25. Recovery

It was on the tip of his tongue to assure her that Farrel wasn’t mad at all. That everything was perfectly fine and she could relax. But he could not lie to her. Not to his own mate.

“He is furious. He’s run so far I don’t know where he is anymore,” he said with a slight sigh. Slipping his hand to her cheek, and lifted her face until she was looking at him. “You shouldn’t have healed him, Emmalyn. We heal fast enough on our own.”

A silent tear slid down her cheek when he told her how upset Farrel was with her.

“I…” she said before she got choked up. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t even thinking about that, I swear. I just wanted to thank him for what he did to help rescue me. Both of you. You both saved me.” She sniffled a bit. “But I would have done it, anyway. I’m the healer, I heal. It’s part of who I am.”

Emmalyn looked deep into his eyes.

“Can we go find him? Maybe after he yells at me, he will come home.” She asked, pretty sure she already knew the answer, but had to say it. There would be no way he would let her out in the cold and it would just anger Farrel even more to know she risked herself, again, for him.

Caleb was shaking his head unwaveringly as soon as the question was out of her mouth. He didn’t even hear her words after it. Going after Farrel in the state he was in, even if he could find him, was suicide. His blood brother was a good man and a good leader, but every man had their limits and he reached his and shoved past.

“Absolutely not. Not in a million years. You don’t know what he was thinking the last time I heard his thoughts, Emmalyn. If he still has those thoughts, I may need to protect you from him. I know you meant well and I know it is who you are, but you should know better. Learn from this experience,” he told her, doing his best to keep his tone gentle, but there was a desperate edge to his voice. “He went mad after you healed him. When you took the pain from him and spent your energy.”

She wanted to protest, but she held her tongue. Had she been able to do anything right for Farrel? Apparently not. No matter what she did, he always got angry with her. She didn’t like to think that he was staying away again because of her. This was punishment for her again, just like before. She didn’t like it one bit, but she wasn’t supposed to.

She moved to nudge him a bit to roll him onto his back, and he moved willingly. Once there, she crawled on top of him and nuzzled against his neck, trying to get some more comfort from and to him.

Caleb slipped his hands down to her waist to help her climb over him. Having her warm and naked over him made his body stir, and he tried hard to ignore it. She was fragile from her ordeal and didn’t want to force sex upon her. But Gods, was it hard when she pressed her silky frame against him and nuzzled him in that way she had learned from them. The heat of his skin increased as his cock swelled, despite his mental attempts to keep it at bay.

She knew his position must be hard. She didn’t mean to put him in the middle between her and Farrel, but he always seemed to end up there. It wasn’t fair.

“How long was I sleeping?” She asked in what she hoped was a playful growl. She nipped playfully at the tender skin of his neck and shoulder.

“Emmalyn,” he murmured, shuddering when her teeth grazed over his skin. “Three days. You needed the time to recover. Don’t tempt me if you’re not ready.”

*Three days…*

She paused and then stopped altogether, leaning back to look at him with a confused look in her eyes. Three days felt like a lifetime after he had been with Emmalyn. Spending each moment with her sleeping form had been taxing on his lust-fueled body. But he had endured for her sake and he could do it for a little while longer by letting her take her time.

“But the elders…they said two. Did I sleep through it? What happened?” She asked, a concerned and worried expression on her face.

“They held it off. It will be tonight. You needed time to recover, and they wanted you conscious and coherent, love. Tonight they’ll decide what to do with you,” he said quietly, then flashed on a wide grin showing her the Caleb she had fallen in love with. “Enough talk. I’m yours to do with as you please. Just... do it soon. I’ve missed you.”

She could feel him even without him nudging her backward. He wanted her and she could tell, not only by his words and body but by his thoughts too. She leaned down and pressed her lips against his, needing that soothing contact from him. Tonight she would have to talk to the elders, but today, they were together, and she was well enough for them to be together. She had a feeling that even making love to each other, she would have to heal up.

She let her body slide down him slowly, savoring the feel of his hot skin against her silky lips. She moaned softly against his lips as she felt the coarse curls touch her clit and urge her little hood back. His body was so hard, and she was so soft. When they came together, it was beautiful.

Emmalyn moved her hand between their bodies and wrapped her fingers around his already hard and throbbing length. She positioned him right at her entry and moved down to take him inside her, slowly and carefully. She let her body adjust to him at her own pace as her lips stayed on his, her tongue moving lightly across his lips.

Her free hand moved up to the back of his neck, her fingers moving into his hair. Her fingers fanned out and then curled back in slowly, nails lightly grazing across the surface of his scalp. As he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out but a low, rolling groan. Her nails running over his scalp were a huge weakness for him and he turned to warm clay in her hands.

She continued to push her hips down, taking him all the way inside her until she buried him to the hilt in her velvet embrace. It was a good idea in theory. But as her hot sex slid over him, enveloping him in one smooth, slow glide until she was seated fully on him, he felt the threads breaking in his control. Gods, but he had lived forever without her, denied of her body after only satisfying him twice with his mate. Why was he torturing himself?

Because it felt so damn good. The agony of extended sexual tension rippled through his nerves. He gripped her hips, almost bruising, and forced himself to relax. His legs shifted, lifting his knees to give himself leverage when the time came for him to have it and to offer her support should she need it.

“More, love.”

Caleb only needed to ask, and she would give him everything he wanted. She moved her hips in a slow roll. First towards him, then up and away before down and back. She stayed leaning over him, her lips sealing against his as she used her tongue to push between his lips when he spoke and touched his tongue tentatively. She moaned, her soft noises of pleasure mixed with his own.

Although she wanted to make love to him, she knew it wasn’t his way. Emmalyn could feel how tense his body was under her and knew that it went against his nature for him to slow down and give her control. She also understood that he was doing this for her because it was what she wanted and asked for. That, as well as the act itself, meant the world to her. A single tear moved from her lashes, landing softly on his cheek before sliding away.

Achingly slow. Her wet walls sucked and pulled with each gentle roll of her hips. The subtlety of her lovemaking was not lost on Caleb. His heightened senses felt every single erotic glide. The way her swollen petals kissed and brushed around the base of his cock so lovingly. He could even feel the soft bud of her clit rubbing through his trimmed pubic hairs.

She leaned back and looked down at him. Emmalyn gave him a loving smile as she continued to move her hips in that slow, tantalizing motion. She brought her lower lip between her teeth. She kept it there for a moment before letting the plump flesh slide free.

“How would you like to take me, my love?” She asked him in a husky, lust-laden voice.

She asked her question, and he firmly shook his head. He would not let her back down. Not with the view he had combined with the agony of restraint. She looked so beautiful seated upon him, sitting up straight now with her glorious body exposed. His hands slid up, tenderly cupping her breasts with trembling fingers and kneading them in the rhythm she had set.

“Keep going, Emmalyn. I love you like this. Do not stop,” he whispered, barely trusting his own voice.

Emmalyn smiled down at him and gasped softly as his fingers moved over the hard pebbles of her nipples. She made a soft ‘mmm’ sound as she tilted her head back. She leaned back, putting one hand behind her on his upper thigh to steady herself. The other slid down her body, starting at her navel, and moved slowly down until her own finger brushed against her tiny, hooded clit.

He couldn’t get enough of staring at her. Watching her fingers rubbing herself while she rolled up and down on his cock, the way her breasts swayed gently against his squeezing fingers. His heart was pounding against his ribs the closer he neared his own orgasm.

There had been stories of angels and saints within the Valley for far longer than he had been alive. Probably longer than the elders had been alive. Looking up at Emmalyn now with the sun lifting over the mountains behind her, he would swear for the rest of his long, long life that he had an angel riding him that morning.

She tilted back some more, wanting to give him the view of his hard cock moving in and out of her tight channel. Emmalyn gripped his hips tightly with her knees as her finger worked in slow, deliberate circles around that tiny button. She moaned loudly, not caring if anyone could hear her. She didn’t think to ask if they were alone, but their time spent together had helped her get over a bit of her modesty.

Emmalyn rolled her hips faster, moving harder against him as her own fingers worked up her body to that frenzied point. She started gasping his name as her inner walls started quivering with anticipation of what was coming quickly. She couldn’t help herself and she couldn’t slow down, not now. Her need was as great as his.

If there could have been a moment in time where the world stood still for two people, it would have been just then. She couldn’t see anything but him, feel anything but him, or know anything but him. At that moment, he was her world, and she worshiped him.

Then his resolve snapped. He was up in a flash; first sitting, then wrapping his arms firmly around her as he shifted to his knees. Emmalyn was his, and Caleb moved to claim her.

With his hands firmly gripping her bottom, he picked up her quick pace and increased it tenfold. Caleb’s muscles flexed, pumping his hips rapidly to piston his aching length in and out of her dripping sex. The steel bands of his arms held her tight. His arms lifted her and brought her back down perfectly. His hand on her rear, his length disappearing inside her repeatedly. It was a perfect moment. Everything she was feeling became amplified by what she was feeling from him. Every desire and pleasure was there, more powerful and pure than ever before.

“Let go, my love,” he hissed through his teeth; lips brushing across her jaw to her ear, where he bit down gently at the sensitive flesh just below it. “Take me with you.”

She moaned out his name, over and over again. And when he told her to let go, she couldn’t deny him. When he made his request, she wanted nothing more. She whimpered out his name just as her body reacted to him, her slick honey coating his cock as he moved in and out of her clinching inner walls. She held onto him as tightly as she could, the force of her orgasm bringing tears to her eyes.

His over-sensitized nerves felt that first ripple through her velvety walls and he howled. Tossing his head back to let the noise go, he pumped up harder into her only a few more times then held her tightly to him as his seed leaped up eagerly through his shaft and sprayed hot and thick into her quivering womb.

She felt him throbbing, almost painfully, inside her as he came, his hot flow coating her, mixing with her own juices as they moved together. Her hand reached up, her fingers moving through the hair on the back of his neck and head as she held him as they both basked in the afterglow. She smiled softly, needing to have him be with her. She needed him to remind her what it was supposed to feel like, to be loved and held during the act, not treated as an empty shell that needed to be filled.

The force of spending himself after wanting her for so many days was near painful. He hunched over her, burying his face against the side of her neck as the last of his cum spilled into her. His cock shuddered, twitching inside her, then finally went still; the draining force softening him almost immediately.

He held her tightly, panting into the fragrant strands of her hair that thankfully smelled like her. Had he been unable to erase Baelr’s scent, he didn’t know what he would have done. It had been almost unbearable having to carry her and care for her until he fully cleansed her. The beast’s scent had been a constant reminder of his failure to protect his mate.

Tears stung her eyes as she nuzzled her face against the side of his neck. It was such a relief to be in his arms again. She hadn’t allowed herself a chance to let all that fear, pain, and emotion go since she had reunited her with her mates. Now, she had run one of them off, but the other stayed with her, cared for her. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses. Each one completed her in his own way.

The scent of Emmalyn’s tears had Caleb uncoiling finally. He straightened his back, lifting his head to drop a tender kiss over her lips, then wiped the wet tracks off her cheeks with his thumbs. As he held her, rocking her gently on his lap to soothe her.

He froze in mid-motion, his muscles bunching and tensing as Farrel’s thoughts suddenly filtered back into his mind. The Alpha was returning, and three days did not calm him. His grip reflexively tightened around his mate, holding her protectively as he flicked a glance out to the snowy plains in the direction Farrel was. He was still too far away to see, but he was coming quickly.