Page 87 of Heartsong
“Hi,” she said, almost shyly.
Tucking her tight to his chest, Frey raised her chin with a knuckle. Her lips were just as sweet as he remembered, and within a mere handful of kisses, he was gone to the warmth and pull of her mouth. He could lose himself so easily in the softness, the chase and capture of her wicked tongue.
He swiped his along her bottom lip before pulling back, pride puffing his chest to see how rosy she’d gone.
“You,fy nghariad bach drwg, are quite the tease.”
Her blush deepened, and she delicately cleared her throat. “Saw all that, did you?”
Frey grinned to hear the pleased note to her voice.
“Oh, yes. When you are near, my senses at least are alive. I saw everything.” He pressed in close, running his nose along one side of hers and down the other. “Did you make yourself feel good?”
“Mmhmm,” she hummed against his lips.
“Can I make you feel even better?”
Her mouth caught his in another kiss, and Frey forgot whatever else he’d meant to say. All he could think or feel or smell was Anna, her lips sucking on his, her hands tracing patterns on his chest, her thighs squeezing together in his lap. His hands dug greedily under the blanket, finding the generous curves of her backside. Frey kneaded his fingers deep, pulling her hips flush with his.
Soon, all he could do was chase the next sensation. He explored the contours of her back, running his fingers along her spine underneath her sweater. He savored every mewl and moan he could elicit, the sounds echoing in his ears as he sought the next.
For all her stubbornness and prickliness, his Anna was all softness now in his arms. He glided his hands across every warm, silken bit of her he could, desperate to feel more, to feel all of her. The rightness of holding his mate close, of exploring what made her shudder and quiver and gasp satisfied every instinct, ancient and male.
Anna smelled and tasted of home.
He’d just slipped his fingers beneath the waistband of her loose pants when the oven timer went off.
Frey grinned at her angry mewl when he pulled away and set her back on the couch.
“Dinner first,” he said.
When she stuck her impetuous little tongue out at him, he chuckled. In return, she got aclickof his fangs in a mock bite.
Her unimpressed snort pleased him as much as her lusty moans. He wanted all of his Anna, her happiness, her humor, and her stubbornness. Anna wouldn’t be Anna without that spitting fire, and Frey loved her spirited nature, even if it vexed him just as often.
They ate their dinner of casserole on the couch. Frey hardly tasted it beyond the creamy tang of the sauce, too preoccupied with the way Anna’s lips curled around her fork. After a while, he suspected she did it on purpose, to get a rise out of him.
She was certainly making particular parts of him rise.
Once their bowls were empty, Anna reached for her laptop and opened it to talk excitedly about what she’d found for him. He pulled her onto his lap once more, chin hooked over her shoulder as she toggled between screens to show him various phone devices.
She extolled the virtues of each option, but Frey was far more interested in her animated talk and expressive hands. When she asked him what he thought, Frey could only rumble happily and say, “Whatever you think best,fynghân.”
Anna hmphed, that answer apparently insufficient. Pulling her own phone from her pocket, she tugged one of his hands out from under the blanket, where it’d been playing with the hem of her sweater, and had him hold it.
“How does that feel?”
Frey dutifully weighed the device in his hand and tapped the screen with his thumb as he’d seen her do. “Breakable.”
“That’s why you’re not getting a new model. But you think you could use one?”
Handing back her phone, Frey answered honestly, “It is a generous gesture, my Anna, but I still cannot read your modern English.”
“I thought about that. All of these phones are new enough that they have dictation abilities. So it could read you text messages from me and you could say your message back and it will write it out for you. I thought I could call or text when I leave work, to let you know I’m on my way. And if I forget to tell you ahead of time, I can message you if I’m going to be late. And…if you want, we can look into reading resources?”
Frey hugged her close, burying his nose in her hair. “You are the kindest, smartest human. I should like to learn to read your English.” It wasn’t just Anna who had adjustments to make; he too had things he needed to learn, not just for her but for himself. Her modern world was his too now, and their life wouldn’t always be contained to her dwelling. He had to learn all he could for the day when his kind revealed themselves—but more, he had to learn so he could function in her world, even while on the periphery of it.
“I like the messages, too. To know you’re safe.” Frey knew a compromise when he heard it, and it touched him to see how much thought Anna had put into fulfilling both their needs.
