. Everything melts away. I’m pretty sure one of those cat monster things could growl right next to us and we wouldn’t know.

Until a thought slips in between the absence of everything else. A thought about my old home.

Endzoh grabs the fur from where I left it rolled up by the wall and with a flick of his wrist, he lays it out mostly flat, shuffling us back so we’re over it before gently lying me down, his big body going over mine.

My heart hammers in my chest at the new intimacy of this position.

I’ve never done anything like this before, and I know Endzoh hasn’t either, but shyness rips through me all the same - worry that I don’t know what I’m doing, that my touches won’t feel good.

But the moment I slow what I’m doing, that thought takes a firmer shape.

An image starts to form in my mind. Mom, alone.