Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I cannot stay inside forever.
The interior of the hut seems to grow colder by the moment with Vivi gone. I poke at the fire, but I do not have the skill with it that she does, and it does not feel like I am doing anything to help it. I stab a frozen cake of fuel and toss it onto the coals, but even that does not seem to help. She has been gone for a long time. I pull the furs tighter around me, moving closer to the fire. What if something has happened to her? What if she got lost on the small stretch of beach between this hut and the main fire? Why was I a fool who decided to build her hut so far down the shore?
I need to go after her, I decide. Clutching the warmest furs to my skin, I drag them across the hut with me to retrieve my leather pants, and then my boots. I pull one boot onto my foot—
—and the door flap swings open, letting in frigid air and a swirl of snow.
“Whew!” Vivi says as she comes back in, her arms laden. “It is cold out there!”
“It is cold in here, too,” I grumble, but I notice her cheeks are flushed pink and she is smiling. She likes the cold weather, and I feel a sharp stab of despair. Perhaps I am not the best mate for her after all.
“Good news. There’s a blizzard,” she tells me cheerfully, shifting a pack off her shoulders and setting it onto the floor of the hut.
“Why is that good news?”
“Because it means that this sort of weather isn’t the norm. It’s the outlier.” She tosses down a few more furs and unhooks a couple of bulging bags at her belt. “There’s no community fire this morning. Gail flagged me down when I was heading toward it and invited me into their hut for a few minutes. They gave me some supplies since they figured we didn’t have any and told us to hole up like everyone else. No one’s going anywhere.”
She seems pleased by this statement, even as she busily pulls a few large sticks out and starts to set them up at the edges of the fire pit.
“I should have helped you with all this,” I grumble, flexing my hand under the blankets. It aches, just like my feet and the tip of my tail do. Actually, everything aches with cold right now.
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Vivi replies, bending the poles to lash them into a tripod. “You can help prep the food if you like. I have some dried meat and roots and we’re going to make a hot stew. Gail also gave me a skin full of tea, though it might be lukewarm by now. Did you know there’s a shell here that looks like a funnel? I’m going to have to find one for myself. Handy little thing. It made getting the tea in the skin really easy.”
She’s talkative this morning, and I can’t help but feel more like a useless fool at her side. “I can make the food,” I grumble, and dig through the packs. There are two different kinds of roots in the first pack, and I pick the first one up, holding it out to her. “This root?”
Vivi takes it from me, and as she does, her fingers brush mine. “Skarr, you’re like ice again!”
“Am I?”
I watch as she immediately strips off her clothing, her lips pursed with focus. She flings her tunic aside, revealing her pretty, bouncy little teats again and then her boots and leggings come off. I open one corner of the furs, inviting her in, and I love that she immediately sprawls against me, pressing her warm—so keffing warm—body against mine.
Groaning with the pleasure of it, I immediately extrude again, like a foolish boy. “Ignore that.”
She chuckles and slides her arms around my neck, tilting her face toward mine. I kiss her, brushing my lips against hers, and her tongue teases against mine. For a long moment, the world is silent as Vivi kisses me, all hot, wet mouth and thrumming khui. When she pulls away, she lets out a little sigh of pleasure and wriggles against my throbbing cocks. “Better now?”
“If I say yes, are you going to get up?” I pull her closer so I can feel her nipples drag against my skin. They get tight and hard when I touch her, little pebbles of flesh that I’m just dying to take into my mouth again. “Because if that is the case, no. I am frozen solid and need your body against mine at all times.”
My joke lands poorly. Her smile turns into a line of worry, and this time when she runs her hands over me, there is no desire to it, only fear. My cocks shrivel and threaten to slide back into my body. “Skarr, I want you to tell me when the cold bothers you. I don’t want to get into the same situation like we did last night.”